artiststory: Fresh Directions

30 June 2013

Fresh Directions

Ariel University

The Jerusalem Post, 28 June 2013

Sir – Hamadallah’s resignation from being a powerless Prime Minister in a corrupt Palestinian Authority with a bogus “peace” process is good news (“Abbas accepts Hamadallah’s resignation” June 24).

His return to the presidency of An-Najah University offers him a creative opportunity to become an honest peacemaker. Rami Hamdallah has the power to initiate a real peace process by driving 20 minutes to meet with Dan Meyerstein. Hamdallah used his creative energies to build a small college into a major university in Nablus while Meyerstein built a major university a mere 12 miles away in Ariel.

Today, 600 Arab students study in Ariel University. Hamdallah can initiate a genuine peace process by inviting 600 Jewish students to study in An-Najah University.

These two neighboring universities working together can forge fresh directions for Arabs and Jews to live in peace with each other between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River.

Mel Alexenberg, Ra’anana

The writer is professor emeritus at Ariel University

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Rethinking Creativity and Spirituality in a Postdigital Age

About the Artist

Mel Alexenberg is an artist, educator, writer, and blogger working at the interface between art, science, technology, culture, and Jewish thought and experience. His artworks explore interrelationships between the networked world and spirituality, postdigital art and Jewish consciousness, space-time systems and electronic technologies, and participatory art and community values. His artworks are in the collections of more than forty museums worldwide.

Alexenberg was professor of art and education at Columbia University, head of the art department at Pratt Institute, dean at New World School of the Arts in Miami, and research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies. In Israel, he is professor emeritus of art and Jewish thought at Ariel University, head of Emunah College School of the Arts, and former professor at Bar-Ilan University and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

Born and educated in New York, Alexenberg earned degrees at Queens College, Yeshiva University, and New York University. He lives with his wife, artist Miriam Benjamin, in
Ra'anana, Israel.

The Soul of a Creator

Whoever is endowed with the soul of a creator must create works of imagination and thought, for the flame of the soul rises by itself and one cannot impede it on its course.... The creative individual brings vital, new light from a higher source where originality emanates to the place where it has not previously been manifest, from the place that "no bird of prey knows, nor has the falcon's eye seen" (Job 28:7), "that no man has passed, nor has any person dwelt" (Jeremiah 2:6). From Lights of Holiness by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook

Mel Alexenberg's Recent Books

Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media (HarperCollins, 2019)

Photograph God: Creating a Spiritual Blog of Your Life (CreateSpace, 2015)

The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness (Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press, 2011)

Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and Culture (Intellect Books/ University of Chicago Press, 2008)

Dialogic Art in a Digital World: Judaism and Contemporary Art (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass House, 2008) in Hebrew

The Future of Art in a Digital Age (Intellect Books, 2006)