Julie Weitz

Doikayt / hereness

an ongoing photographic performance series

2022-Present

Since 2018, Weitz’s research has explored intersections of diasporic identity, folklore, and embodied memory. Through her ongoing photographic performance project Doikayt/Hereness, she engages with prewar Yiddish art, poetry, and performance—often imbued with a queer sensibility—to position Yiddish culture as a transformative model for reclaiming language and identity amid ethnic violence and displacement. The term doikayt, meaning "hereness" in Yiddish, calls for rooted presence and a critical reflection on belonging and the embodied experience of Jewishness within the diaspora.

Yiddish folktales from Eastern Europe, preserved across centuries, teem with mythological figures like tzadiks, dybbuks, and golems—archetypes that once animated the dreams and daily lives of Jewish communities before the Holocaust. The tzadik, a holy figure often disguised as a beggar; the dybbuk, a restless spirit inhabiting a living body; and the golem, a clay protector summoned in times of peril, each reflect the profound creativity and resilience of the Yiddish spiritual imagination. By investigating how caricature, folklorism, and emplacement can reimagine the narratives of diasporic culture, Weitz revitalizes these mythic symbols as contemporary tools for understanding memory and belonging.

For further insight into her process, see her 2023 essay in Ayin Press. [Read it here.]