M. Pin­sky-Appel­baum is a PhD stu­dent in Rhetoric at the Uni­ver­si­ty of San Fed­eri­co. Raised in Fin­kles­burg, North Car­oli­na, Pinsky-Appelbaum’s work has been pub­lished in The Lion, The Tiger (Dai­ly), The Bear, OH MY: A Post-Lit­er­ary Reck­on­ing, and Jew​page​.edu. Pin­sky-Appel­baum is a mem­ber of Der Geylem Kolek­tiv, a dig­i­tal anar­chist col­lec­tive found­ed after the ini­tial reports of the Golem’s hav­ing recent­ly resur­faced in Amer­i­ca. (M. Pin­sky-Appel­baum is also a fic­tion­al char­ac­ter invent­ed by author and poet Moriel Roth­man-Zech­er, as part of the series, What We Talk About When We Talk About the Golem.)

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The M. Pin­sky-Appel­baum fic­tion­al char­ac­ter and asso­ci­at­ed con­tent are com­pan­ion lit­er­ary respons­es to Julie Weitz’s Golem V. Golem, pro­duced by Asy­lum Arts for Dwelling in a Time of Plagues, made pos­si­ble with the gen­er­ous sup­port of CAN­VAS. In 2017, in response to the Char­lottesville protests, Artist Julie Weitz cre­at­ed her per­for­ma­tive project My Golem, which cen­ters on her embod­i­ment of the myth­i­cal crea­ture drawn from Jew­ish folk­lore. A futur­is­tic high­­­­­ly-styl­ized fig­ure cov­ered with white mud, she was brought to life to respond to con­tem­po­rary chal­lenges includ­ing cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe, white suprema­cy, antisemi­­tism and xenophobia.

The project is pre­sent­ed at the Vil­na Shul, Boston’s Cen­ter for Jew­ish Cul­ture in part­ner­ship with the Jew­ish Arts Col­lab­o­ra­tive. Addi­tion­al dig­i­tal part­ners include the Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Muse­um in San Fran­cis­co, Jew­ish Muse­um Mil­wau­kee and the Jew­ish Muse­um of Flori­­­da-FIU. The work is part of a North Amer­i­can project – Dwelling in a Time of Plagues – a coast-to-coast Jew­ish artis­tic response to con­tem­po­rary plagues. To see the oth­er works on dis­play, vis­it plagued​welling​.com.

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A Passover sup­ple­ment pro­duced for Dwelling in a Time of Plagues, includ­ing ten authors and ten artists respond­ing to ten mod­ern plagues, can be down­loaded here. Con­tribut­ing authors include Sarah Blake, Mar­ra B. Gad, Ayelet Gun­­­­dar-Goshen, Let­ty Cot­tin Pogre­bin, Rebec­ca Sof­fer, Rab­bi Abby Stein, Darin Strauss, Michael Twit­ty, Rab­bi Dr. Shmu­ly Yan­klowitz, and Moriel Rothman-Zecher.