For her article “Exploring Judaica” in the October/November 2006 issue of
Dynamic Graphics (
V11N5),
author Terry Lee Stone interviewed Daniel Sieradski, director of the
design collective Matzat in Jerusalem. Among his many enterprises are a
range of activist-oriented websites devoted to various aspects of
Jewish culture:
www.matzat.org.il
www.jewschool.com
www.mazaltovcocktail.com
www.cornerprophets.com
www.orthodoxanarchist.com
In the interview, Sieradski speaks of his design roots,
cultural and philosophical influences, and why he’s creatively focused
on Jewish causes. Following is the full text of Terry’s interview with
Daniel.
T: Do you do only Judaic-themed work? Why does your work have a Judaic focus?
D: I do not only focus on Jewish-themed work, but it
is my primary focus as I have been working in the nonprofit Jewish
sector for quite a number of years. I am also a deeply committed Jewish
person. My art is simply an expression of my identity.
T: Are you committed to spreading knowledge and information about Judaism?
D: I am committed to teaching others about Judaism,
but more so, I am committed to pursuing progress and radical change in
the Jewish community itself.
Just as with Christianity and Islam, there are many dogmas
present in Jewish theology that are inconsistent with Judaism's highest
values. These values, according to our sages, are the recognition that
we all descend from the same source, that we are all created in the
image of God, and that we are obligated to love one another.
Issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, and nationalism—which
have a tendency of rearing their ugly heads from time to time—drive
wedges between members of the Jewish community. There are many Jews who
hold the obtuse perception that these dogmas are also biblical
obligations. Navigating our source materials, it's sort of difficult to
prove them wrong.
Thus my objective is to find creative solutions to overcoming these challenging issues in order to foster more Jewish unity.
T: Are you driven by a spiritual motivation? Are you a religious person?
D: I would say I am spiritually motivated and that I
am religious in some respects, but I would never call myself religious.
I define myself in relation to our source material and I have a strong
relationship with Jewish ritual and law. However, I don't necessarily
feel as bound to these traditions so much as I do to finding an
authentic expression of "the God that dwells within." Judaism, I
believe, is the most relevant path for me to embark upon that journey.
However, when elements of Judaism stand in the way of meeting that
goal, I am compelled to brush them aside.
T: What caused you to create Matzat? What's the driving purpose?
D: I have been working for a number of years on
different projects aimed towards fostering dialogue and establishing
greater connections between individuals within the Jewish community.
For the most part, these projects have been products of my own energy
and resources. Matzat is an attempt to bring together some of the
brightest pioneering minds in the community and to establish a
nonprofit foundation to pursue grant funding, so as to take these
projects to the next level.
T: Can you please give me a brief description of each of your
sites? What's the purpose? Who is the audience? Why do they look the
way they do?
D: Jewschool.com is one of the most popular Jewish
websites online, with over 40,000 readers per month and an array of
contributors from five different countries. The site looks at current
events and various issues facing the community from a
liberal/progressive viewpoint and celebrates Jewish culture without
sacrificing critical thought.
There has been something of a vacuum in the Jewish community,
where issues needing critical attention are often left to slide by,
wherein certain perspectives and viewpoints are taken for granted and
regarded as "truth" despite all contrary evidence. Jewschool.com is,
more or less, an open revolt against the status quo and a demand for
accountability.
The site has also become a hub for what we're calling
"autonomous Jewish movements"—grassroots initiatives in Jewish ritual
and culture that have become established without the support of
mainstream institutions. Jewschool.com provides an outlet for the
individuals involved in these projects to discuss relevant issues and
share their successes with other members of the community.
Mazal Tov Cocktail.com is an encyclopedia of Jewish radical
culture. The site will feature articles on various individuals,
movements, and events in Jewish history of a radical nature and relate
these subjects back to concepts in Jewish source materials, such as the
Tanakh [Old Testament] and the Talmud.
There are countless number of Jews in North America who
identify solely with Judaism's social justice tradition. Many of these
individuals feel alienated from Judaism for the reasons I specified
earlier—non-progressive dogmas. The goal of Mazal Tov Cocktail is to
help these individuals discover the origins of our social justice
tradition so they can feel empowered and more connected to our
religious tradition, and thus be enabled to reclaim it from those who
assign themselves ownership over it.
