Cultural Expressions and How They Reflect Tradition

Traditional cultural expressions include tangible and intangible items unique to a specific culture, including everything from visual and performing art forms to religious ceremonies and architecture. It was not until I realized that wearing or using the cultural expressions from other societies often constituted cultural appropriation that I began to examine my own cultural expressions more critically. For example, for non-native people to wear moccasins is a form of cultural appropriation by taking traditional cultural expressions and taking them completely out of context. As Franklin (2016) also points out, some indigenous cultures perform dances or music in front of tourists with potentially problematic results. Yet cultural expressions are one of the most important ways of retaining the core elements of a traditional culture, helping societies to pass on their knowledge, wisdom, and traditions to future generations. Cultural expressions also allow members of a society to communicate and share the beauty of their culture with others. The three cultural expressions I would like to discuss in light of my own personal background include food, art, and religious ritual.
Food is sometimes a neglected cultural expression, but in my household, food traditions occupy a unique role. My grandmother used to make blintzes every Sunday morning, and we also ate challah every Friday night. Because we grew up in a Jewish neighborhood, our food cultural expressions were things we took for granted until we encountered people from other cultures who ate different food. Other foods that we learned to associate with our culture included shakshuga, an egg dish, humus, bagels, and brisket. When I see these types of food being served, they are usually presented as being Jewish foods, but some of them have become divorced from their cultural origins in the same way that moccasins are sometimes taken out of their cultural context. Therefore, I believe it is important to recognize the cultural value of food and to acknowledge the people that have passed on these recipes. In my family, my grandmother passed on many of the recipes given to her by her grandmother before her. She used to say that tradition was important and that food was an expression of love, which was why she held on to these recipes and continued to make them even if it was not a special occasion. The traditional foods we ate were sometimes consumed on Jewish holidays, or for the Shabbat dinner, linking food to other cultural expressions like religious ritual.
Religious rituals are one of the most important cultural expressions to the Jewish people. I believe that the religious rituals are less about mysticism, theology, or spirituality than they are about community. The rituals bring together different members of the family, and almost all the religious rituals focus on food. Even Yom Kippur, the day of fasting and atonement, eventually ends and people will eat together. All Jewish people interested in preserving their cultural heritage may participate in the religious rituals, even if they do not necessarily feel superstitious about the hidden meaning of those rites. I do know some people who are religious and believe in G-d, but religious rituals are ultimately cultural expressions more than anything because they are conducted so we never forget who we are, where we came from, and why we are different from other people. Different religious rituals take place throughout the year, some of them being personal celebrations like bat and bar mitzvah parties and others being collective religious events like Rosh Hashanah and Passover. For each of these religious rituals, there are signs and symbols that go along with them to anchor us in our culture and tradition. We will recite songs in Hebrew and the use of the language in this way also connects the people with their ancient lineages.
Finally, the visual arts are a significant cultural express that can communicate who we are, what we believe, and how we act. We have long collected different types of art in my family and interestingly, we also have the cultural expressions from places around the world. Collected from my family’s travels, these cultural expressions are perceived of similarly as the cultural expressions from our own heritage, as we recognize when an artist or musician had a Jewish background. For example, my parents have a small painting by Paul Klee, and many art books including artists that also have a Jewish background. The same is true for our music collection, which is played on any occasion and speaks more to our personal taste than it does to our culture. At the same time, there are always distinctly Jewish pieces of music and art that we hold up as examples of the rich artistic heritage of our disparate communities in the diaspora.
Taken together, art, religion, and food help define who I am, what I believe, and how I act. I believe that anyone who took a look at the food I ate with my family, at the music and art collection in our home, or at one of our religious events would instantly know that we were proud of our heritage and committed to upholding these three cultural expressions as a primary means of expressing that pride. As Wong & Fernandini (2010) put it, “local communities could be treated as custodians” of the cultural expressions (p. 3). Outsiders to the community may make assumptions about Jewish people from gazing at the cultural expressions; some might believe that the expressions are only about religion when they are as much about culture as the moccasin is to the Cherokee. Similarly, the World Intellectual Property Organization (2017) points out that cultural expressions are critical to forming the identity of individuals and communities. Passed down from generation to generation, cultural expressions show that the Jewish people have remained strong in spite of being persecuted. I also believe that passing on cultural expressions and traditions asserts the uniqueness of Jewish identity, helping to show that communities in diaspora form a cohesive “nation,” “tribe” or community that transcends geographic boundaries.





References

Franklin, J.A. (2016). Traditional cultural expressions and cultural institutions. In Indigenous Notions of Ownership and Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Walter de Gruyter.
Wong, T. & Fernandini, C. (2010). Traditional cultural expressions: preservation and innovation. Intellectual Property and Human Development. Retrieved online: http://www.piipa.org/images/IP_Book/Chapter_5_-_IP_and_Human_Development.pdf
World Intellectual Property Organization (2017). Traditional cultural expressions.