we spoke jewish : A legacy in stories
Reviews
A moving story that captures much of the fabric of Jewish life in the early 20th century in Minnesota, a sensitive rendering of the accounts of the Holocaust survivors, a compelling narrative of the most recent wave of Jewish immigrants from what was the U.S.S.R.
compelling and insightful...a touching, and important contribution...
compelling and insightful...a touching, and important contribution...
Annette Atkins, renowned historian, author of Creating Minnesota: A History From the Inside Out
The paintings allow the viewer to feel the heartbeat of the subject and their testimonies open the doorways to create an emotional connection to historical moments.
Meryll Levine Page, co-author of Jewish Luck
A lovely and lavishly illustrated book. . .The book refers to its interview subjects, and the larger community of Jewish immigrants, as “a living archive,” and seeks to understand their legacy. We Spoke Jewish explores an older generation of Jewish immigrants who wrestle with the modern Jewish community . . .In the end, the books settles on Yiddishkeit as a concept that could unify the older and younger generations. . . [that] can create a bond between the Old World and the new.
A lovely and lavishly illustrated book. . .The book refers to its interview subjects, and the larger community of Jewish immigrants, as “a living archive,” and seeks to understand their legacy. We Spoke Jewish explores an older generation of Jewish immigrants who wrestle with the modern Jewish community . . .In the end, the books settles on Yiddishkeit as a concept that could unify the older and younger generations. . . [that] can create a bond between the Old World and the new.
Max Sparber, The American Jewish World
Read more about the process of turning story into artwork in Hennepin History Magazine 2021
About The Book
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We Spoke Jewish: A Legacy in Stories explores the stories of the three waves of Jewish immigrants of the 20th century. What does it mean to speak Jewish?
The phrase “speaking Jewish” is often used to describe the Yiddish language and in the community of Eastern European Jews of the 1920s, virtually everyone spoke Jewish. Many of the subsequent immigrants also spoke Jewish in different ways. Survivors spoke the Jewish of remembrance, carrying with them the memory of once thriving Jewish communities and the people who populated them. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union could not openly practice Judaism. |
Despite these restrictions, they spoke the Jewish of culture, carrying their heritage forward through song, food, and of course, story. Collectively they represent our language, memory, and culture, all vehicles that convey important aspects of identity.
Susan Weinberg is an artist as well as a writer, stepping into each story, capturing the emotional responses of her subjects and the visual elements that accompany their stories. Out of this process, she creates artwork on their stories, exploring their words through image and creating a multi-layered storytelling experience. |
The Project
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Susan's curiosity about identity led her to initiate the Jewish Identity and Legacy Project. What better way to understand identity than to explore the paths of those who formed this community?
When she first reached out to Sholom, a residential facility for elders, Susan was exploring exhibiting her artwork. As they spoke, an idea took root. "Wouldn't it be interesting if I could interview elders at Sholom and do artwork on their stories?" she asked. A partnership with both Sholom and the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest followed. Sholom facilitated the interviews while the Jewish Historical Society shared its guidance in oral histories. |
Grants from the State of Minnesota legacy monies, administered through the Minnesota Historical Society, funded the interviews through Sholom, enabling Susan to interview elders as well as some of their children and grandchildren.
She was interested in how identity and legacy were formed and transmitted, but soon realized immigration was a central element. With the interviews completed, she began to create artwork on the stories. The artwork gave the stories wings. When she exhibited the artwork, she shared the stories as well as video from the interviews. |
The Book's origin
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Meanwhile many of her interviewees passed away. Most had been in their 90s when interviewed. Susan went to a lot of funerals and shivas. When it came time to set aside this work and move on to something new, it felt like yet another death. Susan realized this project was not quite ready to conclude.
While the interviews were held in the Berman Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, Susan recognized that these were important stories to preserve, not just for historians and archivists, but for the larger community. That called for a book that created context for these rich stories, framing them in a way that reached out to the community from which they came. |
The question was "what kind of book?" There was rich material in the form of oral history, but there was also artwork that interpreted the story through a visual lens as well as the broader historical context in which the story resided. Story became the focus with artwork and history supplementing it, offering additional perspectives.
Susan partnered once again with the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest in publishing the book with support from State of Minnesota legacy grants. The book continues to evolve through public speaking that explores themes embedded in the book, immigration, storytelling, artwork and identity and legacy. |
Reader Reviews
An absolute treasure!
This book is an absolute treasure! I am beyond impressed that with such direct prose Ms. Weinberg elicits such deep emotion. I love how the art derived from each story and how she described each piece, which brought my attention to (and explained) each component of the whole. The stories and the paintings intertwined to heighten the meaning and impact of these immigrant experiences and make them more personal. - Anita Rosenfield
This artistic book documents a shared history worthy of our examination.
Ms. Weinberg, in a discerning documentary of the stories of Jewish elders, combines direct quotes (sometimes faltering, but always authentic) of individual immigrants to America, with her personal artistic interpretation of their lives. She mines meaning from their experiences through truly inspired drawings, rich in symbolic significance. Furthermore, she describes her process of learning from them personally, and suggests ways in which contemporary readers can appreciate their legacy. Surely, the journeys she transcribes hold value, as, one by one, we lose our survivors of an important, broader picture of our shared human history. - OLS
I just finished this wonderful group of stories
I just finished this wonderful group of stories. Some were difficult to read due to their context, and others were lighthearted and delightful. I appreciated the artwork that accompanied each oral history - especially the description by the author/artist of why the picture took the form that it did. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and learned quite a bit about this community. -k.brewer
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This book is an absolute treasure! I am beyond impressed that with such direct prose Ms. Weinberg elicits such deep emotion. I love how the art derived from each story and how she described each piece, which brought my attention to (and explained) each component of the whole. The stories and the paintings intertwined to heighten the meaning and impact of these immigrant experiences and make them more personal. - Anita Rosenfield
This artistic book documents a shared history worthy of our examination.
Ms. Weinberg, in a discerning documentary of the stories of Jewish elders, combines direct quotes (sometimes faltering, but always authentic) of individual immigrants to America, with her personal artistic interpretation of their lives. She mines meaning from their experiences through truly inspired drawings, rich in symbolic significance. Furthermore, she describes her process of learning from them personally, and suggests ways in which contemporary readers can appreciate their legacy. Surely, the journeys she transcribes hold value, as, one by one, we lose our survivors of an important, broader picture of our shared human history. - OLS
I just finished this wonderful group of stories
I just finished this wonderful group of stories. Some were difficult to read due to their context, and others were lighthearted and delightful. I appreciated the artwork that accompanied each oral history - especially the description by the author/artist of why the picture took the form that it did. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and learned quite a bit about this community. -k.brewer
Return to Top