Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 6, 2017

By Emily Shire By Emily Shire May 31

Emily Shire is the politics editor for Bustle. She has written for Slate, Salon, the Atlantic, the Guardian US and the Jewish Daily Forward.

Its not unusual during this time of year for commencement speakers to make national headlines and not always for their gleaming pearls of wisdom. Already this month, graduates booed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos at the historically black Bethune-Cookman University in Florida, and more than 100 students walked out of Vice President Pences commencement address at Notre Dame. But the most contentious speaker yet may be one addressing a relatively small, publicly funded graduate school.

On Thursday, Linda Sarsour will be the commencement speaker at the City University of New York Public School of Health graduation.And although I disagree with much of what she stands for, especially with regard to Israel, I support her right to speak just as strongly, and believe it would be a mistake for pro-Israel activists to interfere with her address.

Sarsour was one of the main leaders of the Womens March, helping to mobilize millions of people worldwide in one of the largest displays of grass-roots activism. But shealso has a record of anti-Zionist rhetoric. In 2012, she tweeted nothing is creepier than Zionism, referring to Jewish self-determination as racism. Sarsour told Haaretz in January that she does not believe in a two-state solution. As recently as April, she said to those who pronounce themselves and call themselves Zionists we will not change who we are to make anybody feel comfortable. If you aint all in, then this aint the movement for you. Sarsour said these words while standing proudly alongside Rasmea Odeh, a woman who was convicted by an Israeli military courtfor her involvement in a 1969 bombing that killed two Hebrew University students.

Still, Sarsours most controversial comments arent limited to Zionism. In a since-deleted tweet, Sarsour threatened womens rights activist and victim of female genital mutilation Ayaan Hirsi Ali, along with a controversial critic of Islam, Brigitte Gabriel. (She tweeted in 2011: a$$ whippin. I wish I could take their vaginas away- they dont deserve to be women.) When asked about this tweet at an event at Dartmouth in May, Sarsour dismissed the concern because the questioner was a white male but then acknowledged, People say stupid s sometimes, right?

As a result of these and other comments, some have called for CUNY to rescind Sarsours invite. The office of Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind sent a letter signed by 100 Holocaust survivors to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, asking him to keep Sarsour from speaking at the graduation ceremony.

However, those of us who have concerns about Sarsour should be the most committed to allowing her to speak.

For Zionists like myself, it is especially important to denounce efforts to silence Sarsour.There are myriad reasons to support herFirst Amendment right to express herself essential for a true and healthy democracy. Too often, the willingness to even listen to opposing views is missing, especially on college campuses like the ones where Sarsour is invited. Perhaps most disturbingly, earlier this year, a scheduled speech by controversial author Charles Murray at Middlebury prompted protests and violence that resulted in Allison Stanger, the professor who was set to interview Murray, suffering a concussion. Scheduled speeches by Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter at the University of California at Berkeley also were shut down because of security concerns this past academic year. The fact that the free exchange of ideas is apparently imperiled on campuses nationwide is one more reason to support it.

There is another, somewhat ironic, reason to defend Sarsours speaking at CUNY: Respect for intellectual diversity is increasingly absent when it comes to Israel, and honoring Sarsours right to freedom of expression provides an essential lesson to anti-Zionist critics.

Sarsour has consistently voiced her support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which effectively aims to dismantle the Jewish peoples right to self-determination in Israel.In doing so, she has effectively used her influence to obstruct the flow of ideas and potentially fruitful dialogue between people on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that could lead to peace.

BDS tactics can differ from campus to campus or company to company, often through orchestrating boycotts of products made in Israel a move that is deeply misguided, not least of which is because some financial experts argue that it ultimately hurts Palestinians economic growth.However, another strategy, especially in BDS resolutions passed on campuses and in professional academic groups, is to block professors, lecturers and scholarsfrom Israel and/or those who receive funding from the Israeli government. They are discriminated against solely based on their nationality and without any regard for their political views or activism in fact, often it is academics who are most critical of the current Israeli government and advocate for the rights of Palestinians who find themselves being boycotted.

