OJMCHE Hosts Important Dialogue on Holocaust Legacy, Art, and Identity
PORTLAND, OR (September 5, 2025) – On Saturday, October 25th, the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education (OJMCHE) hosts Jewish Eyes and Words on Berlin: A Conversation with Jason Langer and Andrea Stolowitz — a powerful dialogue confronting the intergenerational imprint of the Holocaust and the ways art can bear witness, heal, and inspire. The culminating program for one of two current exhibitions, Berlin: A Jewish Ode to the Metropolis, an evocative series of photographs by Jason Langer, this public conversation brings together two extraordinary artists whose lives and work are deeply intertwined with the legacy of Jewish identity, trauma, and resilience in the German capital. Photographer Jason Langer, whose moody, cinematic images of Berlin anchor the exhibition, joins Andrea Stolowitz, award-winning playwright and librettist, for a dialogue on memory, place, and artistic reckoning. Scholar Katja Garloff, Professor of German and Humanities at Reed College, will moderate the conversation, providing literary and cultural context.
Through photography and storytelling, Langer and Stolowitz confront Berlin as both an epicenter of Jewish loss and a site of personal and creative renewal. Their conversation will explore the intergenerational imprint of the Holocaust, the complexities of Jewish-German identity, and the ways in which art becomes both documentation and salve.
This event closes a powerful exhibition that reflects OJMCHE’s mission to explore Jewish history, identity, and legacy through art, education, and dialogue. Visitors are encouraged to experience Berlin: A Jewish Ode to the Metropolis (on view through October 26) and/or listen to the audio drama of Stolowitz’s play, The Berlin Diaries (provided upon registration) prior to the program.
However, all are welcome, and advance preparation is not required to engage meaningfully in the conversation.
About the Panelists
- Jason Langer, a Portland-based photographer, has exhibited internationally for more than three decades. Deeply influenced by Buddhist philosophy, his work meditates on mortality, memory, and transcendence. Langer taught photography for the Academy of Art University (San Francisco) for more than a decade, and currently teaches for Santa Fe Workshops, Medium San Diego, and is a faculty member of Photo Phlo. Upcoming projects include Samsara: the Wheel of Life and Transcendence, which reflects the Buddhist cycle of birth, death, and rebirth following his father’s passing in 2019.
- Andrea Stolowitz is an internationally produced playwright and librettist and a dual US/German citizen (reclaimed from her Jewish ancestry). Andrea splits her time between New York, Portland, Berlin, and Ireland. As a three-time winner of the Oregon Book Award in drama, Andrea uses storytelling as the medium for deeper social understanding. Her plays have been developed and presented nationally and internationally at theaters such as The Long Wharf, The Old Globe, The Cherry Lane, and New York Stage and Film. The LA Times calls her work “heartbreaking” and the Orange County Register characterizes her approach as a “brave refusal to sugarcoat issues and tough decisions.” Stolowitz is currently in her third year as playwright-in-residence at OJMCHE.
- Katja Garloff, Moe and Izetta Tonkon Professor of German Studies, Jewish Studies, and Humanities at Reed College, is a leading scholar of German Jewish literature and culture. She is the author of Words from Abroad: Trauma and Displacement in Postwar German Jewish Writers (Wayne State University Press, 2005), Mixed Feelings: Tropes of Love in German Jewish Culture (Cornell University Press, 2016), and Making German Jewish Literature Anew: Authorship, Memory, and Place (Indiana University Press, 2022), as well as the co-editor of German Jewish Literature after 1990 (Camden House, 2018). She has won grants from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and at Reed, she offers courses on modern German literature, German Jewish culture, film and media studies, and humanities.
The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education explores the legacy of the Jewish experience in Oregon, teaches the enduring and universal relevance of the Holocaust, and provides opportunities for intercultural conversations. The main and east galleries, on the first floor, feature rotating exhibitions of national and international stature, while four core exhibits anchor programming:
- Discrimination and Resistance, An Oregon Primer
- The Holocaust, An Oregon Perspective
- Oregon Jewish Stories
- Human Rights After the Holocaust
The museum also features a robust series of public programming, including film screenings, lectures, and exhibition-related education, in addition to a beautiful museum shop, all in downtown Portland. Learn more at ojmche.org
For additional information, media materials and interview inquiries, please contact:
Amelia Lukas, Principal, Aligned Artistry; 415-516-4851; amelia@alignedartistry.com