"Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance"

Leading Judaica publisher Wayne State University Press will produce a remarkable book on the diversity of dance in Judaism and in Israel edited by Judith Brin Ingber  expected in the spring of 2011. The book includes twenty stimulating essays by American, Israeli, and European dance  historians, critics, sociologists, ethnographers and dancers, richly illustrated with 180 dance photos. [The authors include Gaby Aldor, Felix Fibich, Zvi Friedhaber, Jill Gellerman, Ayalah Goren-Kadman, Yehuda Hyman, Judith Brin Ingber, Naomi M. Jackson, Elke Kaschl, Sara Levi-Tanai, Dawn Lille, Giora Manor, Josh Perelman, Dina Roginsky, Janice Ross, Barbara Sparti, Nina S. Spiegel, and Shalom Staub.]  

“Judith Brin Ingber has assembled in one volume a wealth of information and ideas. She and the sixteen other contributors to 'Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance' probe such diverse, yet profoundly related subjects as dancing in Judaic ceremonies and the creation of folk dances in the newborn nation of Israel. Dancing springs to life on the page—illuminating how cultural roots yield new blooms when transplanted into different soil. The reader will be stimulated by conflicting views about such topics as women’s participation in traditional Jewish dances throughout history and the ways in which contemporary folk and theatrical dancing in Israel have honored memory and culture, even as they have altered the image of the Jewish body and what it means to be a Jew.”
—Deborah Jowitt, dance critic and historian, author of Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance

“Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance is work of great originality and importance, not only to the world of dance, but to the study of global Jewish culture and the arts. Its scope and depth are remarkable, and its combination of photography and scholarship is nothing short of thrilling.”
—Riv-Ellen Prell, Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota and editor of 'Women Remaking American Judaism'

“Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance" is at once both cinematic and diasporic. It is part academic travelogue, part historical manifesto and part home movie, if “home” was all of Jewish culture across all of history. It intermingles the religious and secular practices of dance into a hybrid and fluid Jewishness: one with porous boundaries and a shifting sense of self, identity and purpose. In this collection of original and sometimes daring research, dance is framed as celebratory and artistic, decorative and efficacious, a kind of both/and construction which the authors liberally mine for its essential Jewishness and its contribution to the central issues surrounding Jewish identity, as both a part of and apart from the State of Israel. Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance will undoubtedly inspire debate, critique and hopefully the publication of other texts that further explore dance in the frame of an ever-shifting Jewish identity.”
—Douglas Rosenberg, professor and director of the Conney Project on Jewish Arts at the University of Wisconsin, Madison    

News about the book:

The Jewish Daily Forward sat down with Brin Ingber to discuss her book and to look through the dozens of photos and illustrations that accompany the stories. View video»

July 20, 2011
The American Jewish World

A Dance to Jewish Life
After many years of planning and research, Judith Brin Ingber has completed a masterful book on Israeli and Jewish dance. Read full article by Mordecai Specktor»

View a few of the illustrations for "Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance".

For further info contact Judith Brin Ingber.