The Art/Lab Podcast: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture

One of the unexpected pleasures of hosting these conversations with Jewish artists is noticing the recurring themes that emerge without my planning them. Again and again, I see points of convergence between important Jewish religious questions and the experience of artists in their creative work.

I continue to hear resonances between between artistic vision and spiritual yearning, between creative community and Jewish religious community in these convresations with Art/Lab's cohort of Jewish artists. It's become clear to me that this isn't a coincidence, but a profound area of inquiry: where do art and religion meet, and why do so many artists find themselves, consciously or not, engaging religious or spiritual questions through their work?

This theme is especially present in my conversation today with painter Justin Jude Carroll, a member of Art/Lab's inaugural artist cohort. Justin is a classically trained artist whose vivid, abstract paintings have been shown throughout Portland and are now beginning to receive national attention. His creative journey is inseparable from his personal journey, particularly his recovery from a traumatic brain injury—a pivotal experience that reoriented his life and ultimately led him toward painting with a new sense of urgency and authenticity.

What fascinates me about Justin's story is how it illuminates a deeper connection between art and spirituality: both can become vehicles for healing, for transformation, and for the search for authenticity. At the heart of both traditions lies a fundamental Jewish religious question: Who am I, and what am I called to bring into the world? Artists, like seekers in religious communities, often struggle to navigate the tension between external expectations and inner truth. As Justin and I discuss, that tension is not simply psychological—it is, in many ways, theological.

We also touch on the role of community—how both Jewish religious and artistic communities can serve as containers for growth, vulnerability, and accountability, and how essential that network is for an artist trying to push the boundaries of their own voice.

This is a rich and wide-ranging conversation: we explore art as a mystical and spiritual practice, Justin's current work and expanding national presence, and the ways in which creativity itself can become a path of meaning-making. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Justin Jude Carroll.

One of the enduring questions of Jewish life is this: How do we hold on to individual expression while remaining rooted in inherited tradition? Another is equally urgent: What is the role of art in a world in crisis? My guest today lives at the heart of these tensions and turns them into music.

Aaron Kahn is a trumpet soloist, educator, and creative force—described recently as a "Portland-based trumpet virtuoso"—who uses music as a vehicle for healing, social engagement, and for spiritual connection. In our conversation, we explore the power of sound, not simply as entertainment, but as a transformative force that can respond to the brokenness of our time.

Aaron speaks candidly about his emergence as an experimental artist working within—and pushing against—the boundaries of classical tradition. Together, we draw parallels between Jewish liturgy and classical composition: both deeply structured forms that still make space—sometimes limited space—for individual voice and meaning. What does creative freedom look like inside structure? Where is the line between preservation and reinvention? This season on the podcast, we've been asking what social responsibility artists carry in the 21st century. Aaron insists on relevance and engagement. He calls for music that confronts our reality head-on, music that is spiritually grounded and socially awake, including in the post–October 7th landscape where questions of identity, community, and responsibility are sharper than ever.

Aaron was a member of the second Art/Lab cohort and is widely recognized across Portland's creative community. He studied Music and Cognitive Psychology at McGill University, earned his BFA from CalArts, and completed his Master of Music at the University of Oregon, where he served as Graduate Teaching Fellow under the renowned Brian McWhorter. His performance career includes collaborations with Grammy-winning artists such as Teddy Abrams, Michael Gordon, Mason Bates, David Rozenblatt, and the band Chicago. Here in Portland, audiences have heard him premier an arrangement of Handel's Judas Maccabaeus at Congregation Beth Israel, and perform at the Opening Ceremony of the Oregon House of Representatives this legislative session.

This is a conversation not just about music, but about what it means to be a human being—and a Jew—making art in a time that demands both courage and imagination. Enjoy my conversation with Aaron Kahn.

Links from the Episode

Art/Lab www.artlabpdx.org

Aaron Kahn https://aaronkahncreator.com/

Ernest Bloch – Sacred Service https://www.ernestbloch.org/

Rising Song Institute (Hadar) https://www.hadar.org/torah-tefillah/rising-song

Oregon Jewish Museum & Center for Holocaust Education https://www.ojmche.org/

Portland residents take note: Today's guest, Stephen Arnoff, will be in Portland on Thursday November 13th at 8pm at the Eastside Jewish Commons as a guest of Art/Lab. Register for this night of Dylan's music and for reflection on Dylan's Jewish spiritual wisdom at artlabpdx.org

I've been circling two questions for a long time on this show. First: how do traditions actually stay alive—who keeps the line between the core source material and the later commentary tight enough to matter, but loose enough to breathe? Second: what kind of community can nurture both a deep connection to the Jewish past and also support artistic creative freedom and independence?

This was a fun conversation for me not only because I got to indulge my Bob Dylan brain with this Dylan maven but also because over the past few months, I've become a little obsessed with American roots music and country. And, I love and listen to a lot of contemporary music. So as an overthinking rabbi, I've wondered about how our traditions - American or Jewish - do or do not show up in contemporary culture.

