"Art Isn't Easy" - An Interview with Beatrice Levine - Shebrew in the City

Episode Transcript
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Nicole Kelly (00:02):
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(00:30):
Okay, good, all right, so sorry, we had to.
We had a dog that got locked in.
Hi, I'm, it's my life.
Hi, I'm Nicole Kelly and thisis Shebrew in the City, and
today I'm interviewing arthistorian and my fellow
classmate, Beatrice Levine.
How are you doing today?
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm interviewing art historianand my fellow classmate,
Beatrice Levine.
How are you doing today?
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
I feel like we've been hypingeach other up on Instagram like

(00:51):
all week about this, and you'remy new hype girl, which I love.

Beatrice Levine (00:55):
I love that.
I mean, everybody needs a hypegirl.
I need to be my own hype girlmore you do you do?

I was so nervous to reach out to you because
we're in our second classtogether now and you're such an
eloquent writer and I was sointimidated by your posts at
school.
I was like I don't know, I'mnervous, I wish everyone could
see my face right now.

It just dropped .
I have never thought of myselfas an eloquent writer.
And then I went to grad schooland I started grad school, which
we'll get into.
I was told repeatedly how badmy writing was, really.

I feel like the problem with my writing is I'm
very direct, which I'm told isgood for academic writing, so
clearly I'm going into the rightfield.
But I feel like I want to zhuzhthings up a little bit and then
I have my husband look at itand he uses very descriptive
language and I'm like no, that'stoo, that's too descriptive.

So trying to find the historian in me.
Everything is like superflowery and like lots of
adjectives.

No, I'm like this is what happened Then, this was
the cause of it and this is whathappened after.
And that's kind of how I write.
I write very nonfiction-y, soI'm.

See, I need more of that I need more of that
Hemingway-esque.

We have to.
We have to.
We have to meet in the middle.
Um, anyways, we'll, we'll getinto a grad school, and all that
later.
Um, so I usually start off byasking my guests, uh, where they
are originally from and if, uh,they had a Jewish upbringing
and what that upbringing waslike.
Like, did you have a mitzvah?
Did you go to temple?
All of that.

Oh my gosh, I feel like this is going to be
the longest part of the podcast.

We've got time.
Don't worry about it, we've gotplenty of time.

So I don't know if you know this about me, but
I'm actually an army brat, Iremember reading that, yeah.
And so I grew up all over.
So I was like born in Arizonabut lived there for three months
, and I've written about thisbefore.
We moved to like former EasternB germany in december of 93 so
I was born in october of 93,aging myself here, and then we

(02:48):
moved to germany like decemberof 93.
So I really was not familiarwith america.
I have been to arizona sincethen and have like no connection
to it, but I spent the majorityof my life in germany actually.
So I was there a small, smallchild from like ages like three
or zero to three, like Vilsack,wurzburg, places like that, like

(03:09):
all big installation names, ifanyone's like military
affiliated.
And then we moved toJacksonville, florida, for a
little while.
My mother and father went toschool in North Florida.
So I think that was their firstattempt, and sort of like
misguided attempt, to be likewhy don't we be closer to family
?
Would that be nice?
And then after about a yearthey were like this is not for
us.
Who wants to be close to familywhen you could be living

(03:32):
overseas?
So we moved back to Germany, toa place called Heidelberg.
Then we were in Kansas for alittle while, which is where the
Kansas connection kind ofstarts.
Then to England for two yearsduring like Operation iraqi
freedom and, you know, the warsin afghanistan.
So I was um there post 9-11,which is a weird way to like
like slice up your life, butlike pre and post 9-11 if you're

(03:54):
a military person is like avery big indicator of time.
It's like post 9-11.
We were in england for twoyears and then back to
heidelberg, germany, and that'swhere I spent like fifth grade
all the way through high school,so that's where I was the
longest in terms of the jewishupbringing also very odd.
So I would say I'm like what youwould call like ethnically
jewish.

(04:14):
So like, obviously my last nameis levine, my dad is jewish
ethnically, his dad is jewish.
He had a bar mitzvah and thenthat's where sort of like
observation stopped in ourfamily and we very much became
like that East Coast big,low-locks Jewish family.
I'm like, no, we don't observeanything and no, you and your
sister aren't Jewish, but likewe're going to watch Seinfeld
all the time and everyone'sgoing to say, oy, and it was

(04:37):
just very much that.
And I really connected withthat growing up, like I was
especially growing up, like Iwas especially growing up in
germany.

I was like the weird kid who was like
fascinated by like the holocaustand frank and like you know,
and I'm like you know myfeelings on in frank um, we had
a whole conversation about andfrank yes, and but it was like I
was like doing the math of likeoh, she was alive not that long
ago and she was born infrankfurt, which I go to all the
time.

Right, like it was really having like personal
connection to her and soconstantly asking things about
like our Jewish heritage andconstantly being like like I
wanted a bat mitzvah and Iwanted a sweet 16 and my dad's
mom's portugese, I wantedquinceanera, like I wanted all
of it, and it was just very muchlike no, no, no, no.
Like you're good, you're finethe way you are.
And when I got into my latetwenties I was going through a

(05:28):
breakup and I had read thatSarah Hurwitz, who wrote her
fantastic book, had started herJewish journey after the White
House, her time at the WhiteHouse.
Because she was going through abreakup and just like wanted
something to do.
And I was like you know whatFor like, for like 28, I was
like maybe I should startlooking into like finally, like

(05:48):
my the jewish heritage I have inmy family, like I was, I've
always just been so drawn to itand like she went through a
breakup when she was goingthrough this I'm going through a
breakup, like maybe this willgive me time, something to do,
and so I reached out to the urjand they connected me with a
rabbi who was in Topeka, becausethere have been Jews in Topeka.
I was in Kansas at the time, soit's like the 1800s.

What is the name of this rabbi?
Samuel Stern?
Okay, because they're one ofthe rabbis at my synagogue.
I feel like her father-in-lawis one of the few rabbis in
Kansas, and I'm going to, yeah,yeah, so this one of the few
rabbis in kansas, and I'm goingto, yeah, yeah, so this it, and
I think he's a reform rabbi.
So, yes, I feel like.
I feel like we talked aboutthis um, on my episode with her

(06:31):
cool.
He's very young, he's new to thetemple and so if he's young, no
, not no, this is like an olderperson.

So, and he's retiring well, he's definitely
going to be out here in kansassomewhere because kansas city
has a big jewish community,which we'll get into later, I'm
sure.
But they kind of plopped me onhis desk and they're like, hey,
this girl who's at ku isinterested because, weirdly,
even though he has a largejewish community, there's no
temple in lawrence, like there'sno services like that.
There's a very big halal andlike a big khabar, but nothing

(06:58):
else.
And so he's like, okay, whydon't we have you go through
like the full conversion process?
Like you were never, youclearly jewish, you know, you
clearly have that spark likethat sarah harris talks about,
but you were not bat mitzvahed,you didn't grow up in the temple
like you didn't, you know, dothe holidays.
Like why don't we have you gothrough the whole conversion
process?
I think that'll be verymeaningful for you.
And so I was going through thewhole conversion process,

(07:19):
finished up, I was a month awayfrom my mikvah ceremony and 10-7
happened.
So then I he I think he thoughtI was gonna stop, I really
think he thought I was gonna belike, okay, I can't do it, like
it's real now.
And I said, no, I still wouldlike to go through with my
mikvah ceremony.
And so a month after 10-7 Iwent to the mikvah and became

(07:40):
like a full jewish woman, likeon paper.
So I would say like that was mybat mitzvah so I never had to
have one but that one reallyfelt that really felt as close
to it as you can get.

Did the mikvah charge you like five hundred
dollars?

I'm so lucky, I have no idea, because I was a
con, because I'm technicallylike a convert or whatever.

No, the mikvah here the mikvah here for
conversions charges like fivehundred dollars, like no joke,
the Upper West Side Mikva,because I spoke I saw this on
their website and I spoke tosomeone who I know who just
converted.
They're like nah, it washundreds of dollars to go, did
they?

they paid for it.

They had to pay for it Like out of pocket.

No, not me.

Very lucky, clearly you need to go to a
Mikva in Kansas.
Then yeah, very lucky, clearlyyou need to go to a mcfun kansas
.

Then, yeah, my rabbi pulled up in his tesla and
he was like, let's do it.
And all my girlfriends werethere, his wife was in there
with me.
It was amazing.
So, no, I I'm sure it costmoney, but I have no idea
amazing.

I love that and I love that you decided to do that
in the wake of 10 7, when it'sa terrifying time to be a jewish
person everywhere well, youknow what I?

I think I told Rabbi Stern this and I really
did think he thought I was likemaybe going to be like okay,
like let's pump the brakes onthis.
I was a Jewish person who grewup in Germany in the 90s after
World War II, Like if thatdidn't scare me out of it
nothing was going to.

Are you fluent in German?

No, so I wouldn't say I'm like
conversationally fluent.
I was much more so like in highschool and right out of college
.
But my um reading of German isactually very good, thank god,
and I always say I'm really goodat reading what I call like um,
like a goon German.
So, like you know, whensomeone's a gangster they have
goons.
Because the Nazis had so manylike coded words for things like

(09:23):
the big one's action, right,anytime there was some kind of
nefarious operation was calledan action you know using like
they would use like yeah, thislike weird coded language.
And also something I reallyfigured out reading primary
sources from them is they're notvery smart sorry, I'm choking
on my water so like you'll getlike a phd who's like ahead of a
nine stats group and likewriting back in formal german

(09:45):
about something and then you'llget like like a child's level of
german responding to them thatsounds so yeah, it weirdly was
like a lot really easy for me toread their german because it
was about the same level ofgerman that makes me feel better
because you know you have totake that like aptitude test to
get your doctorate and I'm likewell got to start learning
German, I guess.

