The brand new exhibition opens on the YIVO Institute for Jewish Analysis close to Union Sq..
Helayne Seidman for NY Put up
A Massive Apple analysis institute has launched a “joint” effort — tracing the roots of marijuana again to the Bible.
The upcoming exhibition on the YIVO Institute for Jewish Analysis close to Union Sq. examines the historic relationship between The Chosen Individuals and hashish.
‘Excessive’lights of the show will embrace objects repurposed for hashish consumption, comparable to a menorah-shaped bong, and the “Tokin’ Jew” seder plate.
It was the bong that first sparked the curiosity of Eddy Portnoy, the exhibit’s curator. He requested the pipe’s maker, Grav, to donate one to the institute as an artifact of Jewish tradition.
“I believed to myself there’s in all probability extra on the market like this,” Portnoy stated. “I started to do analysis and never solely did I discover much more artifacts … however I found this entire historical past of Jews and hashish that had actually been unknown to me and doubtless plenty of different individuals.”
That historical past goes again to the Previous Testomony in a passage within the e-book of Exodus about an altar for burning incense with herbs together with kaneh bosem, which is regarded as hashish, he stated.
The exhibit will even function a form of buy order for pot, courting to the 1200s. The doc, which was present in a Cairo synagogue within the 1800s, exhibits the letter author asking for textiles and cannabis in trade for silver, Portnoy stated.
That doc, and others from the cache, can be reproduced for the exhibit, together with a poem poking enjoyable at individuals who smoke cannabis saying, “They eat all the pieces in sight.”
“It’s this bizarre kind of early Fifteenth-century reference to the munchies,” Portnoy stated.
The exhibit additionally talks about notable Jewish figures within the hashish canon, together with Israeli scientist Raphael Mechoulam, who was the primary to isolate THC — the compound that gives marijuana’s excessive and CBD which is believed to have medicinal properties — and Jack Right here, the so-called “Emperor of Hemp,” who fought to legalize weed.
YIVO’s exhibit opens on Might 5 and kicks off with a panel dialogue moderated by Portnoy. The exhibition is known as “Am Yisrael Excessive,” a play on the slogan “Am Yisrael Chai,” which suggests, “The individuals of Israel reside.”
“The exhibit takes the topic significantly and plenty of analysis was carried out, however as a result of it’s hashish there was the likelihood to have somewhat little bit of enjoyable with it,” Portnoy stated.
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