CHAIM NOY
“SEEING THE VOICES”: ON THE VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF TEXTS IN JEWISH MUSEUMS
Abstract One of the main questions that propelled this inquiry I share observations from two ethnographic studies conducted concerns the visual (re)presentation, or visualization, during the last eight years in Jewish heritage museums, where of Jewish texts in public spaces, specically museum collective Jewish identity is displayed and performed, visual- spaces. These are spaces where audiences can read the ized and textualized. I show the visual pervasiveness of texts texts and also respond—(inter)textually, via writing—to (historical and contemporary) at these museums, and that objects that have been curated and are exhibited. When these texts indeed amount to the most popular category of I address the (re)presentation of texts in public spaces, artifacts presented as display. In other words, I show that texts or textual (discursive) artifacts play a central role in the or, in other words, texts in spaces that are available and visual organization of these Jewish museums, as they are (re) accessible to the public gaze, I acknowledge the already presented, (re)mediated and (re)materialized. I then move to visual environments of these texts. Visualization, then, inquire into texts that visitors inscribe, i.e. texts which visitors refers initially not to qualities inherent to the text itself produce in situ and which are on display. Taking a visual and or to its graphic and ornamental dimensions and orga- cultural approach to these museums and to the texts that are nization, but to the circumstances of its (re)presenta- publically presented therein, my ethnographies shed light on tion as publically visible and visually accessible writing. contemporary visualizations of Jewish texts, as well as—on Following from this is a complementary type of textual a diferent level—on multimodalities and visual designs of the texts themselves. The folkloric view of Jewish visual visualization, which concerns the visual and graphic culture and imagery is examined within an institutional elements of the text in and of itself. Along lines that context, as an emerging cultural production that mani- merge inquiries from folklore, linguistic anthropology, fests dialectic recourse to the Jewish museums that aford discourse studies, and material and visual cultures, my its production. view of texts is concrete and material. I avoid viewing texts abstractly (as in the expressions “culture as text” For Abba—the folklorist and “the biblical text”), but view them as artifacts occu- And for Ima—the physical anthropologist pying physical spaces and inscribed on actual surfaces zikhram livracha of and for writing. A text is “a unique material inscrip- May their memories be a blessing tion,” where the linguistic code is but one of a number of elements that contribute to the artifact’s overall semiotics. These textual artifacts, and the spaces and וְ כָ ל- הָ עָ ם ר ֹ אִ י ם אֶ ת-הַ ּקֹוֹלת “And the people saw the voices” surfaces on which texts are marked, can be framed as (Exodus :, JPS Tanakh translation) private, domestic, public, institutional, national, and so
See, on folklore, Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs, “Poet- culture, Brenda Danet, “Books, letters, documents: The changing ics and performances as critical perspectives on language and aesthetics of texts in late print culture,” Journal of Material Culture social life,” Annual Review of Anthropology £ (££): £–¥¥; on . (££©): –ª¥; and on visual culture, Gunther Kress and Theo linguistic anthropology, Matthew S. Hull, Government of Paper: The Van Leeuwen, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design Materiality of Bureaucracy in Urban Pakistan. (Berkeley: University (New York: Routledge, ¬). of California Press, ) and Chaim Noy, Thank You for Dying for Paul Prior, “Tracing Process: How Texts Come Into Being,” in Our Country: Commemorative Texts and Performances in Jerusalem What Writing Does and How it Does it: An Introduction to Analyzing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ); on discourse studies, Ron Texts and Textual Practices, eds. Charles Bazerman and Paul Prior. Scollon and Susie Wong Scollon, Nexus Analysis: Discourse and (Mahwah N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, ¬), ¬£. the Emerging Internet. (London: Routledge, §); on material
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, IMAGES Also available online—brill.com/ima DOI: . / - 6 Chaim Noy on (as well as any mixture of these features), the point shape of what later came to be formally designated as being that texts’ dual visualizations emerge from the The Israel Folktale Archives (or IFA).4 This collection of combination of the material and spatial circumstances folk stories was established by Dov Noy in 1955, and it of their (re)presentation, together with the graphic fea- included folktales from rich Jewish ethnic and cultural tures inherent in and to the texts themselves. backgrounds worldwide. The collection grew rapidly I take these insights into the dual visualizations of and has since become the largest repository of Jewish texts in museums and curatorial spaces, and specifically folktales, including related non-Jewish folktales as well. in two Jewish museums—one in the United States It was stored and archived in a couple of rooms, via and one in Israel.3 In this essay, I will first dedicate a sophisticated (if “low-tech”) system of index cards, some space for a close description and discussion of and it was managed—for decades—by Edna Heichal. texts and textual visualizations in museums, and for From this perspective, the Museum of Ethnology and the institutional function they serve vis-à-vis museum Folklore served as a unique library. audiences. Then, I will turn to museum audiences, The second collection was ethnological and took to ponder how audiences’ textual productions are the shape of a typical museum exhibition, present- arranged visually and displayed publically. By and ing both ritualistic and everyday clothes and artifacts used by various Jewish diaspora communities behind כָ ל-“ by I offer a contemporary ethnography of how ,drawing on Exodus 20:15, “all of the public,” glass vitrines. I specifically remember an impressive ,” הָ עָ ם apprehend the [written] voices.” In white and gleaming Yemenite bridal dress with the“ :” רֹ אִ י ם אֶ ת-הַ ּקֹוֹלת“ the terms used in this article, I will discuss how voices many heavy artifacts that Yemenite brides wore for the are visualized textually, or visually textualized, in the henna and wedding ceremonies. For Dov Noy, this was context of contemporary Jewish heritage sites. The an ideal combination of narrative cultures of Jewish inquiry joins recent studies on folklore in museums, ethnic identity, where words and texts, together with with a specific emphasis on audiences’ contribution material artifacts, converged in the way they embody and participation, and the construction of collective Jewish folklore. I believe that his sense of history, together with the total devastation brought about by .