“Fierce as Death'' honors the life, music and legacy of Jewlia Eisenberg (z”l) of blessed memory who died March 2021 at age 50. Jewlia was a New York-raised, Bay Area-based composer, musician,  ritualist, scholar of diasporic Jewish music & political traditions, leader of the ensemble Charming Hostess and half of music duo Book of J. She often worked in immersive installation—making hybrid spaces that incorporate music performance, visitor participation, and non-coercive ritual. Her music was released on the Tzadik label's Radical Jewish Culture imprint. Jewlia remains a fierce, queer artist whose music and research projects focused on faith, roots and power. Her work has many entry points for Jewish and non-Jewish folks alike, and has garnered her national and international attention, fans, and friends. 

In 2019, Jewlia was commissioned to create a year-long project at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. “Fierce as Death” would explore the Song of Songs (Shir Ha’shirim), an erotic poem from the Hebrew Bible that’s beloved in Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions. Polyphonic erotic relationships in ancient texts had already captured Jewlia’s interest: her “Queer Piyutim” project focused on mystical love songs to the Divine from about 1000 years ago. Both “Fierce as Death” and “Queer Piyutim” sought to encounter holy striving and queer erotics of ancient Jewish texts in an inclusive and outward-looking way. She was a master of deconstructing, reshaping, and reconnecting a cosmopolitan past to the contemporary, gaining a more inclusive perspective in which women, queer people, and outsiders are centered.

After her death, Jewlia’s collaborators and dear friends Seth Eisen and Marika Hughes picked up where Jewlia’s work had left off. On October 2, 2022, Eisen and Hughes produced “Fierce as Death” at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, in which artists, musicians and spiritual teachers from around the country explored the Song of Songs, Jewlia’s archives and broad-ranging research & intellectual interests, and her immense musical canon in a multi-part indoor/ outdoor immersive installation and concert. The resulting immersive exhibition and concert were hailed as “an unprecedented array of Eisenberg’s projects and her fellow cultural spelunkers” (SF Chronicle). Over 500 people attended the 4-hour event, over 50 artists were involved in its creation.

We are interested in bringing this work to your institution as a way to engage the public in social justice and participatory engagement through the lens of Jewlia’s life and work. The project is modular and can be presented as fits the interests of your institution and community: in part, or as a fully-realized, multi-part exhibition. There are scholarly papers written about her work and scholars ready to present on various topics related to Jewlia and her research. Her fan base in the Jewish and queer worlds are wide reaching. 

The “Fierce as Death” exhibit has several features that are ready to travel. 

1) A series of installations featuring items from her archives looking deeper into her music career, her roots and personal history of activism, her global travels and her in-depth research. 

2) Two videos that can be installed along with the exhibition or by themselves. One is a poetic glimpse into Jewlia’s life and work, and one is a video created by Jenny Romaine, who took Jewlia’s blueprints for activating the public in translating the song of songs and filmed the resulting conversations outside of a methadone clinic in Brooklyn — not far from where Jewlia grew up, in a socialist commune in East New York. 

3) Following Jewlia’s directives on how to study the Song of Songs Dazzle Sanctuary is an immersive sculptural environment that merges the concept of Dazzle Camouflage with study of Song of Songs in a public setting “an outdoor house of study on the doorstep [of the museum], in the busy public space of Jessie Square. Studying in pairs (khevruta) is an ancient Jewish practice, a collaborative and democratic form that will incorporate sound, study, and non-coercive ritual, queering the sacred and making sacred the queer.” The output for October 2nd participants were invited to type their reflections of the Song of Songs on typewriters was a group poem created by the sum parts of all the Dazzle Sanctuary participants.

4) A community-engagement component through a devised dance performance, inspired by the language of  the Song of Songs and Jewlia’s vision of a “non-binary queer Eden.” There is a movement score created by choreographer Chani Bockwinkel, and local volunteer dancers of any skill level can be engaged to learn and perform it.

5) A core group of musicians ready to play selections of work from Jewlia’s musical canon, directed by musicians Marika Hughes and Dan Cantrell. 

Please be in touch if you are interested in learning more about any of the above components, or about Fierce as Death | Queer as the Song of Songs as a whole. We look forward to being in contact with your institution to bring this unique, ambitious, and heart-filled event to new cities.

I look forward to connecting.