Stephen Arnoff had a lot to say on this topic because he lives every day at the intersection of tradition and contemporary expression. He is Chief Executive Officer of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, a leading hub for Jewish learning and culture in Israel. He founded Zamru, Fuchsberg's flagship musical and cultural initiative, and he's spent more than two decades building real infrastructure for artists and seekers—at the 92nd Street Y, the 14th Street Y, Shalem College, and the JCC Association. He earned his doctorate in Midrash and Scriptural Interpretation at JTS as a Wexner Graduate Fellow, and his professional fellowships include the Mandel Jerusalem Fellowship and a Tikvah Fellowship at NYU School of Law. He helped launch LABA, which became a global network of cutting-edge artist residencies; chaired Jerusalem Culture Unlimited from 2017 to 2024, supporting more than 50 emerging cultural organizations; and serves as an Executive Mentor with CANVAS, North America's largest grant-maker for Jewish arts and culture. He's also the author of About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan, based on his podcast od the same name.

We talk about Dylan as a laboratory for empathy and interpretation, and about the practical, unsexy scaffolding—space, time, money, safety—that lets artists refresh a tradition rather than merely borrow its language. Enjoy!

Show Notes and Links

Registration for Portland Nov 13 Event: artlabpdx.org

Stephen Arnoff: https://www.stephendanielarnoff.com/

Fuchsberg Center: https://fuchsbergcenter.org/

Arnoff's Dylan Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bob-dylan-about-man-and-god-and-law/id1522223234?utm_source=chatgpt.com

You can find this and other episodes on the podcast's Youtube channel, @TheGenesisJewishPodcast

I've been thinking lately about the tension between individual artistic expression and the weight of tradition and communal forms in Jewish life—and that's precisely why I was so eager to speak with Holly Goodman. Holly is a writer, teacher, and longtime contributor to The Oregonian. She is also an Art/Lab alum.  Her work has appeared in literary magazines, newspapers, and web journals over the course of three decades, beginning with early journalism in Columbus, Ohio.  She also participates in Tom Spanbauer's Dangerous Writing workshop as part of her ongoing development as a storyteller.  And she is, like me, a deadhead - something that is relevant to the theme of individual and collective expression, as you'll hear in our conversation.

Holly and i discuss how the "vertical" and "horizontal" dimensions of writing—that is, the spiritual, essential core of a piece and the narrative structure that carries it—mirror the challenges of threading one's own voice through inherited communal frameworks. We get into the ways that craft and convention, which we might think of as constraints, become tools to open more space for expression. Holly's experience as a non-visual reader—a person who doesn't "see" scenes so much as feel the rhythm and music of language—has shaped both her teaching and her writing and we talk about the textual and the visual. In our dialogue, we move from the classroom to Jewish ritual, from reading Torah to listening for the "dissonant ideas" that push conversation forward, and ultimately end in the metaphor of the Grateful Dead: individuals improvising in relation to a collective. Enjoy my conversation with Holly Goodman. - Rabbi Josh

\Show Notes:----------------------------------

* Art/Lab: www.artlabpdx.org

* Internet Arhive: https://archive.org

* Some Great Dead Shows: https://blog.archive.org/2014/05/14/top-ten-grateful-dead-shows-on-the-internet-archive/

* Tom Spanbauer: https://tomspanbauer.com/

In this episode, Rabbi Josh speaks with writer Daniel Elder, whose deeply personal nonfiction grapples with intimacy, loneliness, and identity. Elder discusses his journey from playful fiction to raw self-revelation, and the ways his involvement with Corporeal Writing opened up a body-centered approach to storytelling. He reflects on the paradox of being an "exhibitionist" who still feels vulnerable, his exploration of queerness and family, and the influence of grief on his voice as a writer.

The conversation also turns to Elder's evolving Jewish identity—shaped by loss, mentorship, and participation in Art/Lab—and the challenges of being a Jewish artist in a polarized moment. Together, they explore what it means to hold paradoxes, whether in art, faith, or politics, and how writing can serve as both a personal unveiling and a form of connection.

Show notes

• Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts & Culture – artlabpdx.org

• Daniel Elder's writing – danielelderwriter.com

• Corporeal Writing – corporealwriting.com

• Lidia Yuknavitch (mentor, founder of Corporeal Writing) – lidiayuknavitch.net

• Jonathan Richman – Only Frozen Sky (new album Elder recommends) – Spotify link | Apple Music link

• Arcade Fire – "My Body Is a Cage" – YouTube

Mariah Berlanga-Shevchuk is the Head of Public Engagement at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education—OJMCHE's first person in that role—where she's widening the museum's public programs and community partnerships. Before Portland, she co-curated LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes' landmark exhibition "afroLAtinidad: mi casa, my city," a home-shaped journey through Afro-Latinx histories and contemporary life that used rooms—kitchen, living room, backyard—to surface issues like food deserts, media representation, and belonging. She's also been a cultural resources and exhibitions lead at Five Oaks Museum here in Oregon.

