From Leeks to Likes: Adventures in Jewish Storytelling
Originally published on The Shabbat Drop by Miranda Lapides on September 27, 2024.
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Story time! About stories. How meta.
This week, I attended the 2024 Digital Storytellers Lab from the Jewish Writers’ Initiative. This yearlong fellowship gives digital storytellers the opportunity to develop, launch, and grow original media exploring Jewish themes for new media platforms. The fellowship provides funds and mentorship, and ends with a showcase.
We watched trailers for each of the fellow’s final projects, and it was fun to see not only the different types of Jewish stories being told, but also the diverse media used to tell them.
From a personal story about one’s miscarriage to celebrating Sephardic heritage through cooking, the projects spanned formats like podcasts, webcomics, animated videos, and more. Not every project is currently available to the public yet, but there are some below that are.
My favorite was a YouTube series by Alan Niku sharing the Sephardic custom of hitting someone with a green onion during Passover. In the trailer, he’s on a quest to find the biggest green vegetable that will do the most damage at his Seder (leeks!) while interviewing family members. It was a humorous and creative way of educating people about his Iranian Jewish culture and how it’s important to retell the Exodus.
A stock image, but you get the idea
Another creative goodie was a social media episodic, Michèle 1940 by Natacha Ruck, that tells the story of Natacha’s mother, a Jewish fashion icon in France. Since her mother is no longer living, she created a fake Instagram profile to share her story. Here’s the description for it:
If my mother was a teenager now, she’d be an influencer. She was born to Jewish refugees during WW2 in occupied France and she longed to move to Israel. But by the time she was 18, she had to decide between following her dream or use her fashion sense to save her family from bankruptcy. My project is to use archival photos and interviews to recreate her immigrant survivor narrative, on IG, Youtube and Tiktok.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Pale of Settlement by Josh Eiserike, a YA graphic novel. I’m not just giving it a shoutout because it used “Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance in the trailer. It’s Stranger Things meets Fiddler on the Roof. It’s history, adventure, and even romance. Two issues are out right now—send it to a comic book lover!
You may recognize one of the fellows, Miriam Anzovin, from social media for her Daf Reactions. Her project for this fellowship, Jewish Folklore Reactions, entails short-form video explanations and modern retelling of Midrash and folktales. Check out a sample below. I’m not quite following everything she’s talking about, but she looks like she’s having fun!
To learn about all the fellows, click here. Maybe you’ll see me on there one day! Just kidding, this project keeps me plenty busy.
✍️Shabbat Prompt
What’s a Jewish story of your own that you could tell? How would you tell it? (hint: If you want to share it on a Jewish blog, reply to this email hehe)
Shabbat Shalom. May you hear stories that touch your heart, challenge your mind, and inspire your soul,
