A Jewishly Inspired Public Art Movement

reimagining the tzedakah box and sparking change in cities across the U.S.

Be the Change is an art and activism initiative that is inspired by the Jewish tenet of justice and drawing from the ritualistic Jewish Tzedakah box. Be the Change is about making space to talk about injustice – and to give us all action steps to be agents of change in our local and global communities.

The tzedakah box (based on the root word tzedek, Hebrew for justice) is a small box in which Jews traditionally collect loose change on Shabbat and other occasions to be donated to the needy. Beyond just giving money, the goal of Be the Change is to help us all become artivists – activists through the art.

Be the Change 2023

On display in the Fenway Neighborhood, Opening August 2nd

Free to Learn

Ruth Kathryn Henry

Academic Censorship

In Other Eyes

Wen-hao Tien

Multiculturalism and Spatial Justice

Searching For Home

Chanel Thervil

Historical Impact of Redlining

Wishing Well

Cicely Carew

Mental Health, Stigma, and Healing in BIPOC Communities

The Power of the Vote

Dana Woulfe

Voter Suppression

Transcending Borders

Julia Cseko

Immigration Reform

I Am My Sister’s Keeper

Caron Tabb

Reproductive Justice

2023 global ambassadors

We are honored to announce our 2023 Global Ambassadors who are lending their leadership and voices to Be the Change as we move into the national spotlight.

Co-Chairs

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar-in-Residence at UJA-Federation New York and founder of Rabbis Against Gun Violence

Ruth Messinger

Former President and CEO of American Jewish World Service and Global Ambassador and Project Inspiration for Be the Change

Caron Tabb

Be the Change, Project Visionary

Global ambassadors

Cheryl Cook

CEO, Avodah: Sparking Jewish Leaders. Igniting Social Change

Mark Hetfield

President and CEO, HIAS: Welcome the stranger. Protect the Refugee

Rabbi Jill Jacobs

CEO, T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

Idit Klein

President & CEO, Keshet- For LGBTQ Equality in Jewish Life

Rabbi Claudia Kreiman

Senior Rabbi Temple, Beth Zion Brookline

Rabbi Jonah Pesner

Director, the Religious Action Committee of Reform Judaism

Rabbi Jennie Rosenn

Founder & CEO, Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action

Peggy Shukur

Interim Regional Director, ADL New England

Be the Change 2022

launched in 3 cities across the u.s.

From Boston, to Cincinnati, and LA, Be the Change 2022 featured 6 pieces of public art in each city by local emergent artists and over 30 community partnerships. Click below to meet the artists and community partners behind Be the Change 2022.

be the change 2022

Project Roots

In Boston, the Jewish Arts Collaborative , is the lead producer of Be the Change launching the national project in August of 2022 in the Fenway neighborhood in Boston. Artist Caron Tabb was inspired to create the exhibit concept in partnership with Ruth Messinger (former CEO and President of American Jewish World Service).

From there, Ish takes the lead in Cincinnati, in collaboration with Cincy Nice, in Fall 2022 and then the Skirball Center for the Arts in Los Angeles in 2023.

Making Real Change: Using Art to Drive Policy

The Be the Change sculptures make space for us all to understand how we can make change in our community. To guide this, each piece in Be the Change is underpinned by active legislation, defined in collaboration with JALSA (Jewish Alliance for Law & Social Action).

made possible by

Dennis Schuman Charitable Foundation

Production Partners

The Jewish Arts Collaborative, lead producer, launches in the Boston Fenway area in Fall 2022 in collaboration with Samuels & Associates .

Ish takes the lead in Cincinnati, in collaboration with Cincy Nice in Fall 2022 (September – November).

The Skirball Cultural Center in LA joins us in 2022/2023 (details TBD).

Tzedek Box will be a lead online partner, co-hosting events, and conversation via their Tzedek Box app throughout the duration of the project.

Boston Program Partners

Partnerships with diverse local organizations are central to Be the Change. Each of the host cities will partner community groups, schools, senior centers, and more to engage community through the art.

Connecting Vietnam
Eastern Woodlands Rematriation Collective
Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston

All of the Culture
With none of the guilt.

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Artist Shirah Rubin: Refugee Journeys

Shirah Rubin is a multidisciplinary artist living in Boston. She works in three art spheres: sculpture + installation; public art; and collaborative art. The duality of tradition and innovation is constant in her art practice. Shirah invents three-dimensional worlds that explore memory and the challenges posed by its fragile nature. Born outside of Washington D.C. she studied studio art and psychology at the University of Delaware. Rubin has worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the Israel Museum and the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem; the Jewish Museum in New York City; Brown University’s and the Rhode Island School of Design’s Hillel Gallery; and Hebrew College. Rubin's studio space is located at the Harvard Ceramics independent studio program in Boston. In the spring of 2023 her work will also be exhibited in the Raw Emotion exhibition in Boston and the Harvard Ceramics spring show.