(10:06):
So this happened to me when Iwas at the University of Kansas,
originally doing an art historyMA.
They had me take a German likelanguage aptitude test and I
warned my advisor.
I said I'm not going to passthis.
And she's like what do you mean?
Like you grew up in Germany,I've heard you speak German.
I said yeah, but you guys aregiving me an academic article
that had been written in thepast like 10 years in German for

(10:27):
our history.
So like the highest level ofGerman you can think of talking
about modern art in an academicjournal.
I was like that is not theGerman.
I read, yeah, and they had avery hard time understanding
that Interesting.
And then I got the most Germanresponse ever.
I translated it like thepassage or whatever.
They gave it to a germanprofessor to grade.

(10:47):
She gave it back to me.
She said you technicallyunderstood and translated
everything correctly, but youdidn't capture the academic tone
of the german.

so I'm going to fail you oh my gosh, well, well,
better start learning thatgerman in anticipation of
reading some interesting reports.

I'm on Duolingo every day with it still.

I got to learn German, Anyways.
So going back to that, whatbranch of the military were your
parents in?

So my dad was in the Army.
He was a Marine right out ofhigh school.
So he did four years in theMarine Corps, got out, did ROTC
at the University of Florida forthe Army full-ride scholarship
Like really amazing.
That's where he met my mom,because I would say my dad is,
you know, a Puerto Rican Jewfrom the Bronx.
And then he met a lovelySouthern belle you know, in
North Florida who was from NorthFlorida there and then he was

(11:34):
in the Army for over 25 years.
I think, wow, my whole lifeyeah.

Five or 16 years on earth and I'm an older
sibling, so her whole life too.
That is a long time.
Both my grandfather served inworld war II and and my
husband's grandfather served aswell and in um Korea, and his
great grandfather was killed inaction in world war.
Ii Um over.
He was shot down in a plane.
I don't know the specifics, butum by the Japanese.

Well, my mom like it's so interesting that my
mom ended up marrying my dadbecause her dad, her parents,
had her at 40, which you'll lovethis.
As a mother, I'll never forgetwhen I put, like did the math as
a kid and I was like, wait aminute.
So like your sister's 11 yearsolder than you and your
brother's 15 years older thanyou and your other brother's 20
years older than you, and Ilooked at her when I years old

(12:26):
and went.

So you were a mistake.
And she's like, yeah, yeah,technically my grandparents had
a, had a baby like that.
My grandmother was pregnant onher 20th anniversary when, like
she would have been like shewhich, okay, looking back on it,
she was a year younger than meand they acted like this was
this miracle thing.
Like, oh, 38 year old havingher, well, this is a big deal
like my grandmother.

My grandfather got married, so my mom's dad was
in world war two.
That's where I'm getting atwith this.
He was a marauder, you know, inthe Pacific theater and earned
a purple heart.
He was injured and actuallyended up dying in the nineties
when I was one years old,because he had issues with his
heart and they cut him open andwhatever.
Like some fungus from likeBurma had gotten inside of him

(13:04):
during that time and just likegrew on his heart for years and
years and years.
So even though he had a purpleheart like a bronze heart,
that's that still ended upkilling him.
Isn't that crazy?
Like decades later.
But same thing with my grandma,it's like.
You know, they got back.
He got back from war.
She's there.
She's like what?
Barely 18 years old, they starthaving kids immediately.
So when she's having my mom at40 everyone's like oh my god.

Yeah, it was a very, very different time.
Yeah, my grandparents mygrandmother was 17 when they got
married, because he was aboutto ship out and she like
graduated high school.
Then they immediately gotmarried.
Um, because that's what you did.

I'm pretty sure my grandma was like working at
the piggly wiggly, like writingletters in the war, like the
whole thing is nuts I mean, Ilove me some world war ii
history, aside from theholocaust stuff.

I feel like I have though I have very visceral
reactions to world war one filmslike very visceral reactions
like I feel like in another life.
I was in like a trenchsomewhere because I can't it I,
I don't know.
It's very strange have you beento the?
World war one museum in kansascity.
I have never been to kansascity um, you will die.

That museum is huge, like people.
It's kind of like the holocaustmuseum in dc or people like I
wish I had like four days to gothrough it.

I I'm a big world war one fan which, when I have,
you know, another life and canget a second master's, maybe
we'll.
We'll do that, um.
So I want to jump into talkingabout art and how you got
started with that as an armybrat living all over the place
and you being an artist, and howyou became interested
specifically in art history asopposed to like studying art

(14:33):
itself oh wait, could you repeatthat real quick?
sorry, my headphones no no, so Iwant to get started um talking
about your, your history withart and art history and you as
an artist, and why you decidedto study art history as opposed
to like making art I love thisquestion because I am
technically actually not anartist.

Which people think our historians and artists
are like one of the same allthe time because so many are.
But there is, like I would say,the larger portion of our
historians are actually notartists.
We're just people who areobsessed with artists because we
can't do it those who can't doteach whole thing yes, I mean,
like that's kind of the bigtension between, like art
historians and art critics andlike artists.
It's like, well, they can't doit, like you know they're.

(15:13):
They're the ones who are likedeciding who falls where and
who's important to studywhatever.
Like most of them aren'tartists, and I'd say that's like
true.
So essentially, what happenedwas I was in high school, I I
was going to Heidelberg AmericanHigh School on the base in
Germany, in Heidelberg, germany,and I had to get an arts credit
to graduate and I did not wantto take like pottery or drawing.

(15:35):
I just knew it would be anightmare for me and I was just
like there's no way I'm going tospend a semester drawing, right
I'm so sorry, she's a germanshepherd.

Oh, she protects this home.
It's fine.
We have little dogs and they wehad a dog, so do passed away a
year and a half ago and he it's.
I loved that dog and mydaughter's sister.
She started introducing herselfto people and immediately
talking about our dead dog um,like at the park.
I do that too, but he, he was.
She's almost forced.

(16:11):
It's a little weird, um, but heit's.
The house is much quieter nowthat he is not around, though I
see another dachshund eventuallyin our future, so okay so we
don't want to do drawing.
I totally get that.

No, like I don't want to do like drawing, I
don't want to do pottery likeit was going to be, like I knew
that that let me just put thisway, I'm so was such a future
academic that I was like I wouldrather take AP art history than
do like drawing that's fair itwas like so backwards to
everyone around me.
So I took AP art history and Itook it weirdly like the stars
aligned.
I had a lot of friends in thatclass as well, and around

(16:44):
halfway through the firstsemester, because I mean, this
is the beauty of growing upoverseas our teacher was very
smart and she said why don't weall we don't have to do like an
official field trip becausethat'll never get approved and
like the money won't comethrough, but why don't we all
just book a Ryanair flight onthe same weekend to Pisa?
Because you know.
Ryanair flights like six eurosand we'll stay in the hostel and
we'll all we'll look at allthis art that we were seeing.

(17:06):
So I was everyone's like, yeah,and of course I had already
been to Italy, which soundsfancier than it is, but really
when you're over there yourwhole life, it is like an 80
euro flight right there and back.
So I'd already been to Florenceand Rome.
So for this high school trip wewent to Pisa, in Florence, and
I just had this like awakening,because it was all things I had

(17:27):
seen before, like I'd alreadybeen to the Duomo, I'd seen that
, I'd gone to the Academia andseen the David and like gone to,
you know, the Bargello and seenDonatello's David.
But having the knowledge ofwhat I was actually looking at
completely changed theexperience and I remember I just
was, was like had an epiphanyof like this is what I want to
do, interesting, I'm so obsessedwith this.

(17:47):
And then, months later, when wetook the ap exam, I was in our
high school auditorium no ac ingermany like all the windows
open, it's like 90 degrees out.
I'm, like you know, bangingthrough the test, having the
best time of my life, and like,how high school is this like go
outside and my best friend, he'slike sitting on the roof of
like one of these like trailersthat we have for like extra
classrooms, like thinking likeoh, I'm so cool, like sitting up

(18:08):
here moodily on this trailer,and he's like how's your test go
?
And I said, honestly, I waslike five a five hour exam, and
if I could have done that forlike six more hours I would have
.
And he looked at me dead in theface and goes well, then,
that's what you should do.
And so I had applied to theUniversity of Kansas.
I got there and I was like thisis, I'm not an English major

(18:30):
anymore, I'm not a history major.
And I've been so lucky untilgrad school.

I have never changed do this every night and
I think that you know,regardless of my career
transition, I think some peopleknow from a very early age what
they're called to in some insome capacity.
That's so interesting that yourfriend was like yep that's

(18:55):
obviously what you need to dowith your life.

I mean how?
And that one's funny because,like I know, I've told that
story before, but now, being 31,looking back on that story, I'm
like how 18 year old is that?
So an 18 year old says to oneyou should do that and the other
one goes you know what you'reright, and then they literally
base their whole life aroundthat conversation.

Yeah, I mean, thankfully it was not something
that was worse or different Idon't know.
I don't know like I'm gonna belike a professional diver and I
also have a fear of swimming orsomething you know yeah, it
worked out, and I love that hewas sitting on a trailer,
because that's just what theydid in the 2000s and they would
just add these trailers toschools because they were Even
on military bases in Germany.

(19:31):
Our extra classrooms weretrailers like by the field.
Yeah, I definitely had trailerclasses.
So you studied art history incollege and what did you do with
an art history degree, like,what kind of jobs did you have
after you graduated with yourinitial degree, your bachelor's?

