Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
When Rabbi Zalman Wircberg was on the road as part of singer Matisyahu’s touring crew, he learned a lot about the intermingling of cultures. It taught him about his own culture, too. In fact, the lessons he learned in that role led him to where he is now: serving as director of Old City Jewish Arts Center, located around the corner from the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia.
“Going from night to night and seeing all those shows, I saw that it isn’t about division — it’s about what unites us all,” Wircberg said. “People came for the music and for the message, and that’s something that’s universal.”
So, Wircberg thought about how he could do the same thing.
“How do we apply that here on a smaller scale at a community level?” he asked. “We’re applying the universal language of art here.”
With that in mind, the Old City Jewish Arts Center is particularly effective in two ways: welcoming non-Jews into the culture with a more palatable entry to Judaism and providing Jews an alternate way to learn about their people.
At the center, Jewish values are the message, but regular art is the vehicle.
“I say that I sprinkle kosher salt on the art,” he said. “It’s not necessarily [always] a painting of the Western Wall by a rabbi.”
This widens the scope of the art they show and the art they receive as submissions, the rabbi said. Right now, there is an open call for pieces themed around Tu B’shvat.
“Artists from all walks of life have been creating beautiful landscapes and [works with] trees and the environment,” he said. “We’re connecting through a Jewish avenue. We feel it through the art and feel connected to it.”
Wircberg has seen Jewish communities across the country and world, but that isn’t to say that he just stumbled into Philadelphia one day and stuck around. In fact, his arrival was by design, and it worked out more perfectly than he could have hoped.
The year was 2007, and Wircberg attended a Shabbat dinner while in town on tour. The dinner was at the arts center. He didn’t think much when he first arrived, until he spoke to the family that ran the center. Rabbi Menachem Schmidt and Wircberg hit it off — but that was just the beginning.
Wircberg fell in love with a woman that night. Nearly two decades later, Wircberg is married to and raising a family with that woman, Emunah Meadvin. They were living in New York until about a decade ago, when Wircberg replaced Schmidt as head of the center.
“We felt destined to lead this great, innovative, out-of-the-box approach to connecting to Jews,” he said. “I was blown away by this concept of taking something in Judaism and finding that common ground in the universal language of arts.”
Wircberg said that there is so much to be gained from a regular Friday night service, but Shabbos at the arts center can be something entirely special.
“All cultures, all races, all colors come through this door, and they explore Jewish art, Jewish mysticism and other universal messages,” Wircberg said. “Then they sit down for Shabbos dinner. It brings about understanding and compassion, and it’s a great melting pot.”
The museum is a wonderful place to introduce people to Judaism, but it is also where Jews learn more about things they thought they knew already. Wircberg described one interaction with an older man at a Chanukah event.
“We had a pediatrician who said, ‘Rabbi, I always looked at Chanukah as jelly donuts and candles — I didn’t know anything [about it being] mystical or spiritual,’” Wircberg recalled.
He said that the man said that he had taken time to read around the museum and approach the most ubiquitous holiday in American Judaism with a new lens.
Walking out of the gallery with a much different way of seeing Chanukah than when you walked in is part of the gallery’s mission to educate in what Wircberg called “a nurturing way.”
Case in point is the story of an unnamed couple from the suburbs. They came to a first Friday of the month at the center with the aim of exploring their dormant Jewish identity and art. Months later, they saw Wircberg at a restaurant and stopped to tell him what had come of it.
“It sparked something, and now they’re an integrated part of a Jewish community in the suburbs,” he said.
Wircberg feels so passionate about the mission of the center because it is, after all, a part of the family. He said that his wife is the “backbone” of the operation.
“A lot of the credit goes to her,” he said.
In addition to their work at the center, the Wircbergs started an organization called Young Jewish Philadelphia, which has the aim of creating an enhanced social scene for Jews in their 20s and 30s. This past weekend brought an event that combined their two domains: Young Jewish Philadelphia hosted a Valentine’s Day speed dating event at the center.
Needless to say, the rabbi likes to stay busy.
“It’s easy to do here,” Wircberg said. In Philadelphia, giving something your all is the standard, not the exception.
“Seeing what’s going on with the Super Bowl win and the excitement, Philadelphia has that passion for other avenues as well,” he said. “Brotherly Love isn’t just a cliche, [we are] conscious of passion and love and there is a unique energy.”
There is no question that that energy is in Wircberg and the Old City Jewish Arts Center.
“We’ve been here for ten years and we’re just getting started,” he said.
Best Rabbi BH.