ARTIST + JEW

Created by Alex Salsberg

Season 1 of this effervescent new animated series asks 4 unique artists this question as the slightly off-putting jumping off point for raw and lovely conversations about creativity, identity, audience, intention, fear, grief, love and so much more.

ARE YOU A JEWISH ARTIST

OR AN ARTIST WHO’S JEWISH?

EPISODE 1: LILY HENLEY

Musician Lily Henley deeply hopes to find something alive in the endangered language of Ladino, all while asking herself if it’s okay to update old Ladino songs. Lily is Sephardic, a type of Jew that’s often invisible to American non-Jews and sometimes exoticized by American Jews. Through irresistible folk music, Lily shares her culture to help us fall in love with our own.

Created by Alex Salsberg

Featuring Lily Henley - Website - Instagram

Character Animation by Olivia Sciulli + Sam Silvers

Backgrounds by R. Lee

Sound Effects + Theme Music by Adam J Salsberg

Song: “Oras Dezaoradas” - Lily Henley, Duncan Wickel, Haggai Cohen-Milo (Courtesy of Lily Henley)

Special Thanks: Rekha Murthy, Sarah Lefton, Janine Okmin, Rebecca Friedman, Rick Zieff, Mia Schon, Digital Storytellers Lab fellows.

Artist + Jew was developed with support from the Jewish Writer’s Initiative Digital Storytellers Lab

ABOUT ALEX SALSBERG

Alex Salsberg is an animator and interviewer who is always looking for exciting new ways to combine the two.

As an indie animation director, Alex loves telling stories through funny, weird and heartfelt cartoons, and has worked on projects for Billy Ray Cyrus, Utkarsh Ambudkar, MTV, Nickelodeon and WGBH.

As an interviewer, he is the host of "I Loved This Conversation," a podcast about people living creative lives, and he recently completed the short film “Of The Heart,” featuring conversations between intergenerational friends.

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