These BDS activities hinder, if not all out impede, intellectual discourse. Regardless of whether one is a Zionist, on the grounds of respecting freedom of speech and intellectual diversity, one should oppose the BDS movement, especially its anti-intellectual strategies.Championing Sarsours right to freedom of expression may just be the best way to show how misguided BDS-style methodology is, and to open up the conversation about Israel, Palestine and Zionism to a new generation of thinkers.

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Posted By simmons on June 6, 2017

Jewish Communal Prayer: to what might we compare it? To a symphony performance.Are we spectators in the music hall, or players in the orchestra?

To what might we compare it? To a dramatic play.Are we spectators in the theater, or players on the stage?

To what might we compare it? To a team sporting event.Are we spectators in the stands, or players on the field?

The synagogue sanctuary what is it? Is it a music hall, a theater, a stadium? Or, is it a stage, a field?

How does one behave as a spectator at a sporting event? Differently. One can arrive late, leave early, come and go at will. Chatting and even shouting are normal behavior.

How, by contrast, does one behave as a musician or an actor or a player on a team? One must arrive on time for the event (and on time means early). One must remain active and focused on his or her role. In the middle of a performance, there is no extraneous talking, no playing other songs, no answering cell phone calls, no forgetting to turn off ones phone, no looking at ones phone during the performance or event, no wandering about. Even when someone is not a central actor in a play, or when a musician is not playing at a particular moment, or when someone is not the quarterback or such, he or she must, in effect, stay in character.

Meaningful Jewish Communal Prayer.

Does this phrase sound incongruent? How many of us experience it on a regular basis? How many on even an occasional basis?

What makes an orchestral performance, a staged play, a sporting contest meaningful? Whether as players or spectators, we experience these events as meaningful when they fulfill their purpose, when the performers exercise their mastery. When the members of the orchestra, playing so many different instruments, produce together wonderful, harmonious sounds. When the actors inhabit their characters and bring them and their words to life in our imaginations. When the players on a sports team work together and use their skills to score and to defend against their opponents. However, when players fail to work together, we get a discordant symphony, an unconvincing drama, a losing team.

Meaningful Jewish Communal Prayer? The three metaphors above make the problem clear: in the synagogue sanctuary, most of us imagine ourselves spectators rather than players.

If we think of ourselves as spectators viewing a performance, at best we will feel distanced, and maybe we will try not to forget to turn off our cell phones. Perhaps we will try not to talk too much, at least not outside of intermissions, though we might conjure up pretty broad definitions of what constitutes an intermission. At worst, we will consider ourselves like spectators at a sporting event, where we place no limits on our talking, where our arrival, presence, and departure are all irrelevant to the game. True, we may find the synagogue experience meaningful as a social activity, but not as a religious or spiritual experience.

Well, I think the time has come for us to wake up: in a communal prayer service, we are not spectators and ought not to consider ourselves so. Indeed, we are there to pray. We are not only prayers, we are players. Important members of the team. Perhaps only one individual at a time is the prayer leader, a conductor or lead or quarterback of sorts, but all of us are members of the orchestra, the cast, the team.

We might even suggest that in a sense, not only are we not spectators, but that for our prayers, there is another audience: God.

Imagine, then, if we arrived at the sanctuary early, to warm up, or get into costume, or tune our instruments, so to speak, and then entered the sanctuary on time, as if onto a stage or field. And then prayed together as a team, harmonizing our voices, speaking our lines with intent and emotion, making the bows and other motions at the appropriate times. Consider how different our prayer experience might be.

If a musician does not want to play according to the expectations of the orchestra and audience, neither this musician nor the other musicians will have a satisfying experience. And of course the audience will not either. If an actor or actress proves unwilling to play the part and deliver the lines (including the occasional lines of a minor part), the play will not make sense, and the audience will leave disappointed. If sports players just stand around and do not run or block or such, their team will fail, and the fans will harangue the players.

