The Jewish Federation
of Greater Philadelphia
Impact by
the Numbers
is proud to support diversity in the Jewish community by
ensuring that historically disconnected groups, such as
interfaith families, LGBTQIA+ individuals, Russian-speaking
Jews and Jews of Color, are connected to Jewish life. As part
of this initiative, the Jewish Federation supports agencies
and programs that are welcoming, Jewish values-based, and
responsive to these communities' needs and interests.

1 in 10
35% Jewish households in the
Greater Philadelphia area
have an individual
identifying as
LGBTQIA+ of interfaith households
are highly or moderately
engaged in Jewish
life $363,000
provided by the Jewish
Federation in Fiscal Year 2022 to
support agencies and programs
focused on diversity including:
in the
United States
50% of marriages in
Greater Philadelphia
are interfaith
1 in 10
Jewish households in
Greater Philadelphia include
an individual identifying
as a Jew of Color
18Doors Philadelphia
Friendship Circle
Jewish Learning Venture
Jewish Learning Venture
South Philadelphia Shtiebel
Tribe 12
in Israel
Atid Bamidbar R.A.

Olim Beyahad
Israel Hofsheet
The Jewish Agency for Israel
Celebrating Diversity Locally
Celebrating Diversity in Israel
“When I found Tribe 12’s Ga(y)me night and
queer community, I finally felt like I had a
place to figure out Judaism with a group of
people like me.”
In an effort to promote opportunities for diverse Jewish
expressions and Jewish pluralism, the Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia is proud to fund Israel Hofsheet for its work
to promote marriage equality in Israel.

– Member of Tribe 12’s LGBTQIA+ community
Tribe 12’s LGBTQIA+ Program aims to connect queer young
adults as they build their Jewish identities through support
and community events year-round.

8 Jewish Population Study, 2019
JUNE 23, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
An estimated 350,000 Russian olim couples can now marry legally,
thanks to Israel Hofsheet’s Havaya Freedom of Marriage project, a
unique “one-stop-shop” for wedding services and legal rights.




YOU SHOULD KNOW ...

Isabella Segalovich
Courtesy of Isabella Segalovich
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
A t first glance, a video about hidden gelatin in vitamin D3
capsules has nothing to do with the rise of subway graffiti
in New York or the lost-then-found Birds’ Head Haggadah.

As mishmashed as the topics seem, the respective videos share a
grid on Isabella Segalovich’s TikTok page, which has amassed more
than 163,000 followers and 5.2 million views since Segalovich made
the account a year-and-a-half ago.

Segalovich, 25, is a Jewish graphic design artist and freelance writer
in South Philadelphia with an interest in art history. But like many
young people entering the professional world in a pandemic, she
found refuge — and a platform — on
the video app.

“I was living alone during the con-
tinuing pandemic, and so I was really
just extremely bored, scrolling on
TikTok through 2020,” Segalovich said.

“Then, in early 2021, I started posting
a couple of videos of my artwork and
multimedia stuff.”
At first, people on the app were put
off by Segalovich’s eccentric videos on
sprawling topics. It wasn’t until she
uploaded a series of videos about jew-
el-adorned skeletons in Germany and
Austria that she found her footing.

“The third one of those videos kind
of blew up and got 13,000 likes, and
I was like, ‘What the what! Sixty-five
thousand people saw my face? That’s
ridiculous,’” Segalovich said.

With hