When people become symbols

How are we percieved?

Michelangelo's David has been in the news recently. I want to write about the sculpture, but not for the reasons that it's caused so much controversy.

I was recently in Italy and had the privilege to see the statue in person. I was struck by how beautiful (and big) it was, but also struck by something else.

The statue of David depicts a Jewish king. He isn't sculpted in the way Jewish artists would have created him--in fact, there's a prohibition in Judaism against representing real people in art, but it's not followed so strictly. (This is complicated, as the commandment might only be for if you plan on worshipping the image). The same prohibition exists in Islam. 

The David has come to represent more that just the Jewish king that he was. It has come to represent the city of Florence and the Renaissance, a symbol of strength and youthful beauty. 

The depiction of The David reminded me of the memorial to the Ghetto Heroes Monument, honoring the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in Poland. This particular monument was initiated by the Central Committee of Polish Jews and designed and sculpted by two Jewish men. The style is Soviet, and shows again a romanticized version of Jewish heroes as strong, youthful, and physical. 

I love both the powerful Ghetto Heroes Monument and the impressive David, but I also wonder what it means that they both depict a way of looking at Jewish people in ways that seem antithetical to how we normally represent ourselves. Both have become symbols of their cities and have taken on meanings beyond the real Jewish people and Jewish stories they come from, and both use the surrounding culture's ideals for their representation. 

In Dara Horn's book People Love Dead Jews, she writes about how often, Jews who have been victims of violence become symbols to make non-perpetrators feel better. That same respect, however, often does not extend to living Jews. In one chapter, she mentions Anne Frank, who has become a worldwide symbol because of her hope in humanity--even though her diary was written before she was taken out of hiding and to a camp. Dara Horn asks the question: would Anne Frank have become such a symbol is she had written her diary after her family was caught?

When we turn real people into symbols, are we respecting how they would have liked to be remembered? Is there a point where it's ok for a personality to shift into an icon, and should we be more conscious about what that icon represents?

I worry that turning a real person into a symbol flattens them. David's statue freezes him in his fight against Goliath, forgetting his more complicated later years and his relationship with Bathsheva. Anne Frank has been memorialized in a very specific time of her life--when she was hidden. The Warsaw Ghetto Heroes are memorialized in time as brave, youthful fighters, and we might never know about their pasts as youth group leaders, family members, and friends. The individuals are remembered in the way that the broader society wants to remember them, based on the values of that society as opposed to their own values.

In a way, turning an individual into a symbol dehumanizes them, and I often wonder what it means for living Jewish people when our past heroes are turned into icons. 

This made me think not only about how Jewish heroes and characters are sometimes appropriated for other symbols and interpreted for particular narratives, but also how our own images are often reinterpreted by other people, symbolizing something we never intended. Are we symbols of something to others? Do people interpret us as we would like to be interpreted?

If you had to be made into a symbol, what would you want to represent?

Send me your answers to rivka.begun@gmail.com. I'd love to feature your story in next month's newsletter. 

Riv
                                                                               
P.S I'm always looking to improve! I'd love to hear your thoughts (or a quick hello) in my  Feedback Form

Writing Prompt of the Month

You can do poetry, flash fiction, short story, whatever form you'd like.

The prompt is: 

The creation of a symbol

Let me know how your writing goes! Send me the result and I might share it in next month's newsletter

News

 Jewish Future

s Anthology

I'm excited to announce that I'll have a story published in the Jewish Futures Anthology, edited by Michael A. Burstein and published by Fantastic Books in June 2023. 

From the announcement: 

Fantastic Books is delighted to announce a new anthology of original science fiction stories that will speculate on the future of the Jewish people. What will Jews be up to fifty years from now? A hundred? A thousand? Will the Jewish people still be mostly living where they are now? Will Judaism still be recognizable in the many forms in which it exists today? Will there be Jewish aliens or Jewish robots? These stories will present the possibilities.

Jewish Futures is edited by Michael A. Burstein, multiple Hugo and Nebula finalist and winner of the Campbell/Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

The Last Vogels Named as a Reboot Studios Semi-Finalist
A story of mine was named as semi-finalist for the Reboot Studios 2023 Development fund. 

From the site: 

Reboot Studios: Providing Funding and Creative Support for Fresh and Imaginative Film, Multimedia and Art Projects.

Reboot Studios will provide seed investments to develop new inspirational and transformational Jewish content. Driven by the belief that art influences our world, enriches our lives and has the power to educate, inspire, create movements and change the way we think, Reboot Studios will tell stories through a Jewish lens about the shared human experience.

What to Read this Month

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Book evangelist that I am, I've been recommending this book to everyone I know since I finished it. Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time in Appalachia, and felt this to be a sensitive and raw portrait of the area. This was a story I couldn't put down. It'll definitely go in my top 10 favorites list.  

From Goodreads: 
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.

Buy the book here.