So that's an interesting question, because
that's like the number one thing.
Like people would say to me allthe time, oh so you're going to
teach, and they would say likeit's a bad thing.
First of all, there's nothingwrong with teaching art history.
Like, if you get an art historydegree and you want to teach it
at the high school level, thecollege level, whatever, that's
totally valid, so let peoplestop.
You would be like you're justgonna teach, there's nothing
wrong with teaching.
But there are a lot of thingsyou can do.

(20:11):
The issue is whether thosethings are available or not to
you.
So these like institutions arekind of like legacy institutions
and once people get into themthey never leave.
So I got really, really luckythat I when I first started
applying I started like halfwaythrough my senior year and I was
applying to everything Like Iapplied to do co-check at the

(20:33):
museum of contemporary art inChicago because I was in Chicago
at the time at Loyola Right.
Like I was willing to.
I just all I was looking forwas a part-time job at like a
museum, a gallery, a foundation,like anything arts associated.
I just wanted to get my foot inthe door.

So I applied like anything arts associated I just
wanted to get my foot in thedoor so I applied to do like the
gift shop at the mca by the wayspoiler alert didn't get that
job.
I'm like I applied to do coatcheck, didn't get that.
It's a competitive fields coatchecking.

It's crazy if you know what they told me for
coat check, which I've talkedabout this on my uh instagram
before.
They told me it was tooqualified for coat checks but
I'd be great as a volunteer liketour guide.
I'm like no, I don't think youunderstand.
I need money yeah, thatvolunteers don't get paid right,
and so eventually I applied todo it was on a website.
People were like where did youfind this job?
It literally was just on theirwebsite.
It was at for an auction housein the west loop called Heidman

(21:19):
auctions and it was just to bepart-time, the work in the front
desk, and I applied,interviewed, had a great
interview.
Didn't know I didn't get it,just got a phone call one day
saying like hey, we'd love tohire you and I'm like awesome,
found out after I started theyhad hired somebody else and
within a couple of days it waslike really apparent that like

(21:42):
this job was a lot of answeringphone calls and a lot of dealing
with people who were angry infront of you and like she just
needed some support, like she'sdefinitely not got like the
right background for this,whereas I had worked like I was
working in a gym at the timelike I had worked all kinds of
like crazy jobs, like part-timejobs I was.
I had been yelled at my wholetime, my whole life like in
college working, so I had noproblem jumping in there with

(22:04):
her.
So I ended up getting hiredafter the fact, so always tell
people like it's not necessarilyjust when you think it's over?

it's not necessarily over, like I didn't
actually even get hired for thisjob.

but I got hired eventually, so I was on there
answering like 200 phone calls aday and working my gym job you
know part-time.
I just graduated and within amonth of working at the auction
house part-time answering phones, they said we'd like to hire
you uh, full-time, which wasgreat so I did that for about a
year, maybe a year and a half,and then I moved on to a
different department within theauction house, again not

(22:36):
necessarily art related.
I was in a department calledluxury goods, so that handled
like couture and jewelry, andthat was amazing that's art.

I, I am me.
Thank you I don't wear a lot ofjewelry because I play with
things like I break necklacesand I hate bracelets, but I have
a huge affinity for jewelry,like if you showed me a tiara
that belonged to the queen ofengland, I could tell you what
it's called it's like a weirdparty trick I have.
I'm like oh, that's the girlsof great britain and ireland,
tiara, obviously like whywouldn't you which is my

(23:05):
favorite, by the way you can?
google the girls of greatbritain and ireland and that's
my favorite um and it was hergrandmother's originally and it
was a gift from like a girlsassociation yeah but I loved, I
would love that.
I would have wanted to stealeverything that's amazing.

Oh yeah, it was the.
It was the best fit for me.
I mean, that's always my adviceto people when they get their
history degree and they go intothe field is I'm like, you know,
you need to be open-minded.
I met so many people,especially young women, who are
like, yeah, I'm doing this jobright now in this department,
but like I really want to getinto, like you know, fine art or
like prints or whatever, andI'm like, 99% of that time,

(23:39):
those are like departments thatare almost all men and they've
all been there for a thousandyears and like, until somebody
dies, there's not going to be anopening.
So, like, be open to like adifferent department or like a
different genre, right, orwhatever.
Because I really connected withboth the director from both of
those departments and I grewsuch an appreciation for jewelry
.
I was already super intofashion and clothing and couture

(24:02):
, which it's so crazy that westill have this conversation.
Our history of like is couture,you know.

Well, I told you that exhibit I went to at the
Jewish museum.
It was a Chloe exhibit which,because my sister's very into
fashion, so she was like I wantto go to this.
So we went and I had never beenbefore and downstairs was like
this really modern art thingwith like fluorescent tape on
like a mattress and I'm like Idon't know it literally.

I will send you a video.

Like it was like fluorescent tape on a mattress
or something and I'm like whatis this?
But upstairs was this gorgeousChloe exhibit with all of the
like.
Her talked about her Jewishbackground and like how they
innovated fashion and it wasbeautiful.
But yeah, clothing is fashion.

And clothing is art Like.
There's the Met, costumeInstitute, and what does
everyone know?

Speaker 3 (24:52):
the Met, for I mean everyone in America, it's the
Met Gala right which is theirbig fundraiser.

So this conversation still happening
today in their history world itjust blows my mind.

It's art you wear.
What is that line from?
Devil Wears Prada.
It's art you lived your life in, or something I don't remember.

He says devil rose prada, like it's something
like art you lived your life inor something I don't remember.

He's just like you know it's um, but he's just
like something like it's betterthan art because you get to live
your life in it.
Yes, something like that.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
I love that movie yes , it's, I love stealing to jay
with that movie yes, I we.

I just watched side note.
Have you seen that movieconspiracy, that hbo movie about
the von c conference?

only a thousand times!

Colin Firth complaining about jews.
That's what I I was like.

Well I liked that movie.
I would say, like, when peoplelike give me, when people try to
like be really, I've nevergotten this, where people try to
be like really tough and likegive me, like your best
holocaust movies, what should Iwatch?
Right, that one, I would say,if you cannot handle, like the
gore and the all of it, because,like, obviously you think the
gray zone or like son of saul,which are like super graphic and

(25:56):
super hard to watch.
I'm like.
Conspiracy on hbo is my numberthree because it is almost word
for word what you see in, likethe notes that were adapted
quote-unquote notes, and itreads like a play, like it's
fascinating.

It does read like a play.
My husband was like it's theplay.
I have an issue with the grayzone because I don't like primo
levy and I don't like I willfull-on.
I feel like I'm gonna get likeblacklisted because I know
everyone's like oh, I don't likeprimo levy because this is
getting like really in.
We can have this conversationbecause you know this he was,
was not at Birkenau.
And a lot of the stuff he talksabout with the Sauter Commando

(26:30):
he did not witness personallyand is from the testimony of
that Hungarian doctor who also Ifound in undergrad.
I found holes in his testimonyand I'm like this is not
possible, timing wise.
So a lot of like Primo Levi gothis stuff from that Hungarian
doctor whose name I cannotpronounce, and then like, stole
that.
So I don stuff from thathungarian doctor whose name I

(26:54):
cannot pronounce and then, like,stole that.
So I don't like primo levy andfor those of you that don't know
who that is, he was um anitalian holocaust survivor,
wrote a lot of books and I feellike I don't know.

I was having this conversation with my
husband today about liketestimony difficult and like I
wonder if, like thisconversation has been had about
testimony or like or like, akind of like we're talking about
, like the primo levy's, likethe anne franks of the world, of
this world, like the peoplethat kind of become like the
poster child, like primo levywould be like the first person
to tell you like the reason hesurvived the war is because he
had a job indoors working inside.
Yeah, he was at buna like thatright and like, but that is not

(27:21):
the conversation around him andthat's never how he's presented.

No, no, no, no, it's like I I feel like I'm
gonna be the woman who's liketalking trash about all these
people.
But like simon wiesenthal,they've proven that he was not
in the camps he says he was in.
Now I don't know if this isjust him not remembering or
whatever, and like no one'sgonna argue with a holocaust
survivor, but like testimony ingeneral, there it's very

(27:45):
problematic if it's not backedup with fact.
So it's something that.
I've become like reallyinterested in and like the
concept of memory and liketrauma and all of that.
But I feel like we're jumpingahead because I feel like the
two of us are going to have likea seven hour conversation about
the Holocaust.
So you're working in theauction house and this leads you

(28:08):
to certain artifacts comingthrough that you have said led
to your interest in Holocaustresearch.

Right.
So it's always fascinating tome that, like I grew up in
Germany, I grew up on a militaryinstallation Like my entire
life wouldn't have existed if,like World War II didn't happen.
Life wouldn't have existed if,like world war ii didn't happen.
Like my school where I live,like none of that would have
been you know happening, exceptyou know, if the marshall plan
didn't happen, right, yeah.
And then I go on to doseparately, to do this like art

(28:36):
history thing in college andsomehow never mend the worlds
together, even though I knewvery well about like things.
I mean, that was, that was.
Maybe that's the thing.
Maybe it was just too normalizedbecause, like every other day
there's an article in a Germannewspaper about like somebody's
grandpa died and there's a VanGogh that's been missing for
like 45 years, yeah, like intheir basement.