(” כָ ל- הָ עָ ם“) ”identities and the notion of “publics Lastly, on an autoethnographic/biographic note, the Holocaust, as well as the powerful Zionist ‘melting my inquiry into texts and/in museums may be easily pot’ ideology, led him to believe that not only was (and traced to a small ethnological Jewish museum, formally is) the collection of folk Jewish cultures essential, but called the “Haifa Museum of Ethnology and Folklore,” also that collecting it was an urgent enterprise. which was established by Dov Noy and by Haifa’s mayor, Abba Khoushi, in the mid-1950s. I used to travel “Textual Museums” to Haifa from Jerusalem with my father and visit this museum as a child, mostly during summer vacations. It is perhaps needless to emphasize the sociocultural The museum was located in a bottom floor of a com- roles museums play in the landscape of national mon residential building on one of the city’s curved, and ethnic identities, and specifically the role that descending roads, and for some time it was a home for heritage museums play in shaping collective identi- two types of ethnological collections: texts on the one ties, collective memory, and a sense of “public.”5 hand, and everyday and ritual material artifacts, on the Although museums have historically revolved around other hand. The museum’s textual collection took the the authority and agency of the collection, these
3 This work also draws from ethnographic work in a third Jewish 4 See, “Israel Folktale Archives,” accessed August 1, 2014, http:// museum, namely the Florida Holocaust Museum (located in St. ifa.haifa.ac.il/index.php/en/. Petersburg, Florida). The present scope does not allow examples 5 For instance, Tamar Katriel, Performing the Past: A Study of from this museum, but see Chaim Noy, “Writing in Museums: Israeli Settlement Museums (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Towards a Rhetoric of Participation,” Written Communication Associates, 1997); Sharon Macdonald, ed., A Companion to Museum 32.2 (2015): 195–219, and Chaim Noy “ ‘My Holocaust Experience Studies (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006); Scott Laderman, Tours of was Great!’ ”: Entitlements for Participation in Museum Media,” Vietnam: War, Travel Guides, and Memory (Durham: Duke Univer- Discourse & Communication 10.3 (2016): 274–290. sity Press, 2009); Greg Dickinson, Carole Blair, and Brian L. Ott, eds., Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010). “®¯¯°±² ³´¯ µ¶°·¯¸” 7 institutions have always also been about the rhetoric concerns the commemoration of Israeli soldiers who fell of display and the politics of representation.¾ In fact, in the Jerusalem front during the war, and the celebra- with the neoliberal privatization of public space and tion of militaristic-national Israeli (Zionist) ideology. museums that has taken place globally during the last My ethnography at the Ammunition Hill site took couple of decades, and the growing competition over place between ¬–, and included observations resources and audiences, museums are becoming ever of the museum and the visitors, specically revolving more ‘visitor-friendly’, presenting a heightened degree around writing activities undertaken during the visit. of visual entertainment and infotainment apparatuses The ethnography also included conversations with the and interactions.¿ Thus, any artifact located inside sta»f and the management, with the purpose of learn- a museum—inside its curatorial spaces—can be ing how they see the museum’s ideological goals and addressed as an exhibit and can draw a specic kind mandates, and how it functions institutionally on daily of gaze by the museum’s visitors.À Texts are no excep- basis to achieve them.¼ tion: there is no plausible reason to assume that the The second museum is the National Museum of linguistic modality would necessarily override visual American Jewish History, located in historic and and contextual dimensions and modalities. Rather, in tourist district of Philadelphia. The museum was museums, and often times in other public spaces as founded in £©¬, and was relocated and comprehen- well, texts are viewed/gazed at/scanned, etc., as much sively restructured in , which is when it assumed as they are read. This is a result of the perfusion of texts its present shape. The museum is located on the displayed in public spaces, and the multimodal type Independence Mall (overlooking the Independence of “reading” that is required in order to make sense of National Historic Park), and it narrates the history of them. Put di»ferently, a mono-modal analysis, which Jewish immigration to and livelihood in the United addresses only one code (say, the linguistic), has every States from a liberal American perspective. It portrays chance of missing the meanings and the e»fects of the the high levels of integration and accomplishments texts at stake as these transpire in situ. of Jewish communities in American culture, society Before I proceed, a few words are due about the and politics, and reserves only minimal space to the two textual museums that I reÁÂect on, and about my Holocaust and to the establishment of the State of ethnographies there. Chronologically, the rst museum Israel. I began studying this museum during a fellow- I began studying was the Ammunition Hill National ship at the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies Commemoration Museum, which is located in north- at the University of Pennsylvania (which is located east Jerusalem. The Ammunition Hill Commemoration nearby) in . My rst few visits were spontaneous Museum and its site were inaugurated in £©§, and its and motivated by curiosity, and they gradually turned location marks the historic battle between the Israeli into a more formal and comprehensive museum and army and the Jordanian Legion, during the Six Day museum-audience ethnography. I have been visit- War (on June ¬, £¬©). In ££, the Knesset formally ing the museum regularly since, focusing on visitors recognized the site as a National Memorial Site, and as and their on-site, participatory writing practices. One a result, Jerusalem Day ceremonies featuring the Presi- annual event in the museum, which I attended and dent, the Prime Minister and other notable political and observed a few times, takes place on Christmas day military gures have been hosted there. The museum is and is called “Being _____ at Christmas.” I will address part of a larger outdoor site, whose ideological charter this ritual later in the article.
