Sonya Rapoport show us the presentation (lecture) of Make Me a Jewish Man that she gave in Brasil, in which she explains the web page according to its images. This is a reply to my e-mail, too.
My recent work is a series of web projects which incorporate feminist themes. Ideas, images and metaphors are associated in multi-layers with a mixture humor and seriousness.
I am going to show you some highlights from my latest work, MAKE ME A JEWISH MAN, An alternative Masculinity. This project addresses the issue of a reversal of female penis envy to male envy of birthing and nurturing.
One theme of the work describes how men cope by appropriation of "femaleness," as prescribed by Talmudic Law in the year 400 – a gentle, recessive and non-phallic man.
A sub-theme is the developing metaphor of the morphology of the Olive Tree for which the Lord named Israel.
Another level, Olive Oyl, partner to macho Popeye who eats olives as an alternative to spinach., provides the feminist voice that objects to gender imbalance.
Let us gaze into the crystal jar of stuffed olives and watch the creation of an alternative masculinity, the non-phallic man. Behold! The Power of Blood; the Significance of Oil.
You see here a 13th century officiant wearing a Jewish hat and a fur lined coat, worn as a sign of mourning for Jerusalem, its destroyed Temple, and the exile. Standing Near by is a Jewish youth in orthodox garb anticipating his ritual into manhood. The officiant points with one finger to the olive in a martini shaped glass. He appears to be beckoning to the viewer, commanding intimately:"please speak into the olive". The olive is speared upright with the antenna of a tooth pick. The olive, a totem, is shivering with nutrient power capable of creating the ideal Jewish man.
This next image, represents the Mount of Olives. In the cleft between the olive trees is a warning - "Listen to the Olive Trees".
Who is listening? Who is speaking into the olive?
Olive Oyl is listening.
She speaks into the olive. She has insight into the misogyny of Ancient Israel. She knows that blood reflects gender interpretation -- that men's blood from circumcision is the power to create the covenant while women's blood from menstruation and birthing is contamination.
APPROPRIATING "FEMALENESS"
Appropriating "femaleness" is a basic root for producing the ideal male. Where the Roman had to show that he had a phallus to win a woman, the Rabbi has to show that he has none. But he knows and enjoys its heterogeneity. Refusal of the phallus does not entail giving up the penis unlike the Christian concept of the celibate maternal male.
When you enter the land and plant any tree for food, you shall regard its fruit as foreskin. Three years it shall be uncircumsiced for you, not to be eaten". (Lev 19:23) Circumcision is associated with wholeness and purity, a symbol of patrilineal descent. In a cartoon Olive Oyl , the apprehensive mother, lurks in the background admonishing the mohel (surgeon) to be careful.
EROTICIZED SISSIES
In monotheism, God as male undermines accepted norms of masculinity. Alerted to the danger of intimacy with a male God Israelite men become eroticized sissies so that they can be understood as God's lovers. The desire to be both sexes at once is typified by its hermaphroditic plant counterpart, the olive tree, from which oil, the Light of the Law is processed.
The pollen grain of the olive is genetically determined so the non-phallic male has to be trained to resist the myths of the unicorn's virulent horn.
The embryo seed resembles the shield. The spear-bearer's prowess is disempowered by the rabbi who educates the youth in Torah until "the strength of the youth [is] sapped as that of a woman". Olive Oyl cries out to Popeye to stay on his horse. A boy has little choice but to fall off the phallic mount.
The tree is periodically pruned, allowing for continual new growth. Olive Oyl is still waiting for women to participate in Torah reading .
At the age of thirteen a Jewish boy experiences the ritual of Bar Mitzvah. He is assumed to be mature enough to take on the responsibility of 613 Biblical Commandments. Maturation is depicted by color change of two large succulent olives -from green to reddish to purple. Olive Oyl is very proud that her son is now a man.
Oil is extracted from the mature crushed olive, the residual that perpetuates the lamp of learning.
IN CONCLUSION, the proverb:
“Happy is the man who finds wisdom. She is a tree of life to
those who grasp her.(Prov. 3:13,18a)”
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Laura Tortosa Nieto
lautor2@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press