The arts and sports can be wonderful experiences in this worldbut so can prayer. Let us consider the matter: with communal prayer, we have an audience with God, we are conducting a conversation of sorts with our Creator. Why build a space the synagogue sanctuary for this very encounter and then do anything and everything to undermine its very purpose and meaningfulness? Why drape the words of God with magnificent coverings and crowns and place them in a special cabinet and then not listen carefully to these words? Why stand before God as members of a prayer community and engage in behaviors we would not tolerate from players in a symphony orchestra or theater troupe or sports team?

Musical and dramatic and sporting performances meaningful, and we expect meaningfulness from them. The question is why so many of us appear to prefer meaningless Jewish communal prayer? Why do we expect and accept to be spectators and not players? If we act like spectators because we do not feel the presence of God in the sanctuary, we no doubt turn this into self-fulfilling prophecy and make the sanctuary an inhospitable place for encountering God. For those who do not want such an encounter, who enter the sanctuary only for social or other reasons, perhaps they should choose another place to not have this encounterand leave the sanctuary for those seeking it? Why insist on not having this encounter in the one place dedicated for this challenging endeavor?

Regardless of with which denomination we identify, are we ready to step out of the spectator seats and become players? Are we ready to transform our synagogue sanctuaries by tearing out the spectator seating altogether?

Alan Krinsky is a writer and a senior healthcare analyst. His essays have appeared in The Forward, Jewish Action, Conversations, The Providence Journal, The Huffington Post, and the Rhode Island Jewish Voice & Herald.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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Posted By admin on June 6, 2017

Victoria Advocate

Synagogue vandalism gives insight into mosque arson Victoria Advocate Walid Taha, mosque member, walks through a destroyed hallway heading toward a prayer room in the Victoria Islamic Center on Jan. 30. This was the first time Taha and other members were able to walk through the building since the fire.

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Posted By simmons on June 6, 2017

Ahavath Achim Synagogue in Buckhead will host its annual Fran Eizenstat and Eizenstat Family Lecture featuring CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer June 11 at 7 p.m. This years event will be a conversation between Blitzer and Stuart Eizenstat, former ambassador to the European Union, addressing current issues and events. This event is free and open to the public.

The Eizenstat Lecture each year features well-known speakers addressing current and thought-provoking issues. Past speakers include national and international political, legal and economic leaders such as former Vice President Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Shimon Perez, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Joseph Lieberman, Al Gore, Alan Dershowitz, Paul Dundes Wolfowitz and Herman Wouk.

This is the 29th installment of the Eizenstat Lecture. Established in 1987 by Stuart Eizenstat to honor the memories of his family members, it features distinguished world figures speaking on national and international topics. He served in key positions in President Jimmy Carters administration, including chief domestic policy adviser and executive director of the White House domestic policy staff, and in President Bill Clintons administration, including deputy treasury secretary, undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs and undersecretary of commerce for international trade. Stuart Eizenstat currently heads the international practice of the law firm Covington & Burling in Washington.

The synagogue is located at 600 Peachtree Battle Ave.

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Information: http://www.aasynagogue.org

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Posted By admin on June 6, 2017

RIO DE JANEIRO Sephardic Jews from more than 20 countries will gather at a biennial summit in Mexico City.

Coordinated by the Latin American Sephardic Federation, the Cumbre Erensya summit will bring together delegates from the Americas, Europe and Australia onJune 5-7. Former meetings took place in Spain, Turkey and Bulgaria.

Erensya 2017 will look at the Jewish presence in Mexico during colonial times and the emergence of its institutional life until the present day. It also will allow the exchange of relevant experiences in the Sephardic world,reportedthe Enlance Judio news website.

Erensya, or heritage in Ladino, is the name of the initiative led by the Madrid-based Sefarad-Israel Center to establish a bridge between Spain and the Sephardic Diaspora.

The event includes visits to Mexicos oldest synagogues and other Jewish sites. Some mayors of Spanish cities also will attend in order to witness how their countrys language, traditions, customs and mentality have been passed on to new generations. A book is scheduled to be released during the event.