(28:57):
So maybe it was just toonormalized for me.
So what really ended up gettingmy attention at the auction
house wasn't necessarily artworkcoming through that had
interesting provenance.
What ended artwork comingthrough that had interesting
provenance, what ended upgetting my attention originally
was like nazi memorabilia.
Okay, what kind of stuff wascoming through?
so we acquired another auctionhouse who shall remain nameless,
and I, and I hate, I hatesaying that because it's like

(29:19):
you can google in three secondswhat I'm talking about I mean,
we'll let people doing you knowdo that on their own, the, the,
auction house was working for ifyou remember the name and
you've been paying attentionacquired another auction house
around the time I startedworking there and there they had
a big like ammunitionsdepartment, so like antique guns
which again I didn't know was athing and like their number one

(29:42):
selling lot, so that's what wecall like an item for sale
auction.
Their number one selling lotthey were like so proud of was a
weapon that, uh, herman garingowned and I remember getting
like a queasy feeling we have atthe museum that I work at a
accordion that belonged togoring um, I guess he gave it to
someone because he was like I'mgonna kill myself.

I'm gonna give my stuff away.
I don't know I have a.

I'm like do you know who Nancy Yide is?
Have you ever heard that?

name.

She is like the number one provenance
researcher on his collection,because he looted the most
amount of art of like any of theboys of Berlin.

Oh, yeah, for sure , and I and the daughter refused
to give it back.

She was like no , I'm not.
Any of this still in our back.
That's a whole other subject islike the children of these men.
It's so fascinating.
The ones who are like I amhorrified.
I'm going to give my entirelife to making it right.
And their sibling will be likeF you.
I'm the biggest neo-Nazi of alltime.

There's a documentary about Hans Frank's
son and someone else's son andthey're like friends and Hans
Frank's son hated him becauseHans Frank was a terrible person
.
We just watched one called theCommandant's son, about which
which, like I said, this is mylife, like I took a night off
class and I was like I need apalate cleanser and we ended up

(30:59):
watching a two hour Holocaustdocumentary.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
Um, but yeah, but like his sister was like, if it
was so bad, why did peoplesurvive?

And I'm like, oh, oh, my God, I wish we would set
out that too.
It was like, if it was so bad,why did people survive?
And I'm like oh, oh, my god,okay I wish we don't set out.

That too is like she's quoted, like the 70s
being like I'm ashamed and likeall this stuff so like something
maybe she could have been lying, I don't know.
Or was she lying back then,like who knows?
Like so many questions, butanyway.
So the number so they wereselling.
This auction house was sellingguring's guns and I was like
horrified by that and then theyhave another sale again.
Now it's like under arning andlike the middle part of the sale

(31:33):
is all like sofa wear fromburtish garden with like the
eagle and like you know theswastika on it and I just
remember, it's like really aneasy feeling in my tummy and
maybe like five or six yearsbefore my last year, my last
year in germany, I had been on astrausenbahn where there was
like a nazi salute, like show ofpower and my like almost 15

(31:55):
years living in germany that hadnever happened.
Like neo-nazi got on the train,piled hitler and it was.

It was like it was happening.
You can get big trouble forthat in germany too, like you'll
get arrested like the doorsshut.

I'll never, never forget.
Like the door shut, like hegets on, he does it.
There's only like 30 secondsbetween stops.
The minute we pull up at thenext station, they're like
nobody move, because the secondthat door opened they arrested
him immediately.

Yeah.

And so that nothing like that had ever
happened to me.
Like name Levine and live there, they're ignorant, like that's
not what it's like here, and Igot, like the universe like
smacked me in the face, likethat's not true.
So, having that experience, andthen years later in Chicago,
seeing this going on, it waslike they all came together for
me and I got very overwhelmed byit.
So, you, I was seeing a lot ofthings like that, like just like
, like memorabilia type stuff,and it wouldn't it's not illegal

(32:50):
to sell those things at auction, but it is kind of unethical,
right?

So yeah, that's what I wanted to ask about your
feelings about the ethics ofthese artifacts, because I've
told you, and I don't know ifI've mentioned this on my
podcast before, my grandfatherwas in World War II and he
fought in Europe and it was verycommon and a lot of the
artifacts the museum I worked atwere found this way Things like
Himmler's cape and things likethat.
The American soldiers tookstuff like it was just very

(33:16):
common.
Yeah.
So my mom has a bunch of Nazistuff at her house like a metal
and ring and all this stuff andI don't know what to do with it
and my husband and I discussedthis like monthly because it'd
be weird to display it, becausethat's weird it.
I don't want to donate to amuseum because I know it's never

(33:37):
going to see the light of day.

because those of you that don't know, when you
donate something to a museumthey're basically like it's
never going to come out, likeit's just going to be in our
collection and especially like aholocaust museum or something
like they typically try to avoidlike a lot of displaying a lot
of nazi memorabilia, becausethen it can become kind of like
a site where, like people whoare into that stuff can look at
it.
Like into the brown house inmunich, since it's become a

(33:59):
museum has like really struggledwith that like how much of this
stuff do we actually put ondisplay?

the museum in berlin on museum island has a
lot of nazi memorabilia and butit's kind of like a cohesive
history of germany tote in totaland I think they did a really
good job of that.
But also showing like theridiculousness of like here's a
nazi christmas ornament and likeweird stuff how many,
especially if you're a museum?

it's like how many like coins from the reich
are you gonna?

Speaker 3 (34:24):
pound this way.
How many medals are you gonnapound this way?
I?

mean I.
There is a book out there aboutnazi kitsch.
Apparently hitler really hatedkitschy items, so a lot of those
things that are like the nazihe was an artist.
He was an artist yes, and hehad a very specific kind of old
school like yeah, taste and sohe like the nazi ornament, or
like the nazi like playing carddeck, like actually those things
are actually all unauthorizedwhich is even more sickening
like they're things that peoplejust like made on their own.

(34:47):
How crazy is that?
A lot of the time.

You know, our big joke is I want to know who the
flag manufacturer was for thenazis, because they used a lot
of flags, um, and I'm assumingsome of them were not like
authorized, like somebody wasmaking a lot of money off of
nazi flags I want to know whothat was.

I know there's a class you can take on like
corporate collaboration that Iwant to take because I'm super
interested in that um, I likethat you're so, um, you're so
like um present when it comes tolike these objects you have and
like how to I don't know whatto do with them and like I don't
know like it's right because,like my advice most of the time

(35:26):
is like oh, donate to a museumbecause then they can use it for
research, right, but if youdon't want to do that, there are
smaller organizations like Iknow we have, like the midwest
center for holocaust educationout here in kansas city.
It's run by shelly klein.
Like donating to a smallerorganization you could, you
would be better able to keeptabs on like what their plans
are for the objects and howthey're going to use them, if

(35:46):
that makes sense because you'reright once you submit them to a
museum and they accept them, itjust goes down this black hole
and you'll never hear about themagain yeah, that's something
small.

I took a small I took a class on aids
memorialization and we went to alecture um with an organization
called visual aids, um, aboutwhich they basically in the 80s,
when a bunch of artists weredying in the village, they were
just throwing their artwork out,so people who knew they were
sick started donating theirworks, and one of the guys who

(36:16):
um worked, used to work forvisual aids and now works at um
with a collection at nyu waslike the problem is is when you
give your work away, it's nolonger your work, and it's the
same thing with memorabilia itit no longer belongs to you and
what it does is out of yourcontrol and it, I don't know,
it's just such a weird like grayarea and I yeah, and I like my
suggestion for you would be todonate it to like a smaller

(36:38):
Holocaust organization.

Just because you can have you are one able to
even have that conversationwith somebody there, yeah, and
two, you'll have easier accessto them in terms of, like
wanting to know what's going onwith the material you donated,
how are they using it, thingslike that, like a smaller
organization, like the midwestcenter for whole cost education,
is going to be much more opento that kind of donation and
that kind of like almost like anopen adoption I can go, I can

(37:02):
go and visit um right, whereasif you donated to like the ushm,
like yeah see, it would justlike go into their archive.

The problem is a lot of those exhibitions are
there for years and then ittakes years to design a new
exhibit and they have.

Like the Museum of New York is a third of the
size of USHMM and they're likewe have tens of thousands of
artifacts just sitting in boxesand we don't even have people
people you know the ability toprocess a lot of this the number
one thing I would say to not dowhich I've seen a lot and
actually spent a lot of my moneylike working with this is do

(37:38):
not donate it to like an antiquemall.
So a lot of times people willjust want it out of their house
so badly and just like I don'tknow what this is.
Get it away from me.
You can go into like anyantique mall in america and like
in the coin section there'sliterally a third right coin
section because so many peopleclearly have coins from like
their like you said, like theirgrandfather or whoever, and they
just want to add their housebecause obviously they have huge

(37:59):
swastikas stamped on them.
Yeah, I have spent so much of mymoney buying coins or jewelry.
So like one time I found like apendant with like somebody's
like nazi, I don't know son orboyfriend or whoever his photo
inside had a big old swastika onit.
Like clearly people just wantthis out of their house.
Yeah, they go to places likeauction houses that have a
backbone or whoever, and thosepeople say they don't help them,

(38:20):
they just turn them away whichis also not how they should like
handle that at all, and so theyfeel like they're backed out of
corner.

So they just donate it to like an antique
mall, because the antique mallwill take it do not do that,
because that could also, then itcould fall into the hands of,
like you know, the neighbor fromamerican beauty if that's the
concern, because I know there'stwo copies of mein kampf that
belong to himmler at the museumand they were sent by two
different anonymous donors andthey were very specific about
the uses for it, like that theycouldn't use it to make money

(38:50):
and that they had to display andit's like it's notated by
himler's father.
He was like taking notes, like,oh, this is very interesting,
like they like no, you, you haveto come to new york to see this
specific artifact.
I'm like I gotta see that yeahbecause it's two, the two copies
, and his father had likenotated it and they had written
notes back and forth to eachother.
But they were anonymousdonations and the person who

(39:11):
donated was like you can't usethis to make money and you can't
sell it yeah, because there isa big underground world like I
don't know.

If this ever happens to you when you're doing
your research, I'll be likebopping along and then all of a
sudden I'm like, oh my god, I'mon a neo-nazi website.

