Skirball Cultural Center

How can you be a force for good? Head to Plummer Park in West Hollywood to reflect on the Jewish value of justice for the Skirball's first-ever off-site exhibition. 

On view are six monuments meant to evoke large tzedakah boxes—vessels in which Jews traditionally collect money to be donated to charity. The goal of Be the Change: A Jewishly Inspired Public Art Movement is to elevate this concept physically and conceptually, using the tzedakah box as a sculptural form that can drive change in our community.

Participating organizations, themes, and artists:

• Holocaust Museum LA—The meaning and purpose of tzedakah
  • By an eleventh-grade world history class at Whittier High School
• LA vs. Hate—Indigenous communities
  • By interdisciplinary visual artist River T. Garza
• Nature Nexus Institute—Environmental justice
  • By artists Azul Calderon, Diandra Dillon, Akari Johnston, Joanna Ruacho, Stacey Vigallon, and Brian Young
• The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and PJ Library—Tikkun olam (Hebrew for "heal the world") 
  • By concept developer, community engagement artist, and creative consultant  Marni Gittleman and muralist and creative engineer Bobby Z. Rodriguez
• Pico Union Project—The housing crisis
  • By whimsical artist Mr. B Baby
• Skirball Cultural Center—Religion and social justice
  • By self-taught American Lebanese artist Alex Ahmad Abli

Be the Change is a national project started by the Boston-based Jewish Arts Collaborative (J Arts), which serves as lead producer. Artist Caron Tabb—whose Fabric of Humanity—Repairing My World was recently on view at the Skirball—was inspired to create the exhibition concept in partnership with Ruth Messinger, former CEO and President of American Jewish World Service.