A Jewish Lens on Privacy & Openness - Sh'ma features Flora Rosefsky

 

November's issue of Sh'ma includes a collection of essays on what Judaism teaches about the question of privacy vs. openness. How does the mezuzah frame not only the door of our home, but also who we are as public and private people? When do we protect confidences, and when is keeping secrets morally untenable?
The recent news about alleged voyeurism at a Washington mikveh — a place where privacy is an absolute necessity — raises questions not only about the behavior of the voyeur, but also about the obligation of communal leaders to shed a public light on wrongdoing.

On Shma.com view this month's online art exhibition with work by Flora Rosefsky. 
Read more about her Privacy art in Sh'ma here.

Other conversations in this issue:

Dov Greenberg: As a Chabad rabbi, I do not covet privacy; rather, my family and I open ourselves with love to the outside world, and in so doing, we — along with the Jewish students who visit us — are transformed.

Sacha Litman: We need to work as a collective set of organizations to pool data, learn more about each individual Jew's interests, and get smarter about providing people with the right opportunity at the right time.

Ira Stone: How open to be, how much of our private lives to share with others in the public sphere, is a question that looms larger and larger in our culture today. Negotiating between the private and the public is something that various streams of Jewish tradition have wrestled with.

Adina Levin: Do people overshare on social media, and does this cause harm? A look at the writings of a sociologist and a Jewish ethicist illustrate very different approaches to this subject.

Highlights from this month's S-Blog include:
Alon Ferency asks, "Is it possible to lie to God?"

Yael Roberts wonders who else may be watching us when we think we are alone — especially in light of the alleged abuse of privacy at a Washington D.C. mikveh.