Guest speaker: Stav Meishar, multidisciplinary stage artist and educator   

From Angels in America and Transparent to Bent and Yentl, explore the intersection of Jewish identities and queer identities in film and television. Are these identities separate or influence each other? Do they stand in juxtaposition or complement each other? What does it mean for these characters to be Jewish AND Queer? Enjoy video clips excerpts and analyse these questions using biblical, contemporary and academic texts.

Co-presented as part of Pride Month by Adult Daytime Culture and Education, Israeli Connection at the MNjcc, LGBTQ+ at the J and the Toronto Jewish Film Society. Presented in partnership with Pride Toronto. Generously sponsored by the UJA Federation’s Emerging Communities Committee.

Stav Meishar is an award-winning performance maker, multidisciplinary stage artist, academic researcher and educator. Her work explores the amalgamation of history and current affairs via the lens of social justice, using tools from the worlds of theatre, circus, and contemporary performance. Born and raised in Israel and now based out of both Bristol UK and New York City, Stav has spent the past two decades performing on professional theater and circus stages; on the ground and in the air; in Hebrew, English and Yiddish; in works devised by herself and by others; all over Israel, America and Europe. Stav's most recent project, The Escape Act: A Holocaust Memoir, is a one-woman show mixing puppetry, theatre and circus steeped in seven years of historical research. It is based on the true story of a Jewish acrobat who survived the Holocaust hiding at a German circus and examines questions of antisemitism and multigenerational-trauma. Stav discussed this history and project at the Fall 2020 Miles Nadal JCC Holocaust Education Week lecture Circus Jews Under National Socialism. When Stav isn't performing she directs Dreamcoat Experience, the award-winning organization she founded, which uses Performing Arts to teach progressive Judaism. A proud queer Jew, Stav answers to both she/her and they/them. For more information, please visit http://www.stavmeishar.com/