¾ Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the constructed activity, John Urry, The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins in Contemporary Societies (London: Sage Publications, ££); and University Press, £¥§). more recently and with further elaboration on the gaze with regards ¿ Micheal X. Delli Carpini and Bruce A. Williams, “Let Us Infotain to embodiment and performance see John Urry and Jonas Larsen, You: Politics in the New Media Environment,” in Mediated Politics: The Tourist Gaze . (London: Sage, ). Communication in the Future of Democracy, ed. W. Lance Bennet ¼ See Chaim Noy, “Mediation Materialized: The Semiotics of a and Robert M. Entman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Visitor Book at an Israeli Commemoration Site.” Critical Studies in ), ¬–¥. Media Communication . (¥): ©–£; and idem, “Writing À My notion of visitors’ “gaze” here is shaped by the contribu- Ideology: Hybrid Symbols in a Commemorative Visitor Book in tions of the sociologist John Urry, who inÁÂuentially developed Israel.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology ¥. (¥): ¬–¥. and discussed the “tourists gaze”—as a historically and politically 8 Chaim Noy
Upon visiting these museums, one need not be a materiality emerges from the kind of substances scholar of texts and writing in order to appreciate the that serve as surfaces on which the textual image is pervasiveness of textual artifacts as well as of displays projected. In the museum’s main hall a few texts in and representations of discursive nature. Indeed, Yiddish and Hebrew are projected against non-smooth the museums’ textual artifacts and representations backgrounds. The effect that is accomplished evokes amount to the most prominent category of items at texts’ textures, and although the audience recognizes display. Consider, for instance, the different types of words and occasionally sentences as well, reading the textual visual (re)presentations offered at the National text as a whole is difficult. The texts’ linearity (the Museum of American Jewish History. First, there is the sense that emerges when words that join into sentences most basic unit of display, which typically includes a which join into paragraphs, etc.) is deconstructed in historical text (usually a facsimile, copy or reproduction favor of their visual and tactile textures—words, as of the original document): for instance, two handwrit- such, visually enmeshed on various backgrounds. The ten lists of belongings and prices of tools involved second point is that these are sometimes visitors’ texts in the work of a Jewish butcher called Asher Levy that are publicly projected in the museum, such as (dated 1682). The authentic texts are framed inside a in the Contemporary Issues Forum room (informally glass vitrine, and near them clear print texts explain referred to as the “Post-it notes room”). In this room the artifacts (“Levy opened his own slaughterhouse visitors are invited to respond to questions on current near the eastern end of what is now Wall Street . . .”), social, cultural and political issues in the United States, information and credit about the original text is sup- that the museum presets, and where visitors can write plied (“NYC Municipal Archives”), and oftentimes also their texts and have them be publically projected in transcriptions and/or translations. These latter texts are the room and on the Internet.10 Put differently, one representations and (re)textualization of the original of the types of visual (re)presentations of texts in the document. In between the texts, images are usually museum concerns texts that are authored and com- interspersed, such as a black-and-white pencil drawing posed on-site by visitors. of the butcher’s work and workshop. This is an example A third type of textual visualization has to do of what can be seen as the museum’s “basic exhibit with representation and remediation of texts through unit,” which is essentially multimodal and includes, and digital screens. Screens—of various sizes and display in fact rests on, texts of different genres and functions, technologies—are widely used in museums, mainly and textual mediation. because in the space of a single picture, a screen can A second type of common visualization of texts offer a number of alternating still images, video, and utilizes projection technologies, whereby texts are not audio materials. The textual effect is similar to that part of a material artifact, but are rather offered as of the projected texts, but the technology is different, imagery that is projected against one of the museum’s presenting a higher resolution, more dynamic and walls or screens. In one of the museum’s dimly lit nuanced textual visualization, and a possibility for rooms, for example, a passage from the Gettysburg interactive features (in the case of touchscreen, which Address is projected in bright and cursive writing. The invites further types of visitor activity and interaction). cursive writing, and Lincoln’s signature at the bottom of For instance, in the museum’s second floor a number the passage endow the projected text with a seeming of of TV-size screens show preset loops of video record- familiarity, informality and authenticity. Here the text ings of visitors telling their life-stories and answering is ephemeral—it is offered not as part of an authentic/ questions presented to them by the museum staff. historic document/artifact, but as a visual remediation Visitors sit in front of these screens and with the help (which the audience recognizes as such). Two points of earphones hear and see the narrator-visitor talk. Yet are worth mentioning now. Firstly, these projections’ the image on the screen does not include only the face
