[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/sinai-side.jpg” caption=”Haggadah”]An exhibit featuring linoleum prints illustrating scenes from the Exodus and the Passover Seder is on display in the Togo Salmon Gallery of the McMaster Museum of Art. Created by New York-based Jewish artist Ben Simon, the exhibit, entitled “Haggadah”, runs May 10 to 29.

Sponsored by McMaster's Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Religious Studies, and the Canada Research Chair in Modern Jewish Thought, it also features a display of a limited edition Haggadah printed by Raphael Fodde. The Haggadah presents a contemporary realization of a long tradition of creativity surrounding books containing the liturgy for the Passover Seder.

McMaster students and faculty, and members of the Hamilton community, are invited to attend a reception for the art exhibition. The reception will be held at the McMaster Museum of Art on Thursday, May 19, 2005, 5-7 p.m.

This exhibit forms part of a broader project, which centers on the Colloquium “A Covenant to the People, A Light to The Nations: Universalism, Exceptionalism and the Problem of Chosenness in Jewish Thought” The project, running May 18-20, explores issues of election, chosenness, and identity in ancient, medieval, and modern Judaism.

Ben Simon's prints illustrate scenes from the Seder as well as the story of Israel's Exodus from Egypt. From biblical times to the present day, the Exodus and its yearly remembrance at Passover have been central to the self-understanding of the Jews as a chosen people. This exhibit thus provides a visual exploration of the themes of the project, speaking to the challenge of conceiving of religious identity in a distinctive way that simultaneously allows for the universality of the divine and speaks meaningfully to the place of one religious group within a broader world filled with many and diverse people of different religions.

These events are the first in a series to be sponsored by the recently established Canada Research Chair in Modern Jewish Thought at McMaster University. McMaster's Department of Religious Studies has been distinguished by a long tradition of studying Judaism and Christianity in concert, as equally significant yet intertwined religions, and in conjunction with philosophy and political thought. Building on this scholarly profile, the colloquium aims to promote a vision of the study of Jewish thought traditions as engaged in an ongoing conversation with philosophy and theory, political thought, and the study of Christianity, both classical and contemporary. Similarly, participants are invited to pursue theoretical lines of inquiry in relation to examples and models of cultural interchange in Judaism's ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary contexts, ranging from the Greco-Roman world, late antique Christendom, and medieval Islam to modern Europe and present-day North America, Europe, and Israel.

For more information, visit http://jewishthought.mcmaster.ca/ or contact Alisha Pomazon.