News from Middle Tennessee's Jewish Community |
Friday, April 4, 2025
The Janet Levine March Gallery and the JLMG2 gallery will feature the work of The Nashville Artist Guild. Aptly dubbed, “The Athens of the South,” Nashville continues to grow as a center for both visual and performing arts. In fact, it would be appropriate to say that Nashville is currently exploding as a center for the arts. Prior to 1950 there was no cohesive arts organization in the city to promote art or art education. In 1950 two art teachers from Vanderbilt University, one from Ward-Belmont and another from the University of Tennessee Extension School brought together some of their students with other local professional artists and created a new and unique organization. Thirty artists were accepted and the new group was called The Nashville Artist Guild.
The Jewish Federation and Jewish Foundation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee hosted the entire community in its first Jewish Community Day event. The in-person event highlighted all of the congregations, agencies, organizations, and local groups under one big tent. There were interactive activities for all ages, a kids play area, plenty of food, and a lot of fun.
The story of the Revelation at Mount Sinai has been dissected, discussed, and written about by Jewish scholars for centuries. Mount Sinai has also been the subject of paintings and poetry as far back as one can go, from its depiction in the Sistine Chapel, to John Milton’s poetic masterpiece, Paradise Lost. Carrying on in the footsteps of great scholars and artists before them, students at the Jewish Middle School have been diving deep into an exploration of Mount Sinai as part of their Jewish Studies Class.
There is no doubt that, if you are a child, your favorite part of the Passover Seder is related to the Afikoman. Technically speaking, Afikoman is not a very Jewish word. Like Karpas – which is Greek for fresh raw vegetables or for what we define as hors d’ouvres – Afikoman is one of those terms that remind us that the Passover Seder was a spin-off of the Greco-Roman symposium, the Hellenistic drinking party where men came to debate, plot, and boast with each other.
The stirring sounds of tefillah (prayer) echo in the halls of Akiva as students from across the school come together each morning to learn and pray. Tefillah at Akiva progresses beyond the fundamental skills of reading the text and focuses on the meaningful and transformative experience of prayer.