10 In the Contemporary Issues Forum room, visitors inscribe their July 31, 2014, http://cif.nmajh.org. See Chaim Noy, “Participatory responses on colorful pieces of paper that look like Post-it notes. Media New and Old: Semiotics and Affordances of Museum Media” They can either stick these notes on the wall, whence it becomes (in press), Critical Studies in Media Communication, and Chaim public, and/or they can scan them (a number of user-friendly scan- Noy, “Participatory Media and Discourse in Heritage Museums: ners are located in the room), whence the texts are both projected Co-constructing the Public Sphere?” (in press) Communication, inside the room and appear on the museum’s website, accessed Culture, and Critique. “Seeing the Voices” 9 of the narrator-visitor, but also a textual word cloud around the site’s impressive commemorative visitor (a tag cloud) emerging from these narratives.11 The book, and the texts (visitor book entries) that visitors audience can see the popularity of different words and inscribe therein. I will first describe the artifact and its terms used by the narrators, and because the screen is context-of-use, and then describe the visual dimensions interactive, tapping on any of these words/terms will of visitors’ productions. The second example concerns direct the viewer to other digital stories of other visitors an annual ritual that takes place at the National that share them, and so on.12 So this is another type of Museum of American Jewish History on December 25th. museum textual visualization. The different types of common textual visualiza- Visual Culture: Entries in a Commemorative tions that I have just described (and this brief list is Visitor Book not exhaustive), suggest the kind of pervasive and immersive visualization of texts in current museum Visitor books are interesting artifacts for folkloric study. spaces. I went into some detail because I think that it They offer space for artistic, yet mundane, productions is important to delineate the heightened visual archi- by visitors, thus capturing some of the language and tecture of these spaces and the specific technologies lore as spontaneously expressed “bottom up.” At the that contribute to it, where texts do not function as Ammunition Hill National Commemoration Museum explanations, but rather amount to one of the display’s the visitor book is not located near the museum’s exit organic building blocks. (as is usually the case in most museums), but rather has its own special hall, which is located well within Textual Visualizations by Visitors the museum. The visitor book hall is actually located near the museum’s “sacred” and innermost hall, where In light of the pervasive visibility of texts, textual visu- the names of the Israeli soldiers who died on the alizations and remediation in the spaces that these Jerusalem front are engraved in gold, and where the museums offer, it should not be surprising to learn commemorative “eternal fire” is constantly flickering. that visitors, too, are actively invited to participate in In the visitor book hall itself, a soundtrack repeatedly the production and mediation of public texts. We have recites the names and ranks of the dead soldiers in seen, in the National Museum of American Jewish His- a gloomy male voice. In addition, the hall presents tory, the museum’s digital storytelling screens, where significant symbolic icons in the shape of four very visitors’ videotaped personal narratives are visually large flags, hanging from the high ceiling right near the presented together with texts (which are drawn from visitor book: the flag of the State of Israel, the flag of the narratives, in the form of word clouds). Indeed, the Israeli army, the Jerusalem municipality flag, and the museums present participatory interfaces through a flag carrying the logo of the Ammunition Hill site. which visitors are invited to participate, specifically These symbols and logos are reiterated inside the by writing, and where the texts that they produce are book—in and on each of its pages. These pages are publicly presented and visualized. In other words, large and thick, and are made of parchment (not of visitors’ writing becomes instantaneously part of the paper). They do not have any lines or graphic arrange- museum’s visual display and design, and their texts ment for where visitors should write their texts (which join other (historic) texts that are already exhibited. allows them a free hand in terms of designing their I now turn to examine two types of visualizations entries), and they include a vertical column consisting of visitors’ textual productions. The two illustrations of the four symbols that appear on the flags nearby show interactions of different orders between audi- (figs. 1 and 2). Through this iconic repetition of images, ences and institutions, where both are predominantly now on the writing surface itself, the semiotics of the Jewish. The first example is taken from the Ammunition book’s surfaces are dually tied into the aesthetics and Hill National Commemoration Museum, and revolves spaces of national commemoration where the book is
11 On the visualization of words in word cloud technology see Self-representation and Digital Culture (New York: Palgrave the recent work by linguistic anthropologist Laura M. Ahearn, Macmillan, 2012). “Detecting research patterns and paratextual features in AE word 12 Like the Post-it notes interactive exhibition, the digital story- clouds, keywords, and titles.” American Ethnologist 41.1 (2014): telling exhibition, too, is available both on-site and online at http:// 17–30. On digital storytelling in museums see Nancy Thumim, iys.nmajh.org (accessed July 31, 2014). 10 Ç´È°É Ê¶Ë
Fig. . Pages/Spreads from the Ammunition Hill Visitor Book of ££§–££, Jerusalem, ¬–. Photo- graph by Chaim Noy.
Fig. . Pages/Spreads from the Ammunition Hill Visitor Book of ££§–££, Jerusalem, ¬–. Photograph by Chaim Noy. “®¯¯°±² ³´¯ µ¶°·¯¸” 11 located and where it functions as a public medium. Eric texts, on the one hand, with the museum’s national Laurier and Angus Whyte observe in their ethnography symbols and logos, on the other hand. More specically of mundane writing practices—and we must keep and subtly, visitors’ texts are arranged close to and in mind that the visitor book, too, is a document— largely to the sides of the vertical column of symbols. “Documents are composed in and of particular places,” Although a few of the texts and the signatures are and the symbols are means of assuring this semiotic written over the printed symbols, the general design of association.Ì The symbols grant the book’s surfaces visitors’ writing evinces a number of entries (§–¬) on a special aura and a special look, which designate each side of the vertical column. A kind of symmetry its function. These pages comprise “ ‘special’ paper, is visible, where the entries are arranged vertically to inviting ‘special’ writing,” in the words of linguistic the sides of the printed symbols. Also, the spreads in anthropologist Jan Blommaert.