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Feb

28 2024

Art and the Sacred: Artist Talk with Rabbi Linda Motzkin

5:30PM  

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery | Skidmore College 815 North Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

Join us Wednesday, February 28, at 5:30 pm, for an artist talk by Rabbi Linda Motzkin. Rabbi Motzkin will discuss how she repurposes pieces of her handmade deerskin parchment that are unsuitable for Torah production to create Hebrew calligraphic artwork drawn from Jewish sacred texts, and the specific process of making the works on display.

This is the second of three events in Inscribing the Sacred: Creating Torah and Art, sponsored by the Jacob Perlow Lecture Series, the Religious Studies Department & the Tang Teaching Museum, with additional support by the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS), and the departments of American Studies and History. Reception to follow.

Inscribing the Sacred: Creating Torah and Art Events:

Monday, February 26, at 5:30 pm: Perlow Lecture: Rabbi Linda Motzkin on “Women and the Making of Torah"

Wednesday, February 28, 5:30 pm: Art and the Sacred: Artist Talk with Rabbi Linda Motzkin

Friday, March 1, 1 pm: Community Torah Project: Making Parchment from a Local Deerskin

About Rabbi Linda Motzkin
Rabbi Linda Motzkin is one of a handful of women in the world trained as a Hebrew scribe, a role traditionally reserved for men. Through her Community Torah Project, Rabbi Motzkin has opened up the sacred process of creating a Torah scroll to thousands of people nationally and internationally. Her hands-on educational workshops enable participants to engage in various steps in the making of a Torah scroll, from processing deerskins into parchment panels to stitching completed panels together. Rabbi Motzkin is also an accomplished artist, utilizing her knowledge of Hebrew sacred literature to create unique calligraphic artwork from pieces of her handmade deerskin parchment which are unsuitable for a Torah scroll. Rabbi Motzkin served for almost three decades as Jewish Chaplain at Skidmore College, and retired in 2022 from her position of co-rabbi at Temple Sinai in Saratoga Springs after 36 years of job-sharing with her husband Rabbi Jonathan Rubenstein.