London Museum Seeks David Bowie’s
Dress for Exhibit on Jews in British
Fashion Industry
David Bowie, Greta Garbo and Sean Connery were not Jewish. But some of the
garments they made famous — Bowie’s dresses, Garbo’s hats and the tuxedo
Connery donned as James Bond — all had Jewish creators.

A London museum is trying to gather some of those pieces of clothing for an
exhibit on the impact that the city’s immigrant communities had on the British fashion
industry. The Museum of London Docklands documents the capital city’s history as a port
town, telling the stories of those who arrived on the River Thames, from African
slaves brought through the Atlantic slave trade to the masses of Jewish immigrants
who came in the late 1800s fl eeing persecution in Eastern Europe.

Like their co-religionists who arrived in New York, many of those Jews found
themselves in the garment industry after immigrating.

“Jewish people were working at all levels of the fashion industry in London
throughout the 20th century, but the extent of their contribution has been widely
unrecognized,” fashion curator Lucie Whitmore said in a statement from the
museum. “Jewish makers established the ready to wear industry, worked their way
into the highest levels of London fashion and dominated Carnaby Street in the
swinging sixties. Many of these designers were internationally famous — favoured
by the rich and famous and highly respected for their creativity, skill and originality.

It’s a contribution that deserves to be recognised.”
Starting in October and running until April 2024, the museum will host an exhibit
David Bowie is shown with his wife Angie at home in Kent, England, in 1971,
in a dress that he famously wore on the cover of his “The Man Who Sold the
World” album.

titled “Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style.”
To fi ll out the collection, however, they have put out a public call for help in
gathering notable artifacts created by Jewish designers such as Mr. Fish (born
Michael Fish), Cecil Gee, Otto Lucas, the Rahvis sisters and Madame Isobel (Isobel
Spevak Harris). The statement states the museum is looking for “menswear pieces
… worn by famous names such as David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Muhammad Ali and
Michael Caine,” along with “members of The Beatles,” by March 1.

Fish produced some of Britain’s most iconic 1960s and '70s fashion designs, such
as the wide kipper tie. Cecil Gee began his career in the 1930s and designed the
“Demob Suit” (short for demobilization), which was granted to British soldiers by the
army after their release from World War II service. Raemonde and Dora Rahvis were
two South Africa-born Jewish sisters who after immigrating to London became some
of the fi rst prominent costume designers in the British fi lm industry. ■
— David I. Klein/JTA
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Weekly Kibbitz



local
Drexel Class Explores Relationship
Between Judaism, Christianity
Through New Lens
F Courtesy of Jonathan Seitz
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
or as long as there’s been
discourse about Christianity,
there’s been discourse about its
relationship with Judaism.

The topic has been explored through
the lens of history, theology and sociol-
ogy, but Drexel Professor of Philosophy
and English Marilyn Piety is taking a
diff erent approach. For the past several
years, Piety has taught “Judaism and
Christianity: Two Religions or One,”
part of the university’s Interfaith and
Religious Studies program.

“This class is diff erent,” Piety said.

“That is, I approach it from a philosoph-
ical perspective.”
The course introduces students to
a myriad of viewpoints from scholars
of diff erent faiths to identify common
and separate philosophical ideologies
between the religions.

A scholar of Danish theologian Søren
Kierkegaard, Piety is interested in the
philosopher’s concept of “original
Christianity.” Through her scholarship
and class, Piety posited some similar-
ities between Jewish and Christian
philosophies: “They both have the
concept of neighbor love, God is love.

They both have a concept of grace.

They both have a concept of God
working in humanity.”
To contextualize these philosophies,
Piety explores the history of the two
religions. “What most of my students don’t
understand is that the split between
Judaism and Christianity was a long
time in developing,” she said.

“Jesus never talks about splitting off
and forming his own religion. He was
just one of, at the time, many charis-
matic leaders within ancient Judaism,”
Piety added. “Ancient Judaism, just
as contemporary Judaism, was very
tolerant of a diversity of views and
The Jewish quarter in Venice, taken at Drexel Professor Jonathan Seitz’s
student trip to Italy
interpretations in religious scripture,
and all that. That is something that
most students are unaware of, that
Christianity was essentially originally a
movement from within Judaism.”
Piety developed the course more
than fi ve years ago as part of Drexel’s
Interfaith Studies program after Jewish
Philadelphia philanthropist Laurie
Wagman awarded a grant for the
creation of the program, which would
off er online courses to students, culmi-
nating in a certifi cate. The grant included
funding for a video lecture series from
The Great Courses, which Piety uses
to present diverse philosophical ideas
from diff erent scholars. Other courses
in the interdisciplinary program include
“Introduction to World Religions”;
“Coexistence and Conflict: Jews,
Christians, and Muslims in the Early
Mediterranean”; and “Anthropology of
Interfaith Relations.”
One goal of the grant, according to
Piety, was to combat growing antisem-
itism by teaching religious diversity.

Drexel did not previously off er many
religious courses.

Most of the students in the program
aren’t religious but are instead spiritu-
ally curious.

Duy Hoang, a 2021 Drexel gradu-
ate who studied computer science,
took Piety’s course to gain insight into
religions more subjectively.

“I was struggling with coming to
faith. ... I was hoping that I could have
an objective, historical view and facts
about the Christian religion, the Jewish
religion and how they’re related,” he
said. Despite Judaism being a bedrock
of the program’s founding and off ered
courses, none of the program’s three
faculty are Jewish. According to
Professor of History Jonathan Seitz,
who teaches “Coexistence and
Confl ict,” being Jewish isn’t necessary
to teach or experience the program.

“That’s always something that you
have to be aware of, and work with
when you’re teaching,” he said. “All
scholars, I think, have our narrow
specialty, but usually when we’re
teaching, we’re trying to teach a larger
story, larger context. And so, anytime
you do that, you’re gonna be working
farther from your personal experience,
personal knowledge or professional
knowledge.” Seitz leads a student trip to Rome and
Venice, Italy, once part of the program
but now independent, to explore
the Jewish and Muslim quarters and
cemeteries of the cities. Experiences
such as this help to recontextualize and
challenge preconceived notions about
religions. So much of religious studies
have come from western and American
perspectives, skewing the scholarship
available. “We have to approach it with a certain
level of humility,” Seitz said of address-
ing academic biases.

Beyond lectures and fi nal exams,
professors within the Interfaith Studies
program want to instill deep mutual
respect among students of diff erent
religions. “There are important elements in
our religions that need to be passed
on,” said Douglas Porpora, a sociology
professor who teaches in the program.

Porpora is Catholic with Jewish
ancestry and is married to a Jewish
woman. Though secure in his religious
beliefs, the Interfaith Studies program
has helped him not only open his eyes
to other religious beliefs but to identify
and connect with them. The program
could have the same eff ect on his
students. “To know these religions is to de-oth-
erize them,” he said. ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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