Î Figures and show the lively collection of visitors’ Another consequence of the presence of the printed visualized “voices”—one may almost hear the visual symbols on the book’s pages is that anything and every- entries (as mentioned, in the background a continu- thing that will be written on these pages will stand in ous recitation of the dead soldiers’ names is clearly relation to these canonic (or hegemonic) symbols. In audible). The visitors are “speaking” and expressing other words, just as the many texts in the museum’s themselves through the essentially visual means of general display supply the context for visitors’ actions, orthography on spaces that are made to be visually so do the symbols printed in the book supply the visual consumed. and semiotic context for visitors’ texts. All the entries In addition, the visual design that is reveled in these in the visitor book will be seen near, or read against pages (gs. and ) is essentially a collective design. It the visual book-scape of national symbolism. So, on the amounts to a visual polyphony in that it conveys the wide and deeply symbolic pages of the Ammunition traces that visitors chose to leave in the book in the Hill commemorative visitor book, visitors’ texts are form of handwritten autographs and text. I stress publicly visualized in a highly ideological fashion. The the point that the layout is visually polyphonic cohesive visual power of national symbolism was noted because in terms of content, the majority of the by art historian Ernst Gombrich, who, while observ- texts in the book repeat and (re)conrm the site’s ing the aesthetics of national symbols, states “what is conservative national-militaristic ideology. In this striking is the way in which anything that enters this regards the texts are signicantly more monophonic eld of force is becoming formalized and transmuted than polyphonic. But because the texts are inscribed into a motif.”Ï Following Gombrich, and specically by di»ferent visitors, they possess di»ferent orthogra- addressing Israeli national symbolism, anthropologists phy, color, size, location, and so on. Finally, note the Don Handelman and Leah Shamgar-Handelman show number of graphic images that accompany the texts how texts are assembled together with graphic ele- in these spreads. This nding initially surprised me: ments that were borrowed from the sphere of national nearly half of the book’s entries include at least one symbolism. They conclude that national emblems sort of graphic sign (which could be anything from an are particularly powerful symbols and are “so highly inÁÂated exclamation mark to a curved underline), and stylized and xed in design that any and all presence half of the book’s spreads evince at least one draw- within their visual eld acquires signicance.”¾ ing. This suggests not a contextual or circumstantial Figures and are images of pages, or more accu- multimodality, but one that has to do with the actual rately of spreads, from the ££§–££ visitor book. design of visitor-produced texts.¿ Perceptively, the spreads show the aforementioned The visual elements, which complement and aug- juxtaposition of visitors’ spontaneous and improvised ment the text, and are sometimes o»fered in its stead,
Ì Eric Laurier and Angus Whyte, “ ‘I Saw You’: Searching for Lost ¾ Don Handelman and Leah Shamgar-Handelman, “Aesthet- Love via Practices of Reading, Writing and Responding,” Sociological ics Versus Ideology in National Symbolism—the Creation of the Research Online ¬ (May, ), paragraph .. Emblem of Israel.” Public Culture .ª (££ª), §ª¬. Î Jan Blommaert, “Writing as a Problem: African Grassroots ¿ The former type of multimodality has been in use in the lit- Writing, Economies of Literacy, and Globalization.” Language in erature on writing studies (in the US) for some time, while texts’ Society ªª. (§), ¬§. inherent multimodality has productively emerged during the last Ï Ernst. H. Gombrich, The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychol- decade or so. For the former, see Paul Prior, “From speech genres ogy of Decorative Art (London: Phaidon Press, £¥§), ªª. to mediated multimodal genre systems: Bakhtin, Voloshinov, and 12 Ç´È°É Ê¶Ë serve a number of functions. First, texts in museums not lost). Inside the image, two additional words are are relatively short, even telegraphic (an average word inscribed: lo milhama (no war). These words carry length of an entry in this visitor book is sixteen words), some of the meanings of public gra»ti, because they and are made to be consumed (and produced) as part are placed on the side of the body of the tank (the side of the routine of a time-constricted visit. In this con- that is facing us, the readers/viewers). In g. , on the text, images are helpful because they are semiotically lower left side of the right page, the text written near condensed and can convey meanings without need of the drawing of the Israeli ÁÂag is this: “B.H. [Be’ezrat much (or any) verbal elaboration. Also, akin to the way Hashem, acronym for ‘God willing’], a visit of the visitors’ textually (re)cite the national narrative that General Sports Instructors class, the Wingate [National the site narrates, visitors can do the same visually by Centre for Physical Education]. Date ª.ª.£. Forever (re)producing the site’s key images and symbols. In lives the State of Israel.” Again, a more masculine other words, visitors’ in situ writing activity need not authorship (and text) accompanies the drawing of a be limited to the linguistic modality (or code), but national symbol. (Note that a failed attempt to draw can take the shape of images and of bi-modal and the Magen David shape appears near the ÁÂag. This is a multi-modal productions consisting of hybrids of texts, trace of the rst attempt, and a reminder of the skills graphics, and symbolic drawings. As for the latter, the and literacies required for drawing and writing even images that are most commonly drawn are expectedly seemingly simple and small texts and images, such as those of the ÁÂag of Israel (two occurrences are visible visitor book entries). These images-cum-texts, or vice on the right page in g. ), the Star of David, and images versa, texts-cum-images suggest a gendered aesthetici- of weaponry and warfare (a combat airplane and two zation and visualization of visitors’ contribution. tanks appear in g. ). Occasionally, more personal The last function that the entries’ visual elements and idiosyncratic images are also sketched: such are accomplish concerns a competition that exists for the little elephant on the upper right side of the left viewers’/readers’ attention. With an average of , page in g. , and the large ÁÂower on the bottom of entries per book and about ten entries per spread, the right page in g. . Other