Last month, Mexican-Jewish diplomat Andres Roemer, who was fired from his ambassador position for walking out of an anti-Israel vote at UNESCO in October,receivedthe International Sephardic Leadership Award from the American Sephardic Federation.

In March, the mayor of Mexico Citylaidthe foundation stone of a Jewish community center slated to cost nearly $5.3 million. Miguel Angel Mancera said he considered the initiative a sign of trust in the countrys growth.

Mexico is home to some 50,000 Jews, Latin Americas third largest Jewish community after Argentina and Brazil.

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Posted By admin on June 6, 2017

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Book fair in Brazil

A poet, translator and fiction writer, Idra Novey honors all those genres in her first novel, Ways to Disappear. This novel, she told me in a recent conversation, is a stewing pot in which I threw in poetry and translation in the same book. I put a lid on it and turned up the heat, hoping it would cook into something. The satisfying result has been a much acclaimed, prize-winning book, which has just won the 2017 Jewish Book Councils Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

Novey, who is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, has translated the work of Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector whom she discovered when she was a student at Barnard:

I took a class in Experimental Texts by Latin American women where I read Lispector for the first time. I felt an intense kinship with her. Her relationship to Brazil as an outsider and a Jew was something I related to. I felt similarly in western Pennsylvania. [Lispector and I] were both in places that were not easy for intense, artistic Jewish women to be.

Novey grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a small Appalachian town in which she says racism abounded. She often heard anti-Semitic remarks and felt a palpable hostility towards art. In high school she set her sights on writing, which resulted in a play the first student-written play produced in her high school. She recalled that the only people who attended the production were the parents of the other performers. However, she says the experience made me appreciate that you make art for the people who care about it.

After college, Novey went to South America where she wrote poetry and, like her protagonist Emma Neufeld, translated Brazilian literature into English. In the process, the intensity of encountering Lispectors work haunted Novey and she became determined to look for Lispector in a book of my own.

The precipitating event in Ways to Disappear is writer Beatriz Yagodas disappearance. In an arresting first scene, the celebrated middle-age Brazilian-Jewish novelist climbs into an almond tree not to be heard from for almost a week. Together with Beatrizs children Raquel and Marcus, and her steadfast publisher Roberto Rocha, Emma sets out to find the missing author.

The image of Beatriz up in a tree began with Noveys own fantasy of vanishing with a good book. I couldnt imagine myself abandoning my responsibilities, says Novey, but that image of taking a book into a tree where no one expected you to go stayed with me. And the longer the image stayed with me, the more I realized it was the beginning of the novel.

Solving the mystery of Beatrizs whereabouts is both suspenseful and darkly humorous. Novey observes that books of American literature are often seen as either funny or high-stakes serious. In capturing what she perceives as the cacophony of Brazil, she not only mixes up genres, but also confronts something darker and bolder. The things I wanted to say came out through a loan shark and the adventure itself.

It turns out that Beatriz has a gambling addiction and is being hunted by gangsters to pay up her debt. That premise is the underpinning of the novels shifting perspectives. I thought of the structure, says Novey as a laundry line made taut by high stakes like ransom notes and a loan shark. Once you have that laundry line you can hang all your manifestoes and your poetry on it and they wont fall.

Noveys structure is also built on short, intense chapters that are interspersed with gossip magazine news bulletins about Beatriz, increasingly desperate emails from Emmas nebbishy boyfriend back in Pittsburgh, and a bevy of translators vocabulary words presented to the reader in dictionary form.

Novey acknowledges that her husbands extended Chilean Sephardic family inspired her to create Beatriz Yagoda and her fictional family. For almost 20 years Ive observed this large Latin American Jewish family living in a Catholic country. It echoes my relationship to growing up in Appalachia, but its also very different. She adds, This novel explores what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century what it means to have a whole range of people in a family. Beatriz is urban and artistic, but she has family that is shomer Shabbat [Sabbath observant].

As for the intersection of translating anothers work and writing ones own fiction, Novey says the connection is to get every sentence as immaculate as I can. Thats what translators and writers do. Your unit is the sentence and you want to make each one as potent as it can be.

