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Spertus in the News
Spertus' new building to open Nov. 30
Chicago Sun-Times
April 25, 2007
BY HEDY WEISS Arts Critic
The building's sharply angled, almost Cubist-style glass facade has not yet been snapped into place. And the full range of activities planned for inside will not get under way until the official opening on Nov. 30.
» read more
Spertus exhibits planned
Chicago Tribune
By Alan g. Artner
Published April 25, 2007
When the new Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies opens on Nov. 30, the museum that is a part of it will resume an active program of exhibitions devoted to art and culture.
» read more
Glass wall facade brings bold look to historic district
Chicago Tribune
By Bonnie Miller Rubin
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 25, 2007
A sneak preview Tuesday of the first new construction on South Michigan Avenue since being designated a historic district revealed a building that offers not only a commanding view of the lakefront but a window into its mission.
» read more
NATIVE RANTS
A biographer reveals the inspiration behind artist Judy Chicago's "Holocaust Project."
By Leah Pietrusiak
Time Out Chicago
Issue 111: April 12–18, 2007
Artist Judy Chicago attended Lakeview High in the early 1950s, when Chicago schools were being desegregated. But attitudes were slow to change. One of her classmates, interviewed by Gail Levin, author of Becoming Judy Chicago: A Biography of the Artist, recalled a teacher who would point to New York on a map and say "Most Jews live in New York. I hate New York."
» read more
Kosher cafe to open at new Spertus building
By Lorene Yue
March 29, 2007
(Crain's) — The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies and Wolfgang Puck Catering Inc. are bringing kosher back to downtown Chicago.
» read more
"From Sanctuary to Boardroom:
A Jewish Approach to Leadership,"
by Hal M. Lewis
JUF News
By Cindy Sher
11/02/2006
Cindy Sher interviews Hal M. Lewis, associate professor of Jewish Studies and the Dean of Public Programming at Spertus about his new book From Sanctuary to Boardroom: A Jewish Approach to Leadership
» read the article
Mel Bochner has a way with words
Conceptual Art pioneer's works at Art Institute, Spertus
By Alan G. Artner
Chicago Tribune art critic
Published October 12, 2006
Every art museum would love to mount exhibitions that bring to light major but neglected aspects of the careers of important artists, and the Art Institute of Chicago has just done so with "Mel Bochner: Language 1966-2006," the largest installment to date in its contemporary "Focus" series.
» read more
JUF News October Spotlight
By Jan Lisa Huttner
In 2002, Jody Rosen published White Christmas: The Story of American Sony, his insightful analysis of how a hit song first achieved and then sustained unprecedented worldwide popularity. In a tour de force performance of his own, Rosen turned the 43 words Irving Berlin wrote in 1942 into 190 pages of fascinating cultural commentary, taking readers through multiple disciplines and historical eras.
» read more
New Home Blooms On Michigan Avenue
by Pamela Dittmer McKuen
Midwest Construction
When the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies decided to expand, planners looked at dozens of sites in the downtown Chicago area.
» read more
Spertus studies leadership issues
facing area non-profits
By Charles Storch
Tribune staff reporter
In March, several hundred members of the area's charitable community packed a Loop auditorium to hear some provocative findings of a national survey. The study expressed the frustrations felt by many non-profit chiefs in dealing with their boards and outside funders. It found many leaders were burned out and looking to leave, but few of their organizations were prepared to replace them.
Art Review: The Language Barrier
By Alan G. Artner
Chicago Tribune art critic
Published July 21, 2006
South African art activist Kendell Geers has created the second temporary work commissioned by the Spertus Museum on the construction barricade for its new building...
Common Ground project featured Cover Story
in July JUF News
By CINDY SHER Associate Managing Editor
If you look closely at almost any door to a home in the predominantly African-American Lawndale neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, you’ll notice two little holes on the doorframe. These holes, which once marked the presence of a mezuzah, are now a remnant of the Jewish past of Lawndale.
Lawndale's ties bind a diverse assemblage
Young residents learn about their West Side neighborhood's roots as a Jewish enclave
By Jon Anderson
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Published June 1, 2006
Golda Meir lived there, working as a librarian at the Douglas Library.
So did Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in an apartment at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave.
Those were two quick facts served up by "Common Ground: Lawndale's Shared History," an exhibition that opened to the public Wednesday in the main lobby of the Lawndale Community Academy, a public elementary school at 3500 W. Douglas Blvd.
But for many viewers, working their way through a dozen panels of pictures and text, the appeal was more personal.
