Episode #13: To Begin (again) with Justice: Prof. Almút Shulamit Bruckstein Çoruh & House of Taswir
In this final episode of the season, Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman and I talk with Professor Almút Shulamit Bruckstein Çoruh, beginning with her years in the Neo-Hasidic movement studying with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (the founder of Jewish Renewal) and her decades of study in Jerusalem with Talmudic scholar Rabbi HaRav Zev (Walter) Gotthold. We discuss the power and importance of names, the founding of psychoanalysis, and Shulamit’s English translation of, and commentary on, Hermann Cohen’s Ethics of Maimonides (1908). Cohen finds in Maimonides a “non-foundational, anarchic thinking of origin,” in which justice, lovingkindness, and goodness are demanded of us, in which ethics precedes being. Can we still stand-in for this diasporic Jewish humanist tradition, given the relentlessness of genocidal violence in Gaza (and beyond) now? Can Israel (the people) ever divest themselves of Israel (the state)? Is it still possible to “anticipate” human goodness, when humanity is so defiled? We come finally to an extreme hopefulness, turning to art, community, action, and study as pathways toward a re-occupied non-foundational, non-territorial tradition. Again (and again), says Shulamit, we must find the courage to “switch beginnings.”
“Past events cannot provide a key to the present unless they are radically separated from a direct inheritance.” - Susan Buck-Morss with Emily Jacir
Individuals and texts mentioned and discussed
Almút Sh. Bruckstein Çoruh, “Talmudic War Machine & a Shadow’s Dream”
Almút Sh. Bruckstein Çoruh, “The Talmudic Bride and her Shadow’s Dream, A Letter to the Psychoanalyst of my Beloved” (2022)
Walter Benjamin, Berlin Childood around 1900, Translated by Howard Eiland
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Rabbi HaRav Zev (Walter) Gotthold
The complete correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham (1907-1925). Translated by Caroline Schwarzacher
Hermann Cohen, Ethics of Maimonides (1908). Translated with commentary by Almut Sh. Bruckstein, (2004)
Jalal Toufic, The Withdrawal of Tradition Past a Surpassing Disaster (2009)
Susan Buck-Morss, Revolution Today, (2019)
Emily Jacir & Susan Buck-Morss: 100 Notes, 100 Thoughts: Documenta Series (13), (2011)
Prof. Almút Shulamit Bruckstein Çoruh
Prof. Almút Sh. Bruckstein Çoruh
Theory artist, writer, founding artistic director of House of Taswir, curator of international exhibitions and artistic research; various professorships in (Jewish) philosophy, visual theory, Taswir studies in Jerusalem, Berlin, Basel, Frankfurt a. M. Founder of the TISCH University (2020) in Berlin and Istanbul (2022). Artistic director of the art and think space Meine Kleine Mnemosyne. Author and editor of numerous publications. Most recent books and exhibitions: Freud. Talmud. Taswir (2019), Wednesday Society. The Couch of Meret O. (Istanbul Biennial/Art Unlimited Istanbul, 2019/2023), Lady Dada Kalam (2017), Fragments From our Beautiful Future (2017), The Red Gaze (2016), House of Taswir. Doing and Undoing Things, Munich: W. Fink, 2014, Taswir. Islamische Bildwelten und Moderne (Gropius Bau Berlin, 2009-2010) among many.
Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman (b. Philadelphia 1986) helps make interventions, essays, performances, poems, films, and installations with/in overwritten and denied places and materials, tracing local experience to and from entangled catastrophes. His contributions establish difficult situations for durational contemplation and vernacular rites, manifesting a quiet language of intense proximity over time by tending accidents, anxieties, and memory. Works include Lost in Jüdischer Friedhof Weißensee (2016-19); Night Herons (2018-21), recipient of the 2024 ING Polish Art Foundation Main Prize, created with Joanna Rajkowska; Wierzba Estery / Esther's Willow (2018- ) created with Katarzyna and Marta Sala; and يان الصعود الى السماء Flight Manifesto (2019-2024) created with Dirar Kalash. Listen to Return the Key with Robert here.
Return the Key
Jewish Questions for Everyone