In this episode we cover a lot of ground. We discuss Mariah's Mexican American–Ashkenazi–Ukrainian story and how her name carries that lineage, how that lineage informs her Jewish and professional worldview, talk about how a Jewish Museum and the OJMCHE in particular to capture the complex, rich and changing world of Jewish life and culture. And Finally, we map Portland's grassroots Jewish energy—from Rosh Ḥodesh circles to DIY minyanim and creative pop-ups—and ask how institutions can meet that vitality with openness rather than gatekeeping.

Notes:

Here are links to epople/places/things mentioned in the episode:

• Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture artlabpdx.org

• Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education (OJM&CHE) — homepage. ojmche.org

• OPB feature quoting Mariah on Alice Lok Cahana's art. https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/08/ashes-into-rainbows-the-art-of-alice-lok-cahana/

• afroLAtinidad: mi casa, my city — exhibition page at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes. https://lapca.org/exhibition/afrolatinidad-mi-casa-my-city/

• TischPDX tischpdx.org

S3E11 Tom Haviv

Anyone who takes Jewish sacred texts seriously has to care about how we interpret these stories, which means how these storeis and myths are re-told, invested with new dimensions and meanings, in each generation. The stories would get old and become dead, useless, if we insisted that they mean to us what they meant to a jew who lived 1000 years ago. They gain life when we renarrate them, so to speak.

We are grappling in America and Israel both, with the collapse of earlier narratives about what those nations mean. The people who make up these nations do not share an overarching narrative that binds them. Our stories seem broken, and disfunctional.

This week's guest, Tom Haviv, thinks about narratives, how they work and what it means when they break - when they stop working. Tom is the co-founder and Executive Director of Ayin Press, an independent publishing platform and interdisciplinary creative studio rooted in Jewish culture. He is also an artist and a poet in his own right.

With Ayin Press Tom and his co-founder Eden Perlstein have created an outlet and inspiration for superb Jewish work, and work that reaches beyond the Jewish world as well. Ayin published Daniela Molnar's Protocols: An Erasure, which you've heard about on this podcast and a visit to their website ayinpress.org will reveal an impressive range of new works, from philosophy, to mysticism, to a Jewish tarot deck and more.

But Tom's own life story and his poetic work digs deep into myth and narrative, and what they mean for our lives and our world. He was the perfect partner for an exploration of this topic which is perhaps more relevant now than it has been in at least a generation.

Enjoy the conversation with Tom Haviv.

Links-----

www.tomhaviv.com

www.ayinpress.org

Rabbi Josh talks about his own path from religious to cultural Jew.

Rencently Rabbi Josh and Oregon Book Award winner and Art/Lab Alum Daniela Naomi Molnar sat down for a public conversation at Annie Bloom's Books. They discussed Molnar's recent book (Ayin Press) Protocols: An Erasure. This beautiful and important work reworks, reimagines, and reflects upon the deeply anti-semitic work The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This episode is a recording of that conversation.

Show Notes:

Ayin Press: https://www.ayinpress.org

Daniela Monar: https://www.danielamolnar.com

Annie Blooms Books (Portland): https://annieblooms.com

*****

The deadline for applications for the next Art/Lab Cohort is midnight this coming Saturday August 30th…. If you are a Jewish artist or know someone who is, now's the time! Artists consistently tell us what a powerful experience their time in Art/Lab was. Don't miss out. Go to artlabpdx.org for the application.

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Today I'm joined by Shir Ly Grisanti, an artist, curator, and cultural leader whose work lives right at the intersection of art, ecology, and Jewish values. Shir has spent over a decade building projects that bring people together through creativity and conversation.

In 2012, she founded c3:initiative in Portland, a nonprofit designed not just to display art but to steward resources and solidarity with artists and partner organizations working on some of the hardest social questions of our time.

At the same time, Shir and their husband Laurence are the stewards of Camp Colton, an 85-acre woodland in rural Oregon. Together they've turned this former camp into a place of rewilding and restoration, planting thousands of trees and nurturing a fragile ecosystem back to health, while also hosting gatherings, retreats, and cultural programs

And on top of all of this - or undergirding it? - Shir is herself an artist. She was part of the Second Art/Lab Shir's work is guided by a "dual–nondual" vision: a sense that everything is interconnected, that we are always in relationship—with ancestors, with traditions, with the land, and with each other.

Enjoy my conversation with Shir Grisanti.

Show Notes:

artlabpdx.org

• Shir's website: shirgrisanti.com

• Stelo – steloarts.org

• c3:initiative – c3initiative.org

• Camp Colton – campcolton.com

• Andrea Gibson – andreagibson.org
• Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass – Milkweed Editions

• Sonia Sanford's Cookbook Braids (for the challah recipe!) – soniasanford.com/cookbook