Click the image below to read our
Fiscal Year 2010 Annual Report!
From the
Executive Director:
What is Jewish Culture?
This is a question that many people have tried to answer —
in books, films, and op-ed pieces, on morning talk shows and Friday evening services, through ritual and rebellion, as children and adults, with impassioned speeches and non-committal shrugs. How is it different from American culture? Is it culture made by Jews or culture that speaks to Jewish tradition? Will I know it when
I see it?
For the New Center for Arts and Culture and its audiences, the answer to this question is not an answer — it is a conversation. And perhaps a particularly Jewish kind of conversation, with many voices, more than a few digressions, some grumbling, a lot of laughter, and the occasional disagreement. In its brief history, the New Center has become Boston’s leading Jewish cultural center and the home of the community’s great conversation with itself.
We explore Jewish culture one original and iconic figure at a time. By creating Boston’s only public forum entirely dedicated to exploring the contributions and ideas of major Jewish figures of our time — artists, writers and public figures who share their lives and work — we are writing the history of what contemporary Jews are contributing to both American and world cultures.
In our first full year of programming, New Center LIVE! has presented a remarkable range of voices, including Congressman Barney Frank, sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, author Bruce Feiler, cartoonist Roz Chast, atheist Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi David Wolpe, composer Osvaldo Golijov, and StoryCorps founder Dave Isay. Their lives and achievements speak to the diversity of Jewish life today and the often subtle and complex ways in which Jewish heritage makes itself known in contemporary culture.
We have found that these questions and conversations are no less pressing for the young adult community. Our Prism programs invite young adults to re-imagine the role that Jewish history, art, and
culture can play in their lives by engaging them through programs that are fresh, original and insightful. An evening exploring modern Jewish identity through Jewish popular records from the 1940s to the 1980s at the House of Blues; a screening of shorts produced by students at a Modern Orthodox film school in Jerusalem; reviving Mimouna, a festive Moroccan post- Passover celebration in collaboration with Boston’s Muslim young adult community — these are some of the programs that have drawn hundreds of Jewish young adults to Prism. Addressing the needs of Boston’s urban youth over the last three summers, we provided enriching arts and culture experiences to 2,500 children in the high-risk ages of 11 to 14 through Explore World Arts. These highly interactive and culturally diverse performing arts workshops have been enjoyed by youngsters at Boston’s Camp Harbor View and the Boys & Girls Clubs summer camps in Chelsea, Charlestown and Roxbury.
If there is one thing Jewish history has taught us, it is that you don’t need a single place for a community and a culture to thrive. The success of our programming has convinced us that the New Center does not need a physical home at this time. Therefore, our Board voted not to pursue a building on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. As a cultural center “without walls,” the New Center produces and presents programs in the most appropriate venues in the city, and people are flocking to them!
Beginning this fall, to accommodate our expanding audience, we are thrilled to be presenting our entire third season of New Center LIVE! in the Charles Mosesian Theater, a state-of-the-art proscenium theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown.
The generosity of our donors, the wise guidance of our Boards of Directors and Overseers, the enthusiastic support of our Friends of New Center LIVE! and host committees, and, of course, our loyal and vocal audiences – all have combined this past year to make the New Center vital and exciting! You are all valued members of the New Center community.
Thanks for making our 2009-2010 seasons such a great success!
Sincerely,
Francine Achbar
Executive Director