ABOUT THE PIECE

The Ushpizin Sukkah

Xenophobia is a prevalent issue in our society, especially in relation to immigration. Jewish tradition celebrates a holiday once a year that is an antidote to this. During the yearly agricultural and historical festival of Sukkot (booths), Jews are called upon to build a sukkah, which is a temporary dwelling place with three walls and a ceiling through which you can see the stars. For a week, those observing the holiday live in these fragile structures, inviting guests to join. This temporary home is a symbolic reminder of the wandering journey of the people of Israel through the desert after the Exodus from Egypt as well as a seven day celebration of gratitude for the fall harvest. Central to this holiday is inviting guests both real and imagined to this temporary outdoor home. The practice of symbolically inviting ancestral guests to the sukkah during the holiday is called ushpizin, an Aramaic word that translates to “guests” and which is derived from the Latin word hospes. Hospes means both guest and host and is the origin of the words hospitality, hospital, hospice, hostel, and hotel. These words share concepts of mutual care of both guest and host. The Ushpizin custom is derived from a Jewish mystical tradition of honoring the memories of ancestors. What, then, are the dynamics of welcoming guests? This Ushpizin Sukkah is a temporary dwelling inviting you to sit as a guest in a rocking chair for you to rest, rock, and reflect upon being a guest and how this informs ideas of welcome. This contemplative space invites participants to share memories of times when they have been welcomed and have in turn welcomed others. Each individual has a narrative of the journey of coming to the place where they live. The Ushpizin Sukkah invites the public to share their stories to both preserve them and to build an empathic link between themselves and the strangers coming to our country who are yet to be welcomed. A QR code will be available providing opportunities to listen to reflections on welcoming as well as for resources volunteering to welcome new immigrants and refugees.The artist, Shirah Rubin, will activate the space through welcoming actions on October 2nd - 5th, 2023 from 12 - 2 PM.

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Artist Wen-Hao Tien: Spatial Justice

Born and raised in Taiwan, Wen-hao has been residing alone the banks of the Charles River, Massachusetts, since 1996. As an interdisciplinary artist, her career includes teaching, speaking, and community services. Wen-hao’s practice is rooted in her curiosity about self-expression and civic engagement in multicultural societies. Her academic preparations span the fields of biomedical sciences, public health, humanities, and visual art. Besides her studio practices, she is respected for her role in building interdisciplinary Asia Studies communities at Harvard University and Boston University. Her recent solo exhibitions Weed Out, Home on Our Backs, It Speaks for Itself, and I Love Your Grammatical Errors (forthcoming in April 2023) experiment on the interplay between art exhibitions, visual history, and public humanities. Wen-hao teaches at the Art and Design Department of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and at the Boston University Department of World Languages and Literatures. As the 2020 Artist-in-Residence at Boston’s Pao Art Center, she produced a body of work during a pivotal time in Asian American civic movements on Boston Chinatown local history. Her work is exhibited frequently in the Northeast, presented at the Boston Sculptors Gallery where she is a member, and supported by the generosity of grants. Wen-hao’s project, Weed Out, is featured in a new book, Crossing Boundaries & Confounding Identity: Chinese Women in Literature, Art, and Film, SUNY Press 2023.

ABOUT THE PIECE

In Other Eyes

This sculpture has two sides: one side is an open book, the other a forest. This work celebrates and justifies the importance of players in our multi-cultural and multi-lingual society. The heart of this project is a question to our multi-lingual young citizens “What should the Americans appreciate people from your culture?” Their answer, in their language and in their handwriting, will be the content of this sculpture. Another key element of this sculpture is several periscopes. The lens inside each periscope is engraved with the answer to the same question but from the minorities of the minority in our community. How is it like to look at the world through their words? Other Eyes, asks the viewers to shift their perspectives to relate to the realities of the others, to look at the world through scopes that may distort a familiar view, but they find a new reality within in return.A QR code on the sculpture will direct viewers to a website page where they can

access the translation of these answers, information about the collaborating civic societies, as well as research and artistic process materials.

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reimagining the tzedakah box and sparking change in cities across the U.S.

Be the Change 2023

On display in the Fenway Neighborhood, Opening August 2nd

Free to Learn

Ruth Kathryn Henry

In Other Eyes

Wen-hao Tien

Searching For Home

Chanel Thervil

Wishing Well

Cicely Carew

The Power of the Vote

Dana Woulfe

Transcending Borders

Julia Cseko

I Am My Sister’s Keeper

Caron Tabb

2023 global ambassadors

Co-Chairs

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Ruth Messinger

Caron Tabb

Global ambassadors

Cheryl Cook

Mark Hetfield

Rabbi Jill Jacobs

Idit Klein

Rabbi Claudia Kreiman

Rabbi Jonah Pesner

Rabbi Jennie Rosenn

Peggy Shukur

Be the Change 2022

launched in 3 cities across the u.s.

Project Roots

Making Real Change: Using Art to Drive Policy

made possible by

Production Partners

Boston Program Partners

All of the CultureWith none of the guilt.

Artist Caron Tabb: Hate Crimes & Antisemitism

Artist Carolyn Lewenberg: Environmental Justice

Artist Jason Talbot: Racial Bias in the Criminal Justice System

Artist Nayana LaFond: Domestic Violence

Artist Ngoc-Tran Vu: Mental Health, Trauma, and Healing

Artist Sam Mendoza Fraiman: Transgender Rights

Artist Caron Tabb: Reproductive Rights

Artist Chanel Thervil: Historical Impact of Redlining

Artist Dana Woulfe: Voter Suppression and Systemic Racism

Artist Cicely Carew: Mental Health in the BIPOC Community

Artist Ruth Kathryn Henry: Academic Censorship

Artist Shirah Rubin: Refugee Journeys

Artist Wen-Hao Tien: Spatial Justice

Artist Julia Cseko: Immigration Reform

All of the Culture
With none of the guilt.