Given her dedication to craft, Noveys prose is not only powerful and evocative; it is magical.

Judy Bolton has written about Jewish arts and culture for two decades. She is the culture reporter for JewishBoston.com

The Forward's independent journalism depends on donations from readers like you.

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Posted By richards on June 6, 2017

After battling breast cancer, Rita Vargas has a deeper appreciation for her ancestry.

The 58-year-old Davenport woman whois the first Latina to be named Honorary Survivor Chair of Komen Quad Cities Race for the Cure was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 after finding a small lump. She was eating peanuts on a November night, she said, andI dropped one down my shirt. When I went to grab it, it felt like a bug bite.

Ms. Vargas didn't go to a doctor right away. I was sick of having to see another doctor after a long year of gallbladder issues, and thought I could just wait until February when Id see my regular doctor, she said.

A mammogram showed several lumps, which led to a single mastectomy, the removal of 18 lymph nodes, chemotherapy and 32 radiation treatments.

After treatment and more tests, Ms. Vargas was shocked that she tested positive for the BRCA gene mutation. We had no history of breast cancer, she said. It just seemed too bizarre. Doctors told me at the time that I had the same breast cancer gene as Jewish women.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, everyone has BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. When there are changes in the genes, it is called a mutation, which raises the risk of developing breast and other cancers, such as ovarian.

Studies have shown that Ashkenazi Jewish women have a higher risk of breast cancer if there is a history of a gene mutation. If a parent has the BRCA gene mutation, there is a 50 percent chance of passing it to their children.

Ms. Vargas researched the BRCA gene as well as her ancestry. She discovered that she indeed was of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. It was important to find out, she said.

Her Jewish ancestry dates back to when the Spaniards first entered Mexico in the 1500s. The Jewish population was forced to become practicing Catholics, and were a part of those fleeing to Mexico, Ms. Vargas said. My family was as stunned as I was because we always believed we were Mexicans with a bit of Native American blood.

Ms. Vargas, who is the Scott County Recorder, will be joined by her family, friends and co-workers this Saturday as she walks with the Scott County Cancer Kickers in the 28th annual Komen Quad Cities Race for the Cure downtown Moline.

I want people to know just because you dont have a history of the disease in your family, doesnt mean that you cant be the first one to have breast cancer, she said.

Uniquely, I found out about a gene that saved my life and the rest of my family.

Martha Garcia is a writer, communications instructor and bilingual marketing professional who lives in Bettendorf. She can be contacted at marthagarciawriter@yahoo.com.

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Posted By richards on June 5, 2017

A view of the KAM Isaiah Israel Synagogue in 2013. (Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) Voluntary dues may sound like an oxymoron, but the idea may soon be coming to a synagogue near you.

According to a new study by the UJA-Federation of New York, the number of non-Orthodox synagogues nationwide that have eliminated fixed annual dues has more than doubled in the past two years. Instead of charging a set membership fee, these synagogues are telling congregants to pay what they want and theyre succeeding.

The nearly 60 Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist synagogues that have stopped charging mandatory dues are just a minuscule percentage of the countrys 1,500or so Conservative and Reform synagogues. But the number is more than twice the 26 synagogues that had voluntary dues as of 2015. On average, the synagogues reported increases in both membership and total revenue since they switched to the voluntary model. They join nearly 1,000 Chabad centers in North America that have always worked on the voluntary model.

According to the report, the synagogues adopted the new model due to a mix of financial and values-based reasons. Synagogue members appeared increasingly reticent to pay mandatory dues following the 2008 financial crisis, and a pay-what-you-can system was more appealing to families with less spare cash.

In addition, the report said mandatory dues may have alienated families who want to feel unconditionally welcomed at synagogue or who may have felt uncomfortable explaining to a board why they couldnt pay the full fee. Engaging members with voluntary dues has caused synagogues to build relationships with congregants so they feel invested in the synagogue, as opposed to feeling obligated to pay an annual bill. The model, according to the report, also drives synagogues to increase financial transparency, so members know what theyre paying for.

