The Jewish Futures Arts and Culture Salon 2025 was held on Sunday November 16 from 10am-5pm at the Miles Nadal JCC. The attendees included artists, cultural workers, educators, and arts patrons. Thank you to everyone who attended the third iteration of the event!
The title of the event was taken from the words of our keynote speaker from our first event in 2023 when Rabbi Kendell Pinkney spoke about the idea of “what it would look like if the Jewish Future was inspired by creatives.”
The 2025 event included panel discussions and workshops led by local artists and cultural leaders. The topics ranged from celebrating Jewish joy in the arts, to the intersections of arts and the scared, to how artists are meeting to moment, to how artists bring Jewish culture to non-Jewish spaces, to how to incorporate accessibility into your practice. Always popular, “The Pitch” returned, allowing artist to give short pitches to cultural leaders for in the moment feedback from our “friendly dragons.”
We began the day with a niggun and mediation to set the intention, followed by an icebreaker to begin networking and connecting. The day ended with a high energy and hilarious presentation, film screening, moderated conversation, and musical performance by Montrealer’s YidLife Crisis who shared how they created their popular Yiddish web series, and how they are working as Jewish artists today.
For the full list of speakers and workshops, please click here.
The Jewish Futures Arts and Culture Salon provides the opportunity for the Jewish creative community to network with amazing people, reconnect with old colleagues and make and new friends. Being a part of the creative community has been especially challenging post Oct 7th and this event allows artists and cultural workers to come together to find strength and courage to be proud Jewish creatives, drawing inspiration and strength from the community we are building together.
We’d like to extend a special thanks to our panelists, moderators and workshop facilitators for bringing their experiences and skills to this event. Thank you for shining light on these subjects and contributing to these important conversations.
Thank you to the Miles Nadal JCC for your partnership and collaboration. And thank you to UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, the Azrieli Foundation and Canvas for the support in making the Jewish Futures 2025 event possible. Thank you to all our promotional partners as well: Koffler Arts, Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Niv Magazine, Museum of Jewish Montreal, Toronto Holocaust Museum and Prosserman JCC.
And finally, thank you to the over 100 artists, cultural workers, creatives and patrons who joined us on November 16. It means so much that you would be open to new connections and sharing your experiences. We feel privileged to be surrounded by such a caring and creative community.
