I had lofty goals for myself this quarter. I had planned to create a zine about Jewish women’s experiences throughout history as well as my own featuring recipes, food memoirs, historical writings, prayers, and art. My reason for making a zine was its ability to aid in free form self expression. I was not roped into specific guidelines for how it should look and could follow my own instincts, something that was important to me for such a personal project. Drawing inspiration from Jewish zines like Micah Bazant’s TimTum and the Jewish women’s magazine Lilith, my goal was to create something that conveyed my own experiences while also showcasing those of others throughout history. While this is still a project I would like to complete someday, it was not what winter quarter had in mind for me.

Faced with this daunting task, I froze. This is such a big topic and one that is so close to my heart and the thought of doing anything less than amazing to honor it stopped me in my tracks. It felt as though I was under qualified to speak on the subject and hyper focused on that, which made it much worse whether that fear was true or not. This subject is also one that can be painful to examine deeply, triggering memories of painful experiences and old traumas. These anxieties overwhelmed me to the point that I was unable to do any work that I was proud of and did not give me the lenience and forgiveness to let anything less than perfect slide. This project simply was not feasible for this quarter.

The whole point of doing an in-program ILC for this class is that zoom really does not work for me but I still wanted to get something meaningful out of my learning this year. So, there was no point in doing one if all I was going to get out of it was anxiety and stress. Instead of forcing myself to create something that I was not proud of, I decided to change my project to fit what I was able to complete this quarter.

The new plan was that I was going to post several annotated bibliographies on the books and films I have surrounding the topics of Jewish womanhood and food, post food memoirs or creative work (prayers, art, etc), and recipes that I have cooked related to the subject this quarter. This way, the pressure was taken totally off and I was able to work more freely. The annotated bibliographies were a way to honor the historical voices that I had wanted to showcase in my zine, the food memoirs and creative work were a way to express my own feelings and experiences on the subject, and the recipes were a way to bring it all back to the food.

This quarter was a lesson in the power of consumption rather than production. This quarter has been a hard one full of anxiety both on a global and personal scale. I think that there is something to be said for the power of sitting back and drawing it all in, taking an academic deep breath. By being gentle to myself when I needed it and allowing for movement and evolution with my project, I was able to do work that I feel happy with.

New ILC Breakdown

Learning objectiveActivity Deliverable
Learn more about Jewish women’s roles in mid nineteenth to early twentieth century shetls specifically looking at their connection to religious and culinary traditions. I will read books on the subject and write an annotated bibliographies on each book.Posted annotated bibliographies on my WordPress ePortfolio.
Examine my own relationship with food and womanhood through a Jewish perspective.I will write food memoirs as well as cook Jewish food. I will also do creative work on the subject (poetry/prose, artwork)Memoirs and creative work posted on my WordPress ePortfolio.
Look at modern day voices on the subject and how Jewish people are using food and religion today. Read Micah Bazant’s zine TimTum, and Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone, as well as watch films and read articles/books on the subject. Annotated bibliographies on my WordPress ePortfolio.