Jewish Week | May, 2000

Fabric of Their Lives
by Susan Josephs

It's impossible not to notice Hana Iverson's artwork when walking into the Eldridge Street Synagogue. In an empty shaftway to the left of the main entrance, it stands like a 70 - ft tall ghost that can speak in tongues from the past and elicit gasps from unprepared viewers.

An audio/video installation, "View from the Balcony" joins a number of other site-specific works that have been designed for the 112 - year - old landmark synagogue. Dedicated to the female immigrants who used to worship upstairs, the installation occupies the shaftway that used to contain a staircase which extended from the basement to the women's balcony. Though plans for the synagogue's restoration include building new stairs and an elevator into the space, the shaftway currently remains empty - except for the haunted fabric that sways slightly with each passing draft.

An enormous, sheer, white curtain functions as a movie screen, onto which images of hands sewing Torah parchment have been projected. Meanwhile, female voices utter fragments of stories and prayers in English, Hebrew and Yiddish. While the fabric clearly represents the mechitza - the partition used to separate men and women in an Orthodox synagogue - the projected images appear more ambiguous and evoke both healing and confinement. Sometimes, they resemble human flesh receiving stitches or the process of tying a woman into her corset.

In an artist's statement, Iverson, a descendent of Swedish, Jewish immigrants, observes how the "shaftway unifies the building, but is also a rift in it; it underscores the distance between the floors on which the men and women worshipped, as well as the immigrants'separation form their native countries. The shaftway echoes with the voices of women speaking in Hebrew, Yiddish and English - the languages of prayer, community and assimilation."

01: Art In America
Hana Iverson at Eldridge Street Synagogue
by Miriam Seidel


02: Village Voice
On Edge
by C. Carr


03: Forward
Returning to the Fold On Their Own Terms
by Stanley Mieses


04: Jewish Week
Fabric of Their Lives
by Susan Josephs


05: Time Out New York
Immigrant Song
by Billie Cohen