My friend Surat Knan is running a crowdfunding campaign to help support their Rainbow Jews project. If you have any interest in LGBT history, and in particular if you do so and are Jewish, you may want to support this project.
One of the uses of the money will be to allow the Rainbow Jews history exhibit to tour around the UK. Surat and I have briefly discussed bringing it to Bristol at some point. We’ve also been taking an interest recently in the work of the Jewish Pre-Raphaelite painter, Simeon Solomon. More of that in due course.
To learn more about Rainbow Jews, and support the crowdfunder, go here.
1. if you haven’t already, track down a copy of Neil Bartlett’s monologue “A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep†about Solomon which is in “Gay Plays Volume 4†and also Bartlett’s collection “Solo Voicesâ€. If you’re in luck, you may be able to read most of it on line at Google Books.
There’s a little more about it at:
http://www.bacarchive.org.uk/files/original/538b87955a7df4b97222aac5d3f8d5f1.pdf
There also exists a video-recording of Bartlett performing this as it was shown as part of the 2005 Simeon Solomon exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
2. Simeon Solomon crops up as a background character in Avram Davidson’s pre-Raphaelite horror story “Buchanan’s Headâ€, though I forget to how much detail.
Thank you! Especially for the excuse to go and read some Avram Davidson.