common “lighter” and the larger, more colorful and more visually attractive less canonic images include balloons and clouds. In entries can capture the attention of readers more these cases, the personal meanings of images, such quickly. This, too, may account for the perfusion of as the elephant and the ÁÂower, join in on the array of images in this visitors’ book and for its highly visual visual national symbols and the individual contribution nature, which is partly a result of a deliberate e»fort is visually enmeshed in the visual order of the state. on behalf of the writing-visitors. We are reminded The text accompanying the elephant drawing that resources, such as visitors’ time, are limited and in gure was written by a female visitor: “I feel the rules that hold for the museum display (saliency, (margisha) a tremendous excitement with being born visual attractiveness) also hold for the display within on a day such as this. The Israeli Independence Day. the pages of the visitor book. Malli.” (The entry was written around May th, ££, my translation). Oftentimes, romantic and more light Being _____ at Christmas and playful images, such as this one, are drawn by female visitors. These images are usually colored (red The second visual-textual interface I will discuss con- and pink, sometimes green) and are produced with cerns a writing ritual that takes place at the National a “cute” informal handwriting. Visitors signing near Museum of American Jewish History annually on drawings of national symbols are mostly male. In g. , Christmas day. The ritual takes place as part of a day- on the right page on the lower right-hand side, a male long event that is called “Being _____ at Christmas,” and name (Amitai) is signed above and near an image of is o»fered as an “annual day of family fun.” The museum a tank. The visitor’s name and the tank are enclosed considers this to be one of its “signature events,” which in a line (perhaps in order to ensure that the connec- has been running for more than three decades.À Since tion between the name and the image of the tank is the museum’s inauguration in its new location and
the question of writing,” in Genre in a Changing World, ed. Charles Gunther R. Kress, Theo van Leeuwen, Reading Images: The Gram- Bazerman, Adair Bonini, and Deborah Figueiredo. (Fort Collins, mar of Visual Design, (New York: Routledge, ££¬). Colo.: The WAC Clearinghouse, £); and for the latter see À See “Being [] at Christmas,” accessed August , §, http:// www.nmajh.org/CalendarEvent.aspx?eventid=£. “®¯¯°±² ³´¯ µ¶°·¯¸” 13
Fig. ª. Event logo, Textually Visualizing Jewishness at Christmas, National Museum of American Jewish History, http://www.nmajh.org, accessed December ª, §. Photograph by Chaim Noy. structure in , the “Being _____ at Christmas” day entails signing colorful notes on a highly visible board is the museum’s single busiest day of the year, when it located near the museum’s exit. This installation and receives around ,–,ª visitors. Also since , the associated activity give the day its title: “Being the event’s title was slightly reworded: it traditionally _____ at Christmas”, as well as its visual logo (g. ª). included the word Jewish (Being Jewish at Christmas), The “Being _____ at Christmas” logo discursively and in order to be “more general and accepting” the frames the day in terms that are “more general and word “Jewish” was removed in favor of a dashed line— accepting,” as well as more politically correct. Impor- representing a blank space to be lled.¼ The annual tantly, the logo also marks an invitation for audience event is sponsored by the Robert Saligman Jewish participation, where the blank single-word slot that Heritage Fund and appeals mainly to Jewish families occupies the logo’s visual center is a discursive space and communities residing in the greater Philadelphia stimulating textual imagination. The instructions area.× The event is successful at least partly because to the right of the logo invite visitors to “ll in your the museum steps into the cultural lacuna concerning own blank,” and thus participate, through writing, in “what to do during Christmas.” For many Jewish com- framing and publicly dening what this day means munities and families, the preferred activity, which has to the visitor-writer. Indeed, the text to the right of become a tradition, is going to the movies and dining the logo goes on to o»fer seven words and terms (Dov in Chinese restaurants, which are two types of busi- Noy would have noted the number seven!) that are nesses that are open on Christmas Day. The museum, suggested as examples: “Snowy. Jewish. Happy. Caring. too, is open, and hence the impressive attendance by Generous. Family. Creative.” These words designate predominantly Jewish visitors. Throughout the day a very broad range of potential semiotic categories, the museum o»fers family-friendly cultural events and conveyed through nouns and adjectives. The adjective activities with a Jewish ÁÂavor, including a stand-up “Jewish” is not missing from the list, but it is o»fered comedy act, clay and other creative workshops for as one possible category. By o»fering a space for the children (with designs involving Jewish symbols), sto- audience to ll and thus to complete the event’s logo, rytelling events, and more. Informal lunch is o»fered, the audience is instructed as to how to use the instal- and the museum’s permanent exhibitions and galleries lation, allowing self-denitions produced by on-site are open. participatory writing activity. One of the activities that is unique to this day, Inside the museum, the actual installation is simple and which invites visitors’ contribution and participation, consists of a large white vertical board, at the center of
¼ Interview with Emily August, Director of Public Programs, The number of visitors during this day exceeds the number (December , ª). of visitors on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when the entrance × My observations concur with museum’s survey data, which to the museum is free. indicates that some ¥% of the visitors self-identify as being Jewish. The logo appears on the museum’s webpage (accessed Decem- On the museum’s second most popular day, Martin Luther King Jr. ber ª, §, http://www.nmajh.org) a few weeks before the event. Day, only about a half of the visitors self-identify as being Jewish. 14 Ç´È°É Ê¶Ë
Fig. §. The ‘Being _____ at Christmas’ board (detail), National Museum of American Jewish History, Phila- delphia, §. Photograph by Chaim Noy.
