As we shared previously, The Shalom Center is so excited to be joining with our partners in two very special events happening this week, a live broadcast of the inaugural epsiode of the Four Questions podcast, and the groundbreaking JudeoFuturism 70 Seeds Exhibition.
Live broadcast of the inaugural episode of Four Questions, a podcast from Ayin Press
Tomorrow, November 5th, 12:00-1:15 pm ET on Zoom
Register HERE
Bayo Akomolafe & adrienne maree brown in conversation with Rabbi Nate DeGroot
Join us on November 5th at 12 p.m. ET for a live recording of the first episode of Four Questions, Ayin Press’ new podcast series, with Báyò Akómoláfé and adrienne maree brown, facilitated by The Shalom Center’s own Rabbi Nate DeGroot.
At the heart of the Passover seder lie four questions: deceptively simple yet endlessly prismatic, they embody the ever-evolving Jewish tradition of inquiry. Four Questions draws on this sacred technology to stage a series of expansive and interdisciplinary conversations between artists, philosophers, activists, and teachers from distinct worlds. In each episode, people meet through the vulnerable act of asking and answering four open-ended questions. Rather than interviews, these conversations are intimate encounters whose themes reach across traditions and time spans—touching art, science, religion, theater, politics, and beyond.
At the heart of the Passover seder lie four questions: deceptively simple yet endlessly prismatic, they embody the ever-evolving Jewish tradition of inquiry. Four Questions draws on this sacred technology to stage a series of expansive and interdisciplinary conversations between artists, philosophers, activists, and teachers from distinct worlds. In each episode, people meet through the vulnerable act of asking and answering four open-ended questions. Rather than interviews, these conversations are intimate encounters whose themes reach across traditions and time spans—touching art, science, religion, theater, politics, and beyond.
A posthumanist polymath and “trans-public” intellectual, Báyò Akómoláfé has produced a vast body of work that presents a startling picture of the world in perpetual process and radical relation. Through an ever-growing archive of books, articles, interviews, social media posts, workshops, and rituals, Akómoláfé seeks to interrogate the fundamental assumptions and epistemological gaps in our current culture in crisis. Read Báyò and Nate in conversation (2023). Order Selah: A Báyò Akómoláfé Reader.
adrienne maree brown (she/they) is growing a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship and doula work, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Loving Correction as ideas and practices for transformation. adrienne is the NYT-bestselling author/editor of several published texts, a ritual singer-songwriter, co-generator of the Lineages of Change Tarot Deck, and co-creator/host of How to Survive the End of the World podcast with Autumn Brown. adrienne’s latest book Loving Corrections is now available from AK Press.
Event cosponsored by The Shalom Center, the emergence network, and For The Wild
70 Seeds Exhibition
Online and in-person (Boston) opportunities to participate
October 27-November 8, 2026
Boston, MA
The Calderwood Pavilion at Boston Center for the Arts, Martin Hall
and online
Full community programming schedule and tickets HERE
70 Seeds: A Boston-based and digital group exhibition imagining American Jewish life in 2070, presented by The Judeofuturism Project
Join The JudeoFuturism Project and The Shalom Center October 27-November 8 for 70 Seeds, a group exhibition imagining vibrant, pluralistic futures of American Jewish life in 2070—two thousand years after the fall of the Second Temple. Read about the exhibition here, and see below how to participate in-person and online.
About the exhibition
What will it mean to light Shabbat candles in 2070? To mourn, to marry, to raise a child, to wrestle with text, to be in service of community—in a world we cannot yet picture? What will it mean to be Jewish? Who will be sitting at your table, and whose table will you be welcomed to?
Produced by Shalom Center Cohort א alumni and Alumni Trust member, Becca Leviss of the Judeofuturism Project, and curated by Aimee Rubensteen of MyFi Studio, the exhibition brings together 11 American Jewish artists working across visual art, performance, interactive installation, sound design, and digital media. Drawing on their own questions and hopes of Jewish futures alongside speculative art, strategic foresight frameworks, and Jewish rituals and texts, the artists work in soft, gathered, and digitized materials to imagine textures of Jewish community, ritual, identity, diaspora, and belonging.
Far from Boston?
Visit the 70 Seeds Digital Exhibition
View the Digital exhibition here.
RSVP to join a virtual tour and workshop on November 19, 2026 from 1-3pm ET here.
In order to ensure the accessibility and longevity of the exhibition beyond the Boston area, a digital exhibition platform is available to allow anyone to engage with the materials and programming.
Able to join in-person in Boston?
Jewish Pessimisms and Futurisms: A Live Conversation
Tomorrow, November 5th, 7:00-8:30pm ET
The Calderwood Pavilion at Boston Center for the Arts, Martin Hall
Boston, MA
Register HERE
Rather than staging a debate between pessimism and futurism, this intimate conversation brings together a small group of practitioners, thinkers, and artists to explore how these frameworks interact with and illuminate one another, and the range of questions they help us contend with. Join Becca Leviss, Jordan Berg Powers, exhibiting artist Sam Slate, and Rabbi Nate DeGroot, to explore how frameworks of pessimism, futurism, and imagination shape this moment in Jewish life, and what they reveal about the futures we build.
Becca Leviss (she/her) is a Jewish futurist, organizer, and facilitator working at the intersection of culture, religion, and long-term futures. She is the founder and director of the Judeofuturism Project, where she focuses on strengthening and connecting collective visions for vibrant, pluralistic Jewish life. Becca holds a Master’s in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, where her research focused on religion, ethics, politics, and future-oriented community building. She has previously worked at Protect Democracy, Democracy 2076, and with the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School in democracy advocacy, philanthropy strategy, and leadership education. She received her Bachelor’s in Sociology and Research Analysis from Tufts University.
Jordan Berg Powers (he/him) is a consultant and a PhD Student in Social Policy at Brandeis University, Heller School, in the Institute of Economic and Racial Equity. Jordan also runs a consulting business that supports national organizations in enhancing their organizing, policy work, messaging, and best practices for integrating staff into the organization. Before consulting, Jordan was an award-winning Executive Director of Mass Alliance for 13 years. As a broad coalition of 29 political and advocacy organizations of different sizes, organizational structures, and focus areas, Jordan knitted these disparate groups together to build a powerful, cohesive table dedicated to making Massachusetts more just. Using his expertise in talking to ordinary voters about policy, Jordan successfully won campaigns to save public education, advance environmental justice, and secure a fairer tax system for the Commonwealth. It is that work on the importance of narratives that informed his dissertation and focus on Afropessimism.
Sam Slate (he/him), also known as Diva Nigun, is a Jewish music producer and performer, specializing in electronic Jewish dance music, remixes, lo-fi, meditation, and everything in between. Her remixes can be found at weddings, her comedic videos can be found on social media (@diva_nigun), and she herself can be found producing music on Sony WH-1000XM4 noise canceling headphones at a cafe near you.
Exhibition partners include The Shalom Center, Reboot, Judaism Unbound, and Boston Center for the Arts