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Time Out New york | May, 2000
Immigrant Song
by Billie Cohen
I like to think that my great-grandmother was one of the women who sat in the balcony," says Hana Iverson, 40, as she stands in the Eldridge Street Synagogue and looks up at the space where women of the Orthodox Jewish congregation were separated from the men. Built in 1887, Eldridge Street was the first house of worship in the U.S. to be constructed by Eastern European Jewish immigrants. One hundred thirteen years later, Iverson's return to the synagogue, and thereby to the roots of her Jewish immigrant family, is one of the inspirations for her audio-video installation View from the Balcony, which occupies a hollowed-out stairwell shaft in the landmark building.
Another inspiration is the space itself. To Iverson, who is particularly interested in feminist theory about the female body, the empty stairwell represents a "wound" in the building, which deteriorated with time and water damage and is being renovated under the auspices of the Eldridge Street Project. The space also suggests the sense of distance that many turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants must have felt from their native Eastern European lands; and it reflects the separation of the men of the congregation and the women, who were required to sit in the balcony or behind a curtain that segregated them from the rest of the synagogue. "A lot of this misogyny in Orthodox Judaism has to do with the ways in which women are made to cut down their sexuality, make it less threatening, less present," says Iverson. "In Judaism, the men's main goal is to be spiritual while women are kept illiterate: They're not allowed to learn to read the Torah. Women are locked out of the spiritual center; they are really just the workhorses. Women have the children, they take care of the house, [and they are told] 'you are dirty, you have to have a mikva [a ritual cleansing bath required before marriage and after menstruation and childbirth], you need to shave your head, you need to be veiled, you need to be less of a distraction to men.' "
In the shaft, Iverson has hung a long, narrow cloth. Through the doorway, there is a video projected onto the white fabric and a recording of several women's voices. As Iverson explains, the fabric is inspired by the mechitzah, a cloth that divides the women's and men's sections in a traditional synagogue. The projected image, a pair of hands sewing two pieces of Torah parchment together, represents mending: the mending of the wounds to the psyche caused by the Orthodox tradition, of the wounds to Jews caused by anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and of the wounds to the synagogue itself caused by years of neglect.
The accompanying six-and-a-half minute audio, which seems to float down as if recited from women in the balcony above, is recorded in three languages: Hebrew, Yiddish and EnglishÐthe languages of prayer, community and assimilation. Explaining the Hebrew recording, Iverson says, "In Orthodoxy, the men every day say, 'Thank you for making me a man.' And the women have to respond every day by saying, 'Thank you for making me what you will.' Her face crinkles disapprovingly as she recites this response, which serves as the main Hebrew line of the audio loop.
The Yiddish component is a recitation of a recipe for strudel pie and Yiddish expressions, such as "You should be well in every weather - rain, snow and mud." The English voices, which nod to immigrants' Americanization, recount personal stories of family history. Surrounded by an ancient house of worship, hearing the women's overlapping voices and watching the hypnotic video images, one feels a connection to the immigrant history of the Lower East Side. But pieces of that history are missing.
In an effort to fill those holes, Iverson plans to build a computer kiosk at the synagogue with a virtual "memory board"; Lower East Side immigrants and their descendants will then be able to type, scan or record personal recollections onto it. In order to build a virtual bridge between the old world and the new - as the Lower East Side was for immigrants at the turn of the 20th century - Iverson also hopes to set up companion kiosks in Poland, Russia and Austria, the birthplaces of three now-deceased women congregants of Eldridge Street (whom she learned about through the Eldridge Street Project's oral-history collection).
In light of her criticism of Orthodoxy, it seems odd that Iverson should end up creating a site-specific installation for an Orthodox Jewish space. In fact, by her own account, the New York native had pretty much left Judaism altogether after a troubled relationship with her father, who had studied to be a rabbi but instead chose to be a businessman. "I am truly a secular Jew," she says, smiling. But she admits that this project has been a reconciliation with her past - and from her contented, jovial demeanor, it seems she is comfortable, even happy, to have returned.
Link to Article
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