The existing model is no longer really aligning with the values and culture of the synagogue, said Adina Frydman, executive director of Synergy, a division of the New York federation that advises synagogues on strategy and produced the report. The process of asking for a [dues] adjustment becomes all about the money, as opposed toyou are a member of this congregation and community.

Of the 57 synagogues included in the report, more than half are Reform, while about a third are Conservative. The remainder are either Reconstructionist or unaffiliated. None are Orthodox. Most have between 100 and 500 member units families or individuals who belong.

While the synagogues dont charge a fixed fee, many do indicate a sustaining level donation the average amount the synagogue needs from each member unit to reach its goal. On average, the synagogues reported increases of 3.6 percent in total membership and 1.8 percent in dues. What that means is that more total money is coming in from more people but the average annual membership contribution has fallen.

At the Conservative Temple Israel of Sharon, Massachusetts, in suburban Boston, which adopted the voluntary model in 2008 due to the recession, revenue and membership have remained steady. But only about 45 percent of members pay dues at or above the sustaining level a bit above the average of 38 percent across the 57 synagogues.

The original goals of switching to this system, creating a model that was financially welcoming and sustainable for both the synagogue and our membership, continue to be met, Benjamin Maron, Temple Israels executive director, wrote in one of the reports case studies. In other ways, however, challenges have grown over the last few years. While our membership has grown, the overall income from our voluntary dues has not.

The 57 synagogues are still less than 5 percent of the countrys Conservative and Reform synagogues, but Frydman believes the number will continue to grow. About 100 synagogues tuned in via livestream to a recent conference on the report.

Studies suggest that millennials are less inclined to become members of old institutions. Jack Wertheimer, a history professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, said that free Jewish programs like Birthright the 10-day trip to Israel for young adults get young Jews used to the idea of no- and low-cost Jewish services.

Were living in a time when some Jews dont want to pay anything to go to synagogue and benefit from synagogue, Wertheimer said. Were living in a time today when institutions are held suspect and also seen as rather cold and distant. This whole idea of membership dues reinforces that point.

Why arent Orthodox synagogues adopting the model?

Both Wertheimer and Frydman suggested that because Orthodox Jews view prayer as mandatory, the obligation carries over to synagogue membership. Even so, Frydmans office is embarking on a study of young Orthodox Jewish professionals on Manhattans Upper West Side, who often bounce between a few synagogues rather than sticking to one and becoming a member of it.

One large Orthodox organization that doesnt charge dues, however, is Chabad, whose centers worldwide rely entirely on voluntary donations. While that means that the emissaries who run the Hasidic movements outreach efforts spend a significant amount of time fundraising, Chabad spokesman Rabbi Motti Seligson said it also removes a barrier to participation in Jewish life and forces Chabad centers to run programs people want.

This isnt a technique or a model thats devised through a focus group, Seligson said. This is about whats at the [movements] core, which is love of every Jew.

Chabad emissary couples, he added, are not living in an ivory tower. Theyre beholden to the community that theyre serving. They need to actually be serving the community.

While Frydman emphasized that UJA-Federation does not endorse any one dues model, she said that the voluntary model is appealing to some synagogues because it ensures that the synagogue has an active relationship with its congregants.

Theyre cultivating the relationship so that people feel a connection, enough to want to be a part of something bigger, she said. Its about that the synagogue should take the time to ensure that they know all the members, that they understand what people are looking for.

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Posted By admin on June 5, 2017

WIkipedia

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) Sephardic Jews from more than 20 countries will gather at a biennial summit in Mexico City.

Coordinated by the Latin American Sephardic Federation, the Cumbre Erensya summit will bring together delegates from the Americas, Europe and Australia onJune 5-7. Former meetings took place in Spain, Turkey and Bulgaria.

Erensya 2017 will look at the Jewish presence in Mexico during colonial times and the emergence of its institutional life until the present day. It also will allow the exchange of relevant experiences in the Sephardic world,reportedthe Enlance Judio news website.

Erensya, or heritage in Ladino, is the name of the initiative led by the Madrid-based Sefarad-Israel Center to establish a bridge between Spain and the Sephardic Diaspora.