Um, my god, I was trying to look for the because
there's a copy of the poisonmushroom at the museum and I was
like, oh, I want to read it.
And then it was.
This guy dedicated the book tothe memory of julia striker.
Um, and he had not only um.
You can google that if youdon't know who that is, friends
um he, he was a real.

(39:46):
He was a real anti-semite.
Um it's you gotta be reallyanti-semite to be executed for
publishing books and newspapersum, but somebody had not only
done that, but they had createdlike fan fiction for each page,
like if this is the first thingthat comes up when you google it
.
I'm not even kidding.
It's clearly like this guy islike a neo-nazi and had like

(40:07):
taken these pictures and thencreated like a story for each
picture and it was like multipleparagraphs.
So yes, there's a huge neo-Nazipresence on the Internet.

And so like, especially with like memorabilia
and stuff, there's hugeneo-Nazi websites that kind of
disguise themselves as likehistorical memorabilia websites
that are clearly run byneo-Nazis for neo-Nazis, and
your item could easily end up onone of those pages.
so like for example, I got allmy you'll love this pickle.
Like of my own free will, Ifell down the rabbit hole of

(40:38):
like the artist cosper davidfriedrich and the nazis, because
all you hear about friedrich inart history is like, oh yeah,
like nazis, nazis, nazis.
And like the man was not a nazi.
He wasn't even alive to seethat he did not hold nationalist
ideas.
Like he held nationalist ideasabout germany that did not, that
were nationalist at the time hewas alive, did not align with,
like what nationalism meantduring the rise of, like, you

(41:00):
know, the nazi party.
But people just conflate thosetwo things together like he was
a nationalist like he would haveloved you know what was going
on?

it's, I think it's like the wagner thing, like
yeah, not, uh, not all.
What did I say?

I say um, not all wagner lovers are nazis, but
all nazis were wagner loversyes, and so like cosper david
friedrich, like wasn't evenalive for any of this stuff but
his art all you hear about allthe time in our history is how
his art got appropriated by thenazis, and I, by myself one day,
had nothing to do with classnada.
Like fell down this, likerabbit hole, like okay, but
where?
is this cosmo david friedrich,nazi propaganda that is always

(41:36):
talked about our history, butlike I've never actually seen
any of it, like you know, alittle bit like it's very like
the connection, the visualconnections to like his work and
like with the nazi visualpropaganda.
It's very like vague, like yeah,it could be a cosmo-degrafridic
or it could be like a paintingof jesus, like you know, like
they all have like same visuallanguage, and so I fell down to
rabbit hole and then I found itwas like a photocopy of like a

(42:00):
cosmo-degrafridic painting of aship inside this like book and
these books were made for likeum, like nazi, like like a low
level, like ss men or whateverwhen they joined, and it was
like made by like the post, likethe postal service in germany.
It was very weird and it wouldhave like things that the fuhrer
likes.
Like you know, you're now likea full-on like nazi party member

(42:21):
, you're in that ss, like here'slike a little book on, like now
that you're like one ofhitler's guys, like the art you
should be liking, and there wasone on friedrich and that was
the first time I actually everseen like a direct connection
and I was so excited and Iclicked on the image and like
this is incredible, like I'venever even heard of this book,
like this type of like, almostlike, um, like a cliff notes or
something for like how to be anazi right, like here's the art

(42:43):
you should like, here's yourarts note, here's your art book
on like cliff notes of likethings that the Nazi man likes.
And then I was like, holy crap,I'm auctioning on a website
where you can buy this, becausesome neo-Nazi is selling it.

Yeah, it's crazy what you can buy online.
And I was like, oh my God, yeah, it's insane, the things you
can buy online.
Yes, that makes me souncomfortable.

I feel like.

I want to win the lottery and just start buying
all this stuff, and so it can'tend up in the hands of these
insane people.
I know, which is a very Nicolething to do if I win the lottery
.

That's a long way of saying what got my
attention.
First the auction house wasmemorabilia, and then I started
like seeing art come through andlike, when you looked for like
provenance research wasn't beingdone period, like no one was
going into make sure that, like,the person who had the title
for this painting actually ownedit, like that it actually
should be with them, like therewouldn't be any issues, if that

(43:34):
makes sense, right that'sinteresting because I know
there's been a lot ofhistorically like lawsuits about
that and stolen art is that'swhy the mona lisa is famous
because it was stolen like itwas stolen, and so I noticed
that that wasn't happening.
And then when we would getsomething like, uh, say, like a
degas and they want toauthenticate it, they would
always warn the client like, hey, if we spend like all this

(43:55):
money insuring it and sending itlike, so some, every artist
almost has like different ruleslike how to authenticate, and he
just happened to be one whereyou could send it back to france
to like his like institutionand they would authenticate it
for you.
And when they would tellclients like hey, there's a like
a potential that you mightactually own this right, that
maybe it was stolen or whateverand it you know you might

(44:19):
actually not even be able tosell this or we're gonna like
there'll be like a lot of legalissues might split the sale.
Whatever people on mac would belike I don't want to do that I
understand that.
Well then, why don't we bring itto?
But then our solution would belike oh well, then let's just
not do it, let's just say it's aday, God, because our and it's
authentically a day God becauseour like buyer's contract

(44:41):
basically covers us and says ifyou find out like if you decide
to do the legwork yourself andyou find out, this is not a day
god like you'll get a hundredpercent refund that's so
unethical yeah, so I found outhardcore.
That was my first exposure tolike wow, the greed is more than
you could even imagine.
Like, think of, like thegreatest decision you can make,

(45:01):
and actually times it by athousand, and that's the
decision they're gonna make Ithankfully do not have enough
money to buy that kind of art,so I don't have to worry about
that sort of thing.
Me either.
Thank.

God.
Okay.
So you're working in theseauction houses and you decide
you're going to pursue anundergraduate certificate at the
University of Kansas.
What was that program and whatwas that like?

So this is like even more interesting.
I it was during COVID times,and what was that like?
So this is like even moreinteresting.
I it was during COVID times andI was like trying to figure out
what I wanted to do with mylife.
I was out of auctions at thatpoint.
I was working at RH if anyoneknows, the mall store that now
is a design firm um, great,great brunch.
Now they're also like minirestaurants, and so that was
like my COVID job, trying tofigure out what I was going to

(45:46):
do.
And and I found in like my offtime.
I was just spending hourswatching lectures from the USHMM
, watching documentaries, doingmy own independent research on
what's called like Nazi-eraProvidence.
So like what happened, what Iwas witnessing basically at the
auction house, and whether itstemmed from like years of guilt
of sitting there and not sayinganything, like watching it and

(46:07):
being like the annoying oneasking the question and being
low enough on the staff to belike shut up right, stop talking
, stop asking questions, like Ididn't know what to do with all
that information or what I hadwitnessed and I was just like
okay, if I'm doing this bymyself again, kind of like the
very street thing in my own freetime.
This is probably what I shouldbe pursuing Right, and I just

(46:33):
happened to randomly google,start looking at programs and KU
had an undergraduatecertificate in holocaust and
genocide studies they had.
It was brand new.
They had never offered it likebefore.
Like when I applied and when itwas accepted it was like the
second year like I was thesecond year of doing it and you
basically took a year ofundergraduate classes, so like,
yeah, I guess like 12 credits,like it wasn't long, you know,

(46:53):
like two classes a semester andthey were all undergraduate
classes that the jewish uhstudies department or history
department already offered,right, so these classes were
already available to ku students.
What's even crazier is the yearI took it, the university
decided to get rid of theprogram oh, so it'll like break
for two years yes, because of,like, a lack of enrollment,

(47:15):
which is crazy because theynever advertised it.
Like I found out about it bygoogling it and the university's
justification was like, well,our students aren't interested
in it.
Like, of course, anundergraduate student is not
interested in undergraduatecertificate, and so it didn't.
That's very telling.
They only offered it for twoyears.
It cost the university no moneyto offer it, they only netted
money.
Right, you paid like threegrand to do it.

(47:36):
They only netted three grand.
It wasn't like they had likespecial courses for it or it
took extra time.
They only made money from it.
They never advertised it yetsomehow said, because of a lack
of enrollment, they were goingto drop it.
And this was all, by the way,pre-10-7.

I feel like, though, I have heard that Jewish
studies departments are wroughtwith anti-Semitism and
apologists about things, so it'spossible that there was more
going on than just lack ofenrollment.

Well, I never got the vibe from KU Jewish
studies that that was what washappening with them, but my
experience with KU much later ingraduate school I could see now
, maybe, like the Goliath, theywere up against when it came to
anti-Semitism.
It's a problem, that's all I'mgoing to say with that.
So, like when they were toldthis was going to be cut, the

(48:33):
idea of even putting up a fightwas probably not the best move
for them.

And then you got your master's from KU.
Yes, no.
Okay, yeah.
So I'm moving ahead.
Yes, cause there's.
I looked on your LinkedIn and Iwas like there's a lot of
schools, so walk me through thisjourney.
I know I've done the same thing.
I've got like three on therenow, so you've cut it down, I
know, just got the three.
Um, okay, so so you do thisundergraduate certificate, and

(49:00):
then what?

And I was a manager at the Spencer museum of
art, which was like theon-campus fine art museum, and
it was awesome.
Love Sarah Lynn Reese Hardy,love that museum.
And I decided I wanted topursue my master's degree in art
history and I wanted myresearch focus to be Nazi-era
provenance research and my goalwhich was my goal then and is

(49:24):
still my goal was become like anart historian with an expertise
in this sort of like niche areabecause I felt like it should
be part of our foundational arthistorical training.
Like you should not be goinginto the world as an art
historian with a bachelor'sdegree in art history not
knowing anything aboutprovenance or provenance

(49:44):
research or the issues becauseit's not just the holocaust
right like I would be.
That would be my specific likearea of expertise.
But there are tons of wars andtons of different like conflicts
across time and history thatitems have been stolen.
You know, very famously theelgin marbles is like the one.
That's like the one exposure toprovenance you get is in your
history degrees.

