Our mission is about building creative capacity across the Jewish community, but also beyond. Members range from people in their 20s to people in their late 80s, from orthodox Jews to people who are learning Hebrew words for the first time. Some are active in their local synagogues, while others are members of Unitarian Universalist churches or have active meditation practices, and JSP is part of the matrix of spiritual practices for them.
Because, let's face it, creative work does require some form of faith. It is a tumultuous thing to launch an idea into a vast nothingness and hope that it makes a light bright enough to be found by others. Luckily, these luminaries were my light, and I hope they may become yours as well, and - more so - that these snippets lead you to more of their work.
"I was quite nervous to start, cautious with strokes and colours and afraid I'd ruin a page. It didn't have the energy of my digital work, but it had something new and I wanted to get to know it. The notebook starts off light, sparse and disjointed," says Harriet.
But now, especially with social media, there's a growing expectation to constantly produce content: Reels, behind-the-scenes videos, Instagram posts, TikToks. It's no longer enough to just make great photographs; in one way or another, being visible online has become part of the job.
I'm glad this letter reached you before you fed that assignment prompt from your Creative Writing professor into ChatGPT. I'd like to share some ideas that may be helpful as you decide whether to follow through on that plan. First of all, I'm sorry you've been finding the poetry unit of Introduction to Creative Writing so tedious and uninspiring. It's true that you probably won't be writing much poetry in your future career.