The work of California-based artist Harriete Estel Berman features feminist, environmental and religious themes, often in the same piece. This is true of the “Eons of Exodus” seder plate, created for the 2009 Dorothy Saxe Invitational at the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco, which was recently acquired for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ Harold and Mickey Smith Gallery of Jewish Arts and Culture. The plate was purchased with the Eloise and Elliot Kaplan Endowment for Judaica. Constructed from recycled tin cans and vintage steel toys, the seder plate commemorates Jewish emigration over thousands of years. Embossed images of traditional Passover foods are joined by the addition of an orange, a contemporary symbol of support for the inclusion of gays, lesbians and women as full-fledged participants in Jewish ritual. — E.E.B.