What the children saw
Spertus exhibit is a powerful record
of the slaughter in Darfur
By Laurie Goering
Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent
Published March 5, 2006
Chicago Tribune Magazine
When Human Rights Watch researchers began conducting interviews with adult victims of atrocities in Sudan's western Darfur region, they handed out crayons and paper to the victims' children to keep them busy while their parents talked. The distraction technique is nothing new, an old pediatrician's trick, but what it produced, purely by accident, was something remarkable: The first visual record of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. More.
Art Review: The Language Barrier
By Alan G. Artner
Chicago Tribune art critic
Published February 10, 2006
Kay Rosen's "Hello Again" is the first in a series of site-specific artworks commissioned by the Spertus Museum for the barrier on the construction site of its new addition.
Thanks to Jerry and Larry, Jewish shtick still has kick
By Jon Anderson
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 26, 2006
Chicago Tribune
For some, it was a chance to remember Weber and Fields, those bewhiskered immigrants with broad accents, bristling whiskers and garish clothes. In vaudeville, as the slickster and the newcomer, they were the first comedy team to use a cream pie as an assault weapon. More.
Ronald Krueck and Mark Sexton: Partnership takes modernism in new directions, makes it look easy
By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published December 25, 2005
Chicago Tribune
Ronald Krueck and Mark Sexton are not circus high-wire artists, but they might as well be. Twice in the last two years, they have performed architectural acrobatics, taking on projects that held out the possibility of a very public flop. In each case, they made it across the wire with barely a wobble. More.
Spertus unveils new "21st Century building"
Construction to begin in a month
Pioneer Press Skyline
November 3, 2005
By Felicia Dechter
Let there be light!
That is one of the main concepts architects considered when designing the new, South Loop-based Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, which broke ground earlier this month on its new state-of-the-art facility at 610 S. Michigan Avenue. More.
Seeing the light
Architects Krueck & Sexton change face with Spertus design
Time Out Chicago
October 6, 2005
by Philip Berger
Everyone should be so lucky to find a partner—professionally or personally—whose qualities intersect as neatly as architects Ronald Krueck and Mark Sexton. The architects' exemplary collaboration has helped Krueck & Sexton amass a portfolio that many observers believe is unrivaled by any firm in Chicago for quality and consistency. More. (.pdf)
Exhibit tells stories of Jewish children hidden during Holocaust
The Associated Press.
March 20, 2005 (CHICAGO) — During the Nazi Occupation of France, Adele Laznowski's mother left her and her 2-year-old sister with a Catholic family in the French countryside. More.
'Every Picture' tells stories, teaches tolerance
Chicago Sun Times
March 18, 2005
BY LISA FRYDMAN
Books that tell a story are a dime a dozen. But books that teach a story are priceless. More.
New Spertus exhibition explores plight of children hidden during the Holocaust
JUF News
March 2005
By Wendy Margolin
In 1942, 11-year-old Dawid Tennenbaum went into hiding with his mother, settling in the Lvov region as Christians. Dawid was disguised as a girl and as mentally disabled, which exempted him from attending school and averted his being exposed. More.
The Cubbalist
Chicago Reader
February 25, 2005
By Jeffrey Felshman
When you're one of the world's leading authorities on religious magic and mysticism, you get some odd requests. After the release of The Exorcist in 1973, reporters looking for a local expert deluged Rabbi Byron Sherwin with calls for interviews. Being a teacher as well as a scholar, he granted them. Soon after his name began appearing in the papers, Sherwin got a phone call from a distraught man who was convinced his ex-girlfriend had put a curse on him. More.
Spertus Institute Gets Go-Ahead for $55 Million New Building
Forward
January 7, 2005
By Samuel D. Gruber
CHICAGO - Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies will soon begin construction of its new $55 million building on Michigan Avenue, which recently won the approval the City of Chicago Plan Commission and the essential support of Mayor Richard M. Daley. More.
Reshaping the Streetwall
Chicago Tribune.
October 26, 2004
Blair Kamin, Tribune architecture critic.
It's the face of Chicago, this row of buildings is, and it's about to experience one of the most significant bursts of construction since it started to take shape at the end of the 19th Century. More.
A new building on South Michigan Avenue
WBEZ 91.5 FM Chicago
Broadcast June 8, 2003
With Edward Lifson - host of Chicago Public Radio's Hello Beautiful!
Includes conversations with architects Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton, and Spertus President Dr. Howard A. Sulkin as well as call in questions from the community.
click here to listen to the program