Corner Prophets.com is a Jerusalem-based hip-hop collective
that brings individuals from all across Jerusalem's cultural spectrum
together around a common interest in hip-hop music. We stage monthly
events featuring religious and secular Jews, Muslims, Christians,
Israelis, Palestinians, Russians, Ethiopians, American students, and so
forth.
We started this initiative for a number of reasons: Firstly,
there is a lack of strong artistic culture in Jerusalem. Hip-hop is
bursting at the seams here currently and the time is ripe to bring
hip-hop to the forefront as a form of creative expression. Secondly,
there are few outlets of expression for the city's youth. There is
practically no place that a local teen can jump up on stage, grab the
mike, and let loose with all his rage and fury. When these things stay
bottled up inside, they can often come out in less acceptable forms of
behavior, such as drug abuse and violence. Thirdly, there are many
tensions between Jerusalem's cultural communities. We strongly believe
that by developing relationships based upon common interests,
individuals can overcome their political and religious divisions and
coexist peacefully and respectfully.
T: Can you comment on working for Jewish causes? How do you find this type of work? Is there a big market?
D: Working with the Jewish community is always kind of
rough. There are these very stereotypical impressions that Jews have
lots of money. But the reality is, most nonprofit Jewish causes are
struggling to stay afloat, and so they do not have the resources to pay
market value for the top quality work they need and demand. You tend to
wind up putting in an incredible number of hours on projects that don't
pay nearly enough to make the time investment worthwhile. However, the
good you bring into the world sort of balances things out, and
therefore you hope that if God's paying attention s/he'll keep an eye
out for you and make sure you can pay your rent on time. The market for
low-paying design gigs for struggling Jewish nonprofits is immense. If
you can manage to juggle enough of them and still find time to sleep,
you can do relatively well for yourself.
T: What are the sources of inspiration for your work? You seem to meld tradition with a kind of cheeky modern spin.
D: I draw my inspiration from various sources. I pay a
lot of attention to the cutting-edge designers doing the ads getting
placed in magazines like XXL, The Fader, Blackbook, Vice, etc. I also
study the websites of hip-hop record labels and yank ideas off of them
left and right. That, and I have an interest in fashion photography.
This sensibility often gets tempered with Jewish kitsch and this
so-called "postmodern Jewish irony," which I obviously relate to, being
one of the proponents of that culture.
T: What design elements in your work define the projects as related to the Jewish faith?
D: It's kind of tricky, really. You don't want to be
trite—throwing dreidels and stars of David in people's faces. You kind
of want to downplay Jewish symbolism while still giving the obvious
impression of Jewishness. Using Hebrew can be helpful for achieving
this effect, or using Jewish concepts that only the initiated would be
familiar with.
For example, my organization is called Matzat, which is Hebrew
for "spark plug." As such, our logo is a spark plug. However, the
reason I chose the name is because of a concept in Kabbalah [Jewish
mysticism] which says there are "holy sparks" present within all
creation. Humanity's goal is to seek out these sparks and to draw them
forth. So as Matzat, we seek out the holy sparks and spark 'em up.
T: Are there any good Judaic resources for graphic designers?
D: Not really. I'm kind of struggling right now with a
project because I can't find one decent stock photo of a Torah that
doesn't cost over $100. It's maddening. Everything is crappy clip art
that looks like it was drawn in the 1950s, or bad photography of
people's Bar Mitzvahs. You'll find a salvageable photo here and there,
but for the most part, it's pretty much on you to come up with your own
stuff.
Fonts are also an issue. There aren't many great Hebrew fonts
out there that don't come from a foundry that charges an egregious
amount for their typefaces. Thankfully a couple of Israelis have
created their own collections of beautiful freeware Hebrew fonts.
However, the vast majority of Israelis work on PCs—there is practically
no sale of, nor support for, Macs in Israel—and these fonts are all in
a TrueType format that is incompatible with OS X. I recently converted
several dozen to Open Type, though, so they'll work on both Mac and PC,
and got the blessings of the typographers to do so. You can find them
on my website, OrthodoxAnarchist.com, if you search the archive.
T: Any other comments or observations you'd like to make?
D: I wonder what I'll do for work when Jews get sick of hip-hop and Judaism's no longer considered ironic.
