When it comes to questions of religious observance, I am a live-and-let-live liberal. This attitude sometimes brings me into conflict with hard-liners. Some of them are Orthodox religionists and some are part of the “secular orthodoxy” — secular Jews who are intolerant of any approach to religious practice other than their own. The second category …
© Arlene Goldbard 2004 Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall… Genesis 49:22 The consulting profession has come into its own in the modern age, both as a line of work and the butt of jokes. Nowadays work is often so complex, requiring so much …
New College of California, 22 October 2003 © Arlene Goldbard 2003 Not to be reprinted without permission from the author Before I begin, I want to offer a dedication. Each of us is one link in a chain of souls that stretches back to the beginning of human history and forward to its end. When …
© Arlene Goldbard 2003 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a thread of blue; And it shall be to you for …
© Arlene Goldbard 2003 This talk was delivered in January 2003 as part of the University of Texas at Austin’s Cultural Policy Series. When Ann Daly asked me in July to speak in this series, she needed a title for the talk I hadn’t yet written, so I suggested “The Crisis in Cultural Policy.” As …
© Arlene Goldbard 2002 In Jewish tradition, Elul, the month leading up to the High Holy Days, is a time of introspection. Jews perform a cheshbon ha-nefesh (soul accounting), inventorying our missteps and shortcomings so as to focus on our personal need for t’shuvah — turning, reorienting — redeeming our lives for the new year. …
© Arlene Goldbard 2001 This essay originally appeared in Theater, Volume 31, Number 3 (Spring 2002) Before I begin, I invite you to join me in a stroll down memory lane. To tell the truth, I’m a little tired of going by myself. Looking back, I am simultaneously touched by the intensity of my generation’s …
© Arlene Goldbard 2000 This essay originally appeared in Living Text: The Journal of Contemporary Midrash, Number 8, Winter 2000 The Lord replied to Moses, “See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet. You shall repeat all that I command you, and your brother Aaron …
© Arlene Goldbard 1999 This talk was originally delivered at a September 1999 symposium on “Cultural Policy in the West” convened by the Western States Arts Foundation. When I was invited to speak at this symposium, I was asked to address “the cultural policy colonization of the West.” I admit I felt a little frisson …