Life Intervenes: the New Reality

Eternity Includes Women

“…word, Hashem* or the letters of the name, yud-kai-vav-kai, for that ultra-sacred word {that} cannot be uttered. Rabbis have noted that the letters for Yehova, in different configurations, spell the words hayah, hoveh, yehyeh – past, present, future. However, Rabbis did not go a step further to notice this name, so holy that it cannot be uttered, is the only name for G_D that has no gender. Eternity includes women.”

Hashem*, the daily spoken word for Yehova in Orthodox Judaism, GYH

Helene Aylon, in her 2012 book Whatever Is Contained Must Be Released: My Jewish Orthodox Girlhood, My Life as a Feminist Artist.

“Me nemt der Reboineh Shel Oylam mit de vontzes”… “One grabs God, King of the Universe, by the mustache”, is a Yiddish idiom, describing a radical questioning of religious and received moral status quo. For a woman raised in extreme orthodoxy, married at 18 and mother of two children, to have ever written the words above about Yehovah, would have been considered unthinkable heresy. Helene’s life and art demonstrated that a thinking woman could overturn a brain-washed upbringing and strike out into the world to create a personal practice informed by her singular convictions.

Helene pioneered in both the ultra-orthodox community as well the contemporary art world. Undaunted by the rigid, sequestered and judgmental traditions of her youth, she fearlessly left her formerly sheltered life in 1986 to embrace a world of unknowns. Her life-style choices as an artist in New York City would have been considered “charpa oon shande” (Yiddish, disgrace and shame) by her former community. Currently, however, more women are leaving their religious restraints, while still maintaining their religious beliefs, and adapting their practice to a new lifestyle within a Jewish renewal society. This shift is presently reflected in true-story television movies such as Unorthodox and One of Us.

I am deeply saddened to hear of Helene’s passing. I am all the more grateful to have known her since the early ’70s as she began to express her feminism and to reify her political and social concerns against war and injustice. In the mid ’70s, I was privileged to participate in her “Sand Gathering” project in Los Angeles, in which women of many ethnicities and cultures gathered beach sand to fill 100s of pillows which were brought to the UN in an “Earth Ambulance”, signifying our common statement against war. For over forty decades, I witnessed Helene’s many changing, daring and deepening visions on many levels which were reflected in her art, her writing, and her life. Most recently, in February 2020, I spent the day with Helene at her revelatory exhibition of early work, “Pouring” and “Silver” paintings at Marc Selwyn Gallery, LA. She was thrilled to see the powerful early work that had been languishing in storage for years, in a new and appreciated context.

As Helene’s radical installations, paintings and performances were presented in museums internationally, she pushed the margins of the art world as she expanded feminism to include those who were formerly cloistered. She furthered the role of women in art as we know it. Her unique contributions in various media continuously challenged the status quo and revealed that which was not only previously concealed, but also that which had been unallowable.

May Helene’s courage, life and art continue to inspire others, always.