which the event’s logo is printed, and on which visitors’ in the writing activity usually lled the board. Like colorful notes are placed (g. §). On a table nearby, other museum activities o»fered on this day, writing notes and markers are o»fered (g. ). The installation notes and posting them is a truly collaborative family is conspicuously located right near the museum’s exit activity, which is sometimes initiated by children and (where visitor books are traditionally located), where sometimes by their parents (and grandparents). The it cannot be missed by visitors who are on their way latter usually ask the young “what do you feel?” and out of the museum. the children write down the short answer on the note. During the course of the “Being _____ at Christ- On a number of occasions I saw young writers regret mas” day, the board attracts attention and activity on writing, such as in the case where a ten-year-old boy behalf of museum visitors and sta»f, and on average, from Philadelphia threw away the note he wrote, saying one-hundred and ten notes are posted on it. I was sur- to his father “I messed up my handwriting.” prised to see that the rst posts on the board appeared As the board gets crowded with notes, the visual in the morning, shortly after the museum opened. impression is of a vivid, Jewish, textual space. This These posts were prepared by museum volunteers, impression is accomplished by the salient location and when I asked the museum’s Programs Director of the board and its colorfulness, as well as by the why this is done, the reply had an apologetic tone: relatively large number of notes that have the word “so people [visitors] would know what to do,” and one “Jewish” inscribed on them (or related terms, such of the volunteers o»fered “these are samples.”Ì Then, as “Jewmazing” and “Jew-nicent!”), by a “Jewish” mainly during the afternoon, when visitors are on vocabulary (“a mensch” and “Oy Vey”), by multiple their way out, children and families who participate Magen David drawings and drawings of men with
Ì Inviting the museum’s volunteers to partake in the ritual, organizational functions. It is a way of showing gratitude to the and more so to be the rst to post on the board, might also serve volunteers’ work, specically in regards to the crowded day ahead. “®¯¯°±² ³´¯ µ¶°·¯¸” 15
Fig. . Writing supplies: colorful papers and markers, National Museum of American Jewish History, Phila- delphia, §. Photograph by Chaim Noy. kippah and pe’ot, by signing with recognizably Jewish Fig. ¬ shows a father lifting his daughter so she can names and surnames (“Levi”), and by writing in Hebrew post the note she wrote above (all) other notes on top I love Hanukkah,” of the board. Her two sisters, a few visitors and a few“] ”היהודיה!!“ ,”שלום“ ,”אני ,אוהב חנוכה“) “Shalom,” “The Jewess!!”], seen in g. §,)—and of course volunteers are observing enjoyably. These notes are by the multi-modal combinations of these elements. posted outside the box, as it were, and I understand Every year, visitors deliberately post a few notes their recurrence as a performance that relates to the outside the space delineated by the board’s surface. notion of “being Jewish” by way of thinking outside These notes are posted a little under and a little above the box or being a (Jewish) smart aleck. The image the board. I mention this little ritual (within a ritual), in the gure ¬ captures a moment of the actual post- because it adds to the overall visual impression of ing of a note—a moment where two visitors (father Jewish textuality and identity, as it physically extends and young daughter) are collaborating in the physical it beyond the limits of the writing surface. The notes construction of the visual arrangement of the board. A that are added outside the board are special in con- minute or so earlier, the mother suggested that they’d tent: they are humorous and reÁÂexive, and index the write, and the daughter (the youngest of three) wanted very act of writing in situ.Î On Christmas ª, the to post the note, and the father suggested its location three notes on top of the board included these texts and content (indicating the topmost note)—and used (in ascending order): “TOP,” “WAY TOP!!” and “WAY, his physical strength to lift the girl so high. This is a col- WAY TOP,” while the words inscribed on the two notes laborative (familial) production through and through, posted under the board were (in descending order): which contributes to the overall collective visual “BOTTOM” and “DOUBLE BOTTOM.” arrangement of the “Being _____ at Christmas” design.
Î In the terms suggested by of Roman Jakobson, “Closing state- Technology, £¬), ª–ª©©. At stake are metalingual (or reÁÂexive) ment: linguistics and poetics,” in Style in Language, ed. Thomas A. functions. Sebeok (Cambridge: Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of 16 Ç´È°É Ê¶Ë
Fig. ¬. Reaching high: “WAY, WAY TOP,” National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, §. Photograph by Chaim Noy.
The nal display of the “Being _____ at Christmas” input in the shape of voices and visual traces. In addi- installation is highly visual, combining texts, colors tion, the notes system allows the museum’s sta»f better and graphic images in a way that is multimodal in a control over visitors’ publicly expressed contents, and twofold fashion.Ï As with the commemorative visi- every year a number of notes that are judged “irrel- tor book at the Ammunition Hill, multimodality here evant” are removed from the board (such as notes that concerns both the contextual-circumstantial features made reference to pop culture icon, Justin Bieber). of the object(s) and visitors’ actual textual production. This action is pursued easily and does not leave traces. Yet compared with the commemorative visitor book, The removal or deletion of texts from visitor books is the latter kind of multimodality, the one that emerges a di»ferent matter: it is more di»cult, it usually leaves from visitors’ textual production, is limited. The notes, traces (marks of deletion) and in all the museums I though multiple and colorful, o»fer very limited space studied the curators consistently opposed any kind of and possibilities for writing: if the average length of a censorship on what visitors write in them. visitor book entry is sixteen words, the average length The colorful “Being _____ at Christmas” board sat- of texts written on the notes is two words. This is a ises the museum’s expectations and needs: it o»fers (sub-)telegraphic mode of communication, or better a vivid, audience-contributed exhibition, it visually even: pseudo-communication. It allows only a bare captures and portrays a collective of (mainly Jewish) minimum when it comes to visitors’ and audiences’ visitors, and it o»fers a festive and enjoyable—the word
Ï I note that Christmas celebrations are characterized by University Press, ££ª), ©–§. The question of the correspond- a particularly salient visual element and have been studied ing Jewish visual tradition and public visibility consists one of productively as a visual tradition. See Russell W. Belk, “Mate- the subtexts of the museal event, and may account, too, for the rialism and the making of the modern American Christmas,” predominantly visual and “high-spirited” nature of this installation. in Unwrapping Christmas, ed. Daniel Miller (Oxford: Oxford “®¯¯°±² ³´¯ µ¶°·¯¸” 17
“merry” comes to mind—activity on Christmas day. on the one hand, and the actual vivid design of the Visitors supply a variety of words and symbols, which inscriptions themselves, on the other. they inscribed and draw on the notes, and which is The museums di»fer in their textual multimodalities. their way of declaring who they are on Christmas day: In these two heritage museums, varying visualizations “Jewish,” “smiley,” “happy,” “together,” “warm,” “thank- are institutionally o»fered and, correspondingly, vari- ful,” and even: “Questioning the wisdom of having a ous textual/visual contributions are pursued by their second child”—are examples. Yet regardless of what audiences. First, the two institutions’ Jewish agendas they write, it is clear where they are and what they are di»ferent: to strengthen ethno-national identity are doing at Christmas, namely visiting the National and center it around the national-military complex, at Museum of American Jewish History and partaking in Ammunition Hill, and to celebrate Jewish individuals Jewish writing and signing ritual (indeed, on one of the and families in the Northeastern United States by par- posted notes a visitor wrote reÁÂexively and humorously ticipating in a festive communal event, at the National the word: “here”). The handwritten texts are indexical Museum of American Jewish History. The Israeli com- in that they mark a physical association with their memoration museum holds a conservative-nationalist writers, and they tell all those involved—the visitors agenda that advocates the glorication of national sym- who write, the visitors who observe, and the museum bolism and war-related death and heroism, while the sta»f and volunteers—that the writers have truly been Philadelphia museum is liberal, and holds a progressive at the museum on Christmas day. In other words, the agenda that narrates the history, livelihood, integra- inscriptions’ subtext is not merely “I was here,” which tion and accomplishments of Jewish individuals and rests at the core of all visitor book inscriptions, but communities in the United States. These agendas are more specically: “Being writer/visitor-at-the-National- di»ferent and even contradictory, and the multimodal Museum-of-American-Jewish-History at Christmas.”¾ contexts for visitors’ participation di»fer dramatically. They take the shape of commemorative, symbolic and Conclusions somber visitor book, in one site, versus colorful and lively surface(s) in the other, each with its own set of I was propelled toward the ethnographic study of texts and icons. museums by an interest in the visual (re)presentation Second, relatedly, these museums o»fer and invite and visualization of Jewish texts. In the museums I opportunities to write in di»ferent mood-scapes: the studied, the most dominant and widespread fabric solemnness surrounding the visitor book in Jerusalem of display was in fact textual, whereby texts served a versus the festive atmosphere surrounding the day-long number of semiotic functions, over and above their tra- event at the Philadelphia museum, and with it the ditional role of supplying information about the items cheerfulness associated with Christmas. Visitors’ visual on display and conferring their value and authenticity. variations correspond with these identity mood-scapes, The interesting turn towards audience participation and while humor is legitimate and in fact common and visual-cum-textual contributions had emerged in the writing ritual of the “Being ____ at Christmas” because these museums also o»fer writing interfaces for event, at the Ammunition Hill humor is not present. visitors. These comprise of highly visible surfaces, and In addition to the lighter and more amusing texts, what visitors write thereon becomes instantaneously such as “with Lyla,” “hungry” and “Questioning the an “authentic” part of the museum’s textual display— wisdom of having a second child,” that are inscribed that is, a(nother) textual artifact from the recent, at the Philadelphia museum, there are also those notes rather than distant, past. In both the Ammunition Hill I referred to as the Jewish smart-aleck texts (like the National Commemoration Museum and in the National “DOUBLE BOTTOM”) that are physically positioned Museum of American Jewish History, texts on display outside the space of the board, or reÁÂexive-humorous are often multimodal and hybrid, combining di»ferent text (“here”). At Ammunition Hill, visitors’ texts are not semiotic modalities and codes. This multimodality is playful and are not positioned outside the book (they itself multiple, and concerns the spatial and physical don’t evince a kind of Jewish smart aleck performance). context and materiality of the texts’ representations, In Jerusalem, emotional and ideological texts that seem
¾ See, Noy, Thank You for Dying, ©ª–£. 18 Ç´È°É Ê¶Ë
“lighter” only serve the museum’s discursive agenda in is essentially composite. Texts and materiality come further mobilizing and colonizing mundane semiotic together to comprise a narrative lore, a memory that is texts and icons under national symbolism. collectively embodied, evincing no organic distinctions In all these cases, we may say that multimodality between modalities. I recall my father illustrating this suggests that the people or the audiences are seeing often by pointing at the folkloric elements concealed and all of the in the biblical text (the epitome of texts), that had to“ ”, וְ כָ ל-הָעָ ם רֹאִ ים אֶ ת-הַ ּקֹוֹלת“ :”the “voices audience/people sees the voices.” That is, I am not only do with rhythm, sound (alliteration), and the embodied interested in the text’s visual elements (or the textual performance of the Genesis stories before they were elements of the visual sphere), but also in practices, inscribed and canonized. Folklore is sensuous in that specically visual practices (seeing, gazing). Not only its wisdom resides in the senses and in the moments representations but also social actions that people of its performance, and this is an important lesson publicly engage in: the texts are read in as much as they that museums teach with their prominently visual are gazed upon and seen; and the texts are written in displays. The Museum of Ethnology and Folklore in as much as they are sketched and drawn. Haifa embodied the idea of having the stories and Returning to Dov Noy’s holistic, integrated, and the artifacts stored together, under the same roof and subversive vision of folklore and the little Museum within the same (semiotic) space. They weren’t di»fer- of Ethnology and Folklore in Haifa. For Noy, folklore ent materials, but perhaps di»ferent access points for or tradition (masoret), is at the crux of culture and those seeking to engage with folklore.