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Drinking deeply

‘Wells of Miriam’ plumbs spiritual depths at Jewish museum

A reception on Sunday, May 1, 1-5 p.m., will open “Wells of Miriam: Mikvah as Spiritual and Global Renewal” — an exhibit of 13 photographs and passages by artist Emily Stern — at the Jewish Museum of New Jersey, housed at the historic Congregation Ahavas Sholom in Newark. It will be on display through June 5.

“Wells of Miriam” refers to the Torah commentary that it was by her merit that a sustaining body of water accompanied the Israelites in the desert. 

In 2014 Stern visited the Tamera Peace Research Center in a desert region of Portugal. There, she saw how water and food self-sufficiency were made possible with the retention of rain water and she made the creative link between the landscape and the mikva, the Jewish ritual bath. 

Stern is an artist working in poetry, theater, visual arts, and song. A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, she is a rabbinical student in the Alliance for Jewish Renewal’s ordination program. She wrote and performed plays while a Drisha Institute arts fellow and at Nishmat, The Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women. 

A member of the Jewish Art Salon and a blogger for the Jewish Journal, Stern also directed her children’s musical, The World’s a Song: So Come and Play. Her first album, Birth Day, is an expose on the divine feminine, orchestrated with natural sounds. 

The museum is open Sundays, 1-5 p.m., and by appointment. A donation of $10 is suggested. RSVP for the opening reception at 973-482-0523 or info@jewishmuseumnj.org or visit jewishmuseumnj.org.

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