(50:04):
You write a paper like firstsemester, talking about arguing
either side of the elgin marvelsdebate, which is, you know,
should the elgin marvels remainat the british museum or should
they go back home to athens.
And I mean literally to thepoint where it's like pick a
side.
You don't even have to believein what side you're arguing,
just write the paper and that islike the only provenance
anything you get exposed to,like all four years you're doing

(50:26):
the degree.
So I was like I want to becomea provenance research expert
focusing on Nazi era looted artand I want to bring it back to
the university so it becomeslike foundational curriculum.
Right, even if they just learnabout Nazi era provenance
research, at least they'relearning about provenance
research in general in somecapacity.
And so I started at theUniversity of Kansas getting my

(50:49):
master's of art history.
I did my coursework and then Istarted doing my graduate level
seminars it was a teachingassistant at the same time for
them and I just noticed a lot ofresistance.
You know, I felt like I was thetax man in the department.
Like I remember the first daywhen someone asked me you know,
another TA asked me like what myresearch focus was, and I told

(51:11):
them they said, oh, we're stilldoing that, so like there was an
attitude in the field that,like my research was like or my
interest was irrelevant.
And then, whenever I would tryto incorporate it into term
papers because again I realizedvery quickly there wasn't
actually a lot of coursework orseminar work, that to support it
, right like there wasn'tanything, even like world war ii

(51:35):
, you know anything.
And if I wanted to take aelective, I was allowed to take
a certain number of electives.
If I wanted to do a graduatelevel elective, even through,
like military sciences orhistory at ku, I was like
actively discouraged to say no,keep it within the department.
If I wanted to incorporate myresearch interest in, say, a
term paper, I was told no, youneed to spread your wings, don't

(51:55):
be so focused on this one thing.
And I realized that was nothappening to anybody else and I
thought oh, this is really odd,like I remember I did a
presentation my first semesterand I was in an impressionism
course with a professor where Ihad taken an impressionism
course before, because I did twoyears at KU as an undergrad and

(52:17):
I picked a Renoir and thelittle girl in the painting who
was in this Renoir portrait.
Almost all of her family diedin Auschwitz and they had a very
interesting history of like.
Most of them were convertedCatholics.
So they were Jewish and theyconverted to Catholicism like 30
years prior and they still werearrested, still went to the

(52:40):
transit camp and still died andI brought that up in the
presentation.
I also brought up, like, thedreyfus affair, because I
noticed our professor wasn'tbringing it up and I thought
that was really odd because thedreyfus affair was basically the
reason the impressionist brokeup like oh, I didn't know, that
was like.
Yeah, it was like the yoko, ohno, oh, of the of the
impressionist, because theimpressionists were like a group

(53:01):
of like, kind of like punkartists it's just because we're
so hard to say, because they'reso popular now but they were
kind of like outsiders and theywere doing this weird thing and
basically people who wereanti-semitic and
non-anti-semitic.
There was a huge rift betweenthe two and that kind of like
broke everybody up and so I justthought it was so odd.
This class and I like hadoriginally gone to the professor
to say I want to write aboutillustrations uh, anti-semitic

(53:25):
illustrations of Alfred Dreyfusduring his trial in France, and
she was like no, absolutely not,like you're not doing that
paper.
So then she suggested thisRenoir painting.
So I do the Renoir and I findthis very interesting Holocaust
history that's not being coveredin the class nor is the Dreyfus
affair and I remember after wedid, after we kind of had our
debrief after that presentation,she said like I just don't want

(53:47):
you to think like that has tolike all rest on your shoulders
and you know you're responsiblefor doing like this Holocaust
education.
And I was like I just felt likeit was really important because
this class was taken by me andlike two other grad students but
the rest of the class wasundergraduates and I just felt
like it was really important forthem to know this.
I was going to speak to a roomof like 70 undergraduates.
I can't ignore that history,and so that sort of continued on

(54:10):
and on and on, and so that'swhen I decided maybe I should
start looking somewhere else topursue my research.
Is that what led you to gradsor what happened next?
So when I was there, it's likeinteresting, because I was there
and they weren't reallyinterested in my research and
they were kind of like pushingme to do something else.
But I ended up getting intothis program.

(54:32):
That was just one week at theUniversity of Denver.
Yeah, I saw that they havesomething called ACE, so it's
like their Center for ArtCollection Ethics, and they have
an incredible, amazing arthistorian there and provenance
researcher named elizabethcampbell.
So like, if you're like new tothis area of art history or
you're interested, readeverything elizabeth campbell

(54:53):
has ever written and on top ofthat it's always just nice to
know when you're like inacademia, in these spaces, she's
also the nicest person alive.
It's also nice to read theresearch, knowing that too.
But she of like of her ownchutzpah, for lack of a better
term, started this summerprogram because if you wanted to
do any kind of like provenancetraining in the united states it
was like near impossible.
You'd have to go to italy or,like you know, france, like

(55:15):
there are all these like broadprograms that are really
expensive and like it's notreally accessible to us here.
So she started her own one-weekprogram.
She selected 20 applicants fromall over the country.
Couldn't believe I got into thislike at all.
Like I felt like a total dingdong when I showed up there and
it was all different, uh, mas,phds, and actually the first
year, not that's out there butit was all women, all of the

(55:38):
entire, all the applicants inthe all the country.
It was all women were selected.
So it was incredible and webasically did a week of like
hard I'd say we did a collegesemester in a week.
We did a week of like hardcoreprovenance research from with
different provenance researchersone, uh, from the nelson,
atkinson, kansas city, who'samazing named mackenzie mallon,
another one who was local to thedenver area, and like by the

(56:00):
end of the week they essentiallygave us an object that they had
done.
Provenance research on that wasavailable on the website of the
institutions where they workedand said like, basically, like,
work backwards, go like, redo it, make sure that we like didn't
miss anything.
And people found holes.
And it was incredible likepeople found new information
that was they were able to addto the website.
And so then that was where Igot my like we call it my

(56:23):
professional certification inprovenance research and I I did
one more semester at KU afterthat and then I was like I got
to.
I got to figure out somethingelse because I was able to see
that these people, these likeminded people, were out there.
I just need to find them.

And then what happened?

And so I was like looking for another place
to go.
I'm googling around and I'mthinking like maybe umkc, like
maybe history, maybe it's morehistory, I don't know and I
found grads college online,which I think you'll find so
interesting, nicole's like.
I think I found grads like twoyears ago when I was doing my
undergraduate certificate,because I thought I had a moment

(57:03):
of like, is it actually this?
Is it actually holocaust andgenocide studies and not our
history?
And I found grads and I foundthe MA and PhD, but I think
there was just something aboutit at the time being a remote
program that I was like, oh, Ican't do that.
No, no way.
Like I have to be in person.
Right, like I'm not an onlinestudent and I completely
dismissed it.
So it's totally like right place, right time.

(57:25):
I'm like desperate.
I've like left my program.
I'm like not a TA anymore.
I'm like, oh, my god, what am Igonna do?
And I it like appeared in frontof me again in some google
search and I remember looking atmy partner at the time and
saying to him like, oh, this isit.
Like I'm gonna apply to thisand I'm gonna get in and like
this is this, is the road I'mgoing down, and so I had a
meeting with Mindy from Gratz,who's the best.

Yes, we love Mindy .

Yes, and she essentially said to me you know
you've already done half a MA atKU.
Yeah, like, why don't we slowdown, why don't we have you
finish your MA at KU and thenyou apply to Gratz for the PhD?
And I told her just a littlebit of what I was experiencing
behind the scenes with thefaculty and staff, especially
about things like Shabbatobservance and sort of some of

(58:11):
the feedback I was getting,which a lot of which you'll love
this, and a lot of the feedbackI was getting was, you know,
they would say somethinghorribly anti-semitic or just
really wrong, just like, oh mygosh, like this is like third
rail stuff, like what's going on, and they would follow it up
with.
I mean, I get it, I'm jewishtoo that's what I was saying.

The anti-semitism in the jewish studies
departments, it's a problem.
It was.

That was like the first time I really dealt
with that.
I was like, uh, what'shappening right now?
Like I had a professor that Iworked for she was very upset
about my shivalrous servants andshe would make she would make
it incredibly difficult for meto like get to temple.
So like she would always likethrow these like last minute
meetings that we all had to bethere on Friday.

(58:54):
They would start like at oneo'clock and there would be no.
We'd have no idea when theywould end.
So like, even if they ended atlike three or four, it's like I
have two dogs and then I can'tleave my.
I've been away from my dogs allday because she my office hours
are before this meeting.
So I that means I'd have to gohome and stay with my dogs.
I couldn't go get in the carnow and drive 45 minutes to
Topeka, be at Temple for like anhour and a half and drive back

(59:15):
Right.
And she then said to me uh, ina meeting we had, um, you know,
I really feel like this, likeall of a sudden, your Shabbat
observant out of nowhere, like Iknow, when you worked at the
museum you worked Saturdays,which, again, I had never told
her that information.
So that means she was probablyasking around or somebody had

(59:38):
said that to her.
And I said to her you're right,I did work Saturdays because I
was in the middle of like whattechnically was called a
conversion process and I hadn't,you know, got through my mikvah
ceremony.
And I mean like the silenceafter that, because I think this
woman who was screaming at melike I'm Jewish too, didn't even
know what I meant by that orwhat a mikvah was right or why I

(01:00:00):
would say that.
So I was dealing with a lot ofthat on the side as well and
when I finally told Mindy thatMindy was like just kidding,
we'll get you in as soon aspossible and like just send us
your stuff and if you apply andlike you know you get in, we're
going to basically like fasttrack it, like we'll start you
as soon as we can.
And that's exactly whathappened.

