Parsha Poster #34 – Bamidbar: Plant your flag The children of Israel shall camp by banner with

Parsha Poster #34 – Bamidbar: Plant your flag

The children of Israel shall camp by banner with the insignia of their ancestors’ houses, a specified distance from the tent of meeting shall they camp. Camping on the east side toward the sunrise shall be the divisions of the banner of the camp Judah; the prince of the children of Yehudah being Nachshon the son of Aminadav…
— Num. 2:2-3

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biographies in diaspora

life in diaspora is life in motion.

is writing the biography of a diasporic artist all that different from writing that of a diasporic object? in describing the magnes collection, i’ve left behind most conventions. artists no longer have “nationalities,” even when they do carry a passport (some carry more than one, others none at all). their biographies are told, sparsely, by the dates that frame their lifespan and, even more importantly, by the territories, countries, and sometimes cities, in which they lived and worked.

nationalities do not necessarily matter here. quite paradoxically, in diaspora, it is instead the sense of place that truly matters. the same is true of objects. material culture in diaspora always belongs to many a place. the very materials that make a ritual object often come from different parts of the world — among my favorites @magnes are torah ark curtains, one of which combines an inscription from ukraine with a textile from india, where it was used by jews from iraq… the biography of diasporic objects does not stop at their materials, though. it includes that of the (often unnamed) makers, of those to which the objects were dedicated (this is the case of many ritual objects), and of those who used them. and each of these biographies may very well bring together an array of places, of individual paths, of narratives.

the biography of objects and of people in diaspora is not a trajectory — from here, to there. it’s a network — a network of places.

Francesco Spagnolo, a multidisciplinary scholar focusing on Jewish studies, music and digital media, is the Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life and a Lecturer in the Music Department at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a host for the cultural programs of Italian National Radio (RAI) in Rome.

This post is adapted from his Mapping Diasporas project, exploring digital humanities approaches to diasporic culture through hands-on research focusing on cultural heritage objects held in The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley.