Week 2: Professor Gaspar de Alba and the Virgin of Guadalupe

I am having trouble responding to this blog topic because growing up in a liberal Jewish home I did not have a cultural image as influential or iconic as the Virgin of Guadalupe. There are many images I associate with Judaism, such as the Star of David, the Hebrew alphabet, a pomegranate as a sign of rebirth and renewal, or the arrangement of the dinner table at Shabbat or during Passover, but we have no true iconic images I would equate with the connection and emotion I hear described in relation to the Virgin. Actually, the worship of icons is forbidden to Jews and, perhaps for of this reason, Judaism is not known for its art. Most of the Jewish art I can think of are objects, such as adornments for the Torah, candlesticks, various plates, etc. Images have not held the same significance to me as I learn about in other religions and cultures. To me, the most significant visual aspect of Judaism is the history, memory, and tradition that rests in the images we still see today. We know that we are in the middle of a timeline that stretches far back and will continue beyond us, connected by our rituals and the objects we use. Not that this is unique for a religion, but tradition holds incredible importance in my own understanding of Judaism. I suppose in this way, the legend is in our history. How we struggled to discover and keep Jewish identity in stories in the Torah, in a history of persecution, or during the Holocaust. In that way, the images I described above represent a chronicle of Jewish identity and the legend is not singular, but made up of all the myth, history, and personal narratives of the Jewish experience. And it can change and be reinterpreted with every generation, every individual, and every incarnation of Jewish practice.

This interpretation of visual Judaism may be a stretch, but Professor Gaspar de Alba's lecture now has me wondering about Jewish activist art. I think it must exist, and I just don't know about it or can't remember it right now, but even if Jews did sample from the various Jewish images I described, could someone produce a piece that so simply challenges the basis of Jewish belief and practice as Lopez did with "Guadalupe Walking"? Or would we have to go back to the Holocaust and the symbols of a Nazi swastika or a line of starving prisoners to elicit the same level of emotional reaction?