Deidre Butler, Assistant Professor, Religion, Carleton University
Visual Midrash: Holocaust Visual Art as Jewish Feminist Post-Holocaust Response
This paper explores women’s Holocaust art as feminist midrashic post-Holocaust response. Fackenheim’s argument that midrash is a potential form of response to the Holocaust is a springboard for thinking critically about Jewish feminist responses to the Holocaust. Viewing women’s Holocaust art in this way exposes themes that necessarily mark Jewish feminist post-Holocaust response while also extending and enhancing that response. Spanning visual art media and contemporary memorials such the Vienna Project, key themes of memory, gender, embodiment, maternity, relationality, sexual vulnerability and violence emerge.