TIFFANY SHLAIN

Referencing dendrochronologies and archeology in its title, this unorthodox timeline of the Jewish people is an artistic interpretation based on extensive research and consultation with scholars.Trees hold deep significance in Jewish tradition—from the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life to the annual celebration of Tu BiShvat, the new year for trees. Like a tree’s growth, Jewish time is understood as both circular and linear. This tree ring plays with these two forms of time to depict a particular selection of 134 powerful, profound, hard and humorous milestones in Jewish history, from the beginning of Jewish time almost six thousand years ago—on a Monday—to the Inquisition, to the date US demand for bagels exceeds that of doughnuts in America (1999), to today, when “If you ask two Jews what it means to be Jewish, you will get three opinions . . . maybe more.”