The event includes visits to Mexicos oldest synagogues and other Jewish sites. Some mayors of Spanish cities also will attend in order to witness how their countrys language, traditions, customs and mentality have been passed on to new generations. A book is scheduled to be released during the event.

Mexico is home to some 50,000 Jews, Latin Americas third largest Jewish community after Argentina and Brazil.

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Posted By richards on June 5, 2017

Ashkenazi-Eldar is the Winner of a 2017 ADC "Silver Cube" Award from The One Club 6/02/2017 12:15 PM

New York & Los Angeles, June 2, 2017 Full service creative studio The-Artery has named Liron Ashkenazi-Eldar as the companys new Lead Design Director.

Ashkenazi-Eldar is the winner of a 2017 ADC Silver Cube Award from The One Club, in the category 2017 Design: Typography, for her project entitled Asa Wife Zine," which was submitted via New Yorks prestigious School of Visual Arts. Please see: http://www.oneclub.org/awards/adcstudents/-award/26951/asa-wife-zine

At the tender age of 27, Ashkenazi-Eldar was also recently profiled in a story entitled 15 Artists Under 30 by the prestigious PRINT Magazine: http://www.printmag.com/print-magazine/new-visual-artists-print-magazine/up-and-coming-artists-liron-ashkenazi/

In her new position, Ashkenazi-Eldar will spearhead the formation of the new department within The-Artery that will focus on design and branding. She is developing in-house design capabilities to support the Company's VFX, Experiential and VR & AR content, as well as website development.Looking to the future, Ashekanzi-Eldar and her team are also looking for innovative and design-based clients who are interested in working with The-Artery on creating unique projects revolving around branding, motion and art.

Regarding the hiring of Ashkenazi-Eldar, Deborah Sullivan, EP and Managing Director for The-Artery, said, Liron is a truly gifted and highly talented artist whose addition to thecompany helps steer us in a new direction. Having her on board gives us more creative opportunities - and we arebetter positioned to work with clientswhoare specifically looking for branding and design-focused strategies. Liron will oversee this new department, also providing motion graphics, print and social campaigns.

Adds Ashkenazi-Eldar, I am very excited to be offering The-Arterys existing and future client base something new - the design side of things. While weve been well established for many years in the areas of production and VFX, our Design Team can now bring a new dimension to our company. We are seeking brand clients with strong identities so that we can offer them exciting, new, and even weird creative solutions that are not part of the traditional branding process. Thats not how were going to do that here! We will be taking a completely new approach to branding providing imagery that is more emotional and more personal, instead of just following an existing protocol. Our goal is to provide a highly immersive experience for our new brand clients.

ABOUT LIRON ASHKENAZI-ELDAR:

Liron Ashkenazi-Eldar is a multidisciplinary Visual Designer who thrives to create bold, complex and conceptually driven imagery using 3D illustration, animation, photography, experimental typography and color.

Originally from Israel, she is a graduate of New Yorks School of Visual Arts with a BFA degree in Design.

Ashkenazi-Eldar is now based at The-Arterys office in New York City.

ABOUT THE-ARTERY:

Based in New York City and Los Angeles, The-Artery is a full service creative studio developing content and visual effects for feature films, episodic TV, and consumer brands across all platforms. The award winning teams specialties include: Visual Effects, Creative Strategy, Live Action Production, Experiential and VR/AR Content, Editorial & Color Grading, Motion Graphics Design, Animation and App Development.

https://www.facebook.com/TheArteryVfx/?ref=br_rs

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-artery-vfx

https://twitter.com/TheArteryVFX?lang=en

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The-Artery Company Contact:

Deborah Sullivan

EP/Managing Director

212/941-6020

Deborah@thearteryvfx.com

Media Contact:

Dan Harary

The Asbury PR Agency

Beverly Hills, CA

310/859-1831

dan@asburypr.com

Read more here:

Full Service Creative Studio The-Artery Names Liron Ashkenazi-Eldar as Company's New Lead Design Director - Multichannel News

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