Nicole Kelly (01:00:27):
And it's the best decision I've ever made in my
life for sure.
Did they transfer over yourcredits from?

Beatrice Levine (01:00:30):
ku nope, oh no so I started fresh but here's
the thing I mean I said thisearlier today.
One thing I learned in my 20sis if something really isn't a
fit for you like it's okay toquit.
Yeah, especially in a toxicatmosphere like that.
That's well yeah and like justlet it go because the credits
aren't worth it.
They're not because, guess what?

(01:00:50):
I've made up the amount ofcredits I did at ku.
I've made up in the year ofdenigrats I mean, it goes so
quick.

It's kind of insane.
I feel like I not, and there'sso much reading.
I feel like last week there wasI've read like 300 pages and
I'm like I oh yeah, it's thebook of the week club.
Yeah, I have to take like abreak, like I'll stop and do
like a little what's on my face,um, I'll do like office work,
um, yeah, and then I'll be like,oh, this video and my brain

(01:01:18):
goes like a million places.
But I feel like if I sit and Ijust read it, it's a lot.
And when you're reading 300pages about like children in
concentration camps, it can be alot.
But it goes so quick.
These eight week I don't knowwhat you call them like mini
masters.

Like accelerated, it's an accelerated
program.
And that was one of my biggestthings was so many people were
like, oh my God, you're gonnalose all those credits.
I'm like you guys, I will havemade up in two what would be
like two traditional semestersat grads.
Like it's crazy.

Yeah, it goes really quick and I feel like
I've learned a lot and I wentinto it being like all, like I
know a lot already and every dayI'm like, oh, this is insane,
it's just there's so muchinformation.
What have been your favoriteclasses so far?

Oh my gosh.
You know I have definitely gonedown like the antisemitism
studies track and so I've beenreally enjoying the antisemitism
studies classes I've taken withEyal Eyal Feinberg is my
advisor.
I had one that was like I thinkit was my first semester.
It was like antisemitism inlike the United States and just
focusing on like.

(01:02:25):
Obviously we'll talk about this, but obviously I'm very active
on social media.
Anti-semitism in like theunited states and just focusing
on like, because I obviouslywill talk about this, but
obviously I'm very active onsocial media.
Yes, so I've really beeninterested in like holocaust
denial and like anti-semiticmemes, like based in like
holocaust denialism on socialmedia, things like that.

And then I'm trying now did they talk about
holocaust inversion, which is myfavorite in the class.
Yes, I know about how likepeople will turn no, no in the
holocaust in america they'll belike they don't turn.

You know the whole calling jews nazi things
and that's my favorite that ismy favorite um, you know, what's
crazy is that was actuallycovered when I did my holocaust
and genocide studies certificate.
I had to take israel and thepalestinian conflict and that
was covered in that course and Iremember that was in 2022.
And I remember the studentshaving such a hard time grasping

(01:03:11):
that concept.

Well.
Well it happens, it happens.

It happens all the time.
I'm sure they're the number oneparticipants now.

Yes, it's true, it's true.
So you like, you've been likeyour anti-Semitism studies
classes, that's good.
I feel like I've been doublingdown on like I'm taking.
We're obviously taking childrenin the Nazi era now and I'm
taking modern Eastern EuropeanJewish history and teaching the
Holocaust over the summer.
Oh my God, how cool I am.
I'm going to take, take apalate cleanser and learn about

(01:03:42):
pre-Holocaust Jew hatred.
Yeah, and take take a palatecleanser and learn about
pre-holocaust jew hatred um andpogroms we'll just you know,
which would be interesting forme because that's where my
family comes from and I waslooking at some of the required
texts today and it's like theshalom um stories about tevye
and I'm like I would love toread this instead of reading
about treblinka.
So it'll be a nice palatepalate cleanser, which is weird

(01:04:04):
to say.

Oh, and I will say, like, in terms of like
Holocaust classes I just didlast semester Holocaust in the
Catholic Church and as somebodywho, like, lived in Italy for
like six months studying abroadand like thought they were going
to be an Italian, likespecialist, when I was an
undergrad Fascinating course.
It's like everyone knows about,like the rat lines and like the
catholic church, but likegetting into, like the morality

(01:04:27):
and the ethics around, like whatdid they say?
Enough, did they do enough?
What more could they have done?

could they have.
Could they have done?
More like that is that wholedebate is like I was just
reading about that, but it wasmore about the liberation aspect
and the children who had beenbaptized and the pop being yeah,
there, if you haven't gottenthere, it's, uh, it's uh, what's
her name?
Um, I don't know, I don'tremember the the author's name.
There's so many authors, um,but talking about how children

(01:04:54):
who had been baptized by theirCatholic rescuers, like all
these Jewish organizations, werelike, hey, and there it was a
whole thing.
Um, but I'd love, I think it'sfascinating how the Catholic
church dealt with all that, soI'm sure I'll make that class at
some point.
Yeah.
So what does this look like foryou when you're done with your
degree?
What are you hoping to do withthis new information you've

(01:05:16):
gotten with your MA PhD program?

I mean I would love to like.
I mean our history is like myoriginal core love.
Like I'd love to take all ofthis knowledge I have now and
bring it back to that fieldbecause we clearly have so much.
We clearly have so many issueswhen it comes to like Nazi Arab
Provenance research, seeing itas valid, like seeing like these
Jewish concerns as likesomething that is valid and

(01:05:40):
still worthy of research andalso something that like and
like the legal aspect of it isreally sad, like there really
are no international laws, likenon-binding international
agreements and things like thatand so like bringing this
knowledge to like undergraduatelevel art historian so that

(01:06:01):
they're better prepared whenthey get into the field, when
they have to handle if they haveto handle these objects.
Because, like I said, it wasn'thappening at all in the auction
house where I worked, I thinkthe register at the museum where
I worked had been to like aprovenance training once.
Like in the past, like 10, 15years.
Like trying to bring it back tolike my original love, you know

(01:06:24):
, the arts and making it apriority so what does that look
like?

is that teaching?
Is that consulting?
Is that heading an auctionhouse or a museum?
And in my ideal, world.

It's teaching, which I know people hearing this
might be like oh my god, youhad that experience with
academia, why would you want togo back?
But I always say, like my dadone time said to me oh my gosh,
I'm so sorry you had thatexperience and I said I'm not as
awful as it was, it makes me abetter teacher.
Yeah, so teaching is like theultimate goal.
I'd love to teach.
I would love to teach like atthe university, undergraduate

(01:06:58):
level, whether it's a course orwhat, several courses, but like
that's what I want to do.

I feel like teaching was not the original
goal when I decided to go back,when I decided to go back and
finish my BFA, but I had somereally great teachers,
especially online, who did areally good job of talking about
their personal experiences andconnecting with people.
So maybe teaching I don't know.
I have no idea what I'm gonnaend up doing.

(01:07:24):
I ideally actually ideally whatI'm going to be doing is taking
people over to poland and beinga tour guide in poland.
Um, I can see that for you andwe are.
I don't know if we're gonnaofficially announce this, but
I'm planning a trip for nextaugust, um, and I'm probably
going to be looking to partnerwith people for this.
So I will absolutely bereaching out to you about this

(01:07:45):
and maybe I can.

Museums yes, there's all kinds of sites I
mean, like their castle inWarsaw is like destroyed.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, Ihaven't been to Warsaw.

So I feel like I have to go over and do some
research myself.
But I'm thinking next AugustI'm going to be taking like a
beta group of like some peopleover to Poland, so we'll see how
that works out so so.
So now let's pivot to socialmedia.
Uh, every millennials favoritesubject.
Uh, you are very popular on TikTOK and Instagram.

(01:08:16):
I'm, you are.
Cause I was like.
I was like oh, I like thisperson in class, let me look her
up.
And then I was like like, oh,you have 35,000 Instagram
followers.
Like uh, that's just anotherreason why I was really nervous
to ask you to be on the show,because I was like, oh, she's
fancy too.
Um, so how did that?
You are fancy.
I have like 780 followers.
Um, I'm like, it's like peopleI know personally.

(01:08:41):
Um, so what made you decide tostart a social media account
that was less personal and moreabout our history and things
like that?

I love this question because I have Culture
Quota, which is my art historybased account, and then I do
have a personal account and itis called Not Culture Quota Very
literal, very literal.
Very straightforward.
Well, I love literal writing.
You know, that.

So yes, but my focus is Culture, quota, it
wasn't always Culture veryliteral, very literal, very
straightforward.
Well, I love literal writing,you know that.

So yes, but my focus is culture quota.
It wasn't always culture quota.
So essentially years ago, whenI was studying abroad in rome,
which I mentioned like kind ofin passing earlier, I ended up
getting this amazing, randomlyassigned roommate.
It's like I always say, you know, god is real and she's a woman
and this is proof we become bestfriends.
Like I end up being the maid ofhonor at her wedding, like

(01:09:26):
she's my business partner, andshe got like a de facto tour
guide.
When we ended up beingroommates because I was like
totally fine going to all theseplaces where we didn't speak the
language, walking around andlike giving her just kind of
like these, like personalizedtours.
And we go to paris, we'restanding in front of notre Dame,
and she's like why do you careabout this?
Like all these books and movies, and I'm just looking at this

(01:09:49):
building, it's like basically abunch of stones, yeah, and I
lost my mind on her.
I was like how dare you and Iget rid of the whole this took
300 years to build and they didthe whole thing, and so we're
sitting in the park behind NotreDame very famously in my world.
It's because it has wi-fi, Iknow.
If you want to get wi-fianywhere in Europe, I'll tell
you where oh, I might need you.
You might need to create somesort of handbook for me yes,

(01:10:10):
because, like, I know all thespots and so we're sitting back
there and she was a marketingmajor at Butler much more
business-minded numbers don'tget make her sweat like they do
for me and she just kind oflooks at me.
She's like there's somethinghere, like there's a business,
like I don't know.
There's just something like weneed to really hone in on, like

(01:10:32):
your history, knowledge and how,like you make you can tell it
to people without making peoplefeel dumb.
And I'm like, oh, I'm just likein my mind, I'm just telling
you like I was talking.
She's like, yeah, it's justsomething about it, like I never
feel like intimidated to askyou questions or like whatever,
or like that you're talking downto me in any way.
And so she encouraged me tomake an instagram.
This was like in 2016.

(01:10:53):
We actually even have a photoof like us in the library at our
school in rome.
We decide, like the name isgoing to be culture quota and
this is what we're going to doon instagram.
A hook, so cute.
I have a cute little bananarepublic trench coat on, like
kicking my leg up.
No idea.
This is gonna become like therest of my life, and at the time
, it was literally like a photoof, like a piece of art or even
like a famous, like piece ofclothing or like building.

(01:11:16):
And I would just give you likethe little bite to like the
culture, cultural quota right,your quota for the week, your
little bite that like you couldthen go on like to your dinner
party and then like make peoplefeel like maybe you were more
cultured right than you were orlike you know, to keep up,
because that was obviously alsoplaying on the idea of like our
history degrees, like are justMRS degrees, like degrees, get

(01:11:37):
to that people get to like beimpressive, like at dinner
parties right and it, just asInstagram evolved, as social
media evolved, culture quotaevolved with it.
So like I was never sticking tothat one format, so like once
the thing to do on instagramwasn't a photo with like a ton
of text.
I just evolved with it.
I made the tiktok during covid.

(01:11:58):
Like everybody else, I wasstuck inside my apartment, had
nothing to do made the tiktokduring covid and the tiktok
actually took off first.
So culture quota had like acouple thousand followers on
instagram and then I got liketens of thousands of followers
on tiktok almost overnight.
And then in this past year onceI transitioned culture quota to
being more like I hate to say,like a meme page, in a way like

(01:12:20):
meme style or, like you know,presenting like the same ideas I
always had and the same jokesand the same observations, but
in more of like a meme stylelanguage.
Then it took off.
So culture quota having likethe four I think it's like 46
000 followers now that this timelast year was probably at like
11 000 you need, I need to pickyour brain so like one thing I

(01:12:42):
do is like I never I don't hidethe fact that like I'm an art
historian and like this is myresearch and this is what I do.
It's like it's literally at thetop of my posted posts or like
podcasts, just like this, whereI talk about who I am and what I
do, but I don't make contentabout the Holocaust typically
and I don't make content aboutlike provenance research.

(01:13:03):
I might make like an informativepost every now and then about
it and I have done um like ameme style post for the leo back
institute.
It was actually so funny.
The girl who runs the socialmedia there is so cool and she
was like we really wantsomething about um provenance
research of like books that havebeen looted.
And I said, okay, just like wewant it to be funny and we want
it to be like, if you can, realhousewives themed and I was like

(01:13:25):
easily just to get peopleinterested and that worked.
Like you know, it's not like itwasn't done in like a mocking
way, it was more mocking.
It was more mocking.
It wasn't done in a mocking way.
Actually, who we were mocking?
What I mean was we handled it,or I handled it in a way where I
was more mocking.
The people who have theinstitutions, who have these
books in their possession andrefuse to give them up, or you

(01:13:46):
know, you present them withevidence that they don't own the
book and they are like what,who never heard of you like that
kind of thing.
So that's really the only timeit's come up for me.
I have had people ask me onboth sides of the conflict why
don't you post about it more, orwhy don't we talk about it more
?
Especially as a jewish creatorand the stance I've always taken
is you can get that almostanywhere on instagram I would

(01:14:10):
like to be a safe space where wecan all come and laugh and just
relax a little bit, no matterlike where you fall on either
side, but especially for myjewish community, like I, would
just like to be a place where wecan just laugh a little bit and
, you know, have some greatjokes about Shabbat and Passover
and chill out for a secondCause, like you said, it is

(01:14:31):
nonstop time for seven, all thetime.

Yes, especially if you're a Jewish person online.
Yes, it's, it's all the time,but safe spaces are good spaces.
So you said.
You said your former roommatesare business partner.
Is that, with glamor and honey,your?

former roommates or business partner is
that with glamour and honeycorrect?
Can you talk to me about that?
Yes, so when we started culturequota, we started glamour and
honey alongside of it, and ouridea originally was to make like
merchandise for girls who werein sororities because she hated
all of her um, delta gamma gearright.
So we wanted to make somethingthat was like aesthetic and not

(01:15:07):
so, like you know, didn'tnecessarily have like a giant
greek letters on it, becauseobviously those are trademarked
and they're trademarked yes, solike the actual, like logos and
stuff, like you have to paymoney.
So weird, is that crazy?
I didn't go to a real college,so I didn't deal with any of
that I was not a sorority and Ialso I went to lula, which also
their sororities were like forshow.

(01:15:28):
Like you know, it was like youjust had the title, like that
was not like going to like ku orsomething, but so that was the
original idea around glamour andhoney.
And then, once culture quotagot big enough that it needed
merch and merch was being like,asked for.
It just ended up being thehosting site for my merch, so
that's where you can get all oflike cultural quotas.
Our history.
Merch is on glamor and honeycomand so she runs that with me.

(01:15:50):
She is like my business advisorwhen it comes to like Instagram
deals and things like that.
Like she's, she's the best.
I hope everyone gets an Allisonwoods in their life.
I really do.

It's nice that you found someone in such a random
way.
Like you said, god is real ohno, she's the definition of like
.

we all have soulmates in life, and they are
not necessarily like yourromantic partner.

I completely agree with that.
I have several of those, Ithink.
So you mentioned RealHousewives.
You are a big reality TV fan.
I've been really bad because Ihave no time whatsoever at all
to do anything.
As I said, in my free time.
I was really.
I've been really bad cause Ihave no time whatsoever, um at
all to do anything.
As I said, in my free time, Iwatched Holocaust documentaries,
um, but we were really intobelow deck during um, covid and

(01:16:37):
uh, I, I, I am like two seasonsbehind in on Salt Lake, but um,
I, I enjoy a good reality TVshow, oh yeah, on occasion.
What is your favorite?

Ooh, it's so hard for me Because I love
reality TV.
I always say the smartestpeople I know love reality TV
too.
Okay, I definitely am like aReal Housewives girl, for sure,
and this could be like divisive.
I love Real Housewives of newyork city.

Oh, there's a new cast right now, isn't there
correct?

and I was about to say I'm gonna.
You know, caveat that with.
I love the original realhousewives of new york seasons
not that I dislike the newseasons.
I'm not saying I dislike them, Ijust there hasn't been enough
of them for me to be like, ohyeah, like they're my faves,
like the original with likebethany and luann ramona, like
that's probably my fave, likethat's what it turned on, like

(01:17:31):
my dog lady.
Her middle name is dorinda,after dorinda medley from the
real house.
I was, you know, lady dorindalevine, so that's probably my
fave um, all right.

uh, so this last portion of the interview is a
complete ripoff of the actor'sstudio.
So these are short formquestions.
They don't require long answers.
What is your favorite Yiddishword?
Does chutzpah count?
It does Chutzpah definitelycounts.
What is your favorite Jewishholiday?

Passover.
I sorry, dad.
I know my dad's going to listen, but Moses and the Prince of
Egypt was my separate way.

You know, I've never watched that entire movie.
I have never seen that entirefilm.
It's terrible.

I have watched it.
I've probably watched it likefour times last week.

I should put that on the list.
Show my daughter.
So, since you didn't have a batmitzvah, if you were to have a
bat mitzvah party, what wouldyour theme be If you were to?

have a bat mitzvah party.
What would your theme be?
I have thought about this forso many years.
And now I think it would beBravo themed, like I think there
would have to be like a RealHousewives section, a Summer
House section, a Below Deck Medsection, Like yeah and Andy.

Cohen could come DJ, of course.
I think if you got him drunkenough, he'd bring Anderson
Cooper.
They're my favorites on New.
Year's we specifically tuned inthe end of the night just to
watch them.

Oh yeah, it's this absolutely serious talking
about the mayor.
It's great and for anyone whois like an old school bravo fan,
I want them to know that I amaligned with kathy griffin in
the andy cohen kathy griffinrift.
My life on the deal is probablylike my gateway drug into
reality TV, but I do love Andy.
You know I don't want to picksides.
I feel like a child of divorce.

We used to watch the Kathy Griffin show we liked,
because I still lived in LA atthat point and I had more free
time.
What?

profession other than your own, would you
want to attempt?
I don't know, probablyjournalist.

A good one.
If heaven is real and God isthere to welcome you, what would
you like to hear them say?

I'm sorry.
Oh.
I'm just kidding.
I think everyone wants to hearthat.
Oh my gosh, I think everyonewants to hear that.
Probably something along thelines of I saw you.
You held it together with a lotof caffeine, but you did it and
I'm proud of you.

I'm Nicole Kelly and this has been SheBrew in the
City.
Thank you so much for listeningin © transcript Emily Beynon.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}"Art Isn't Easy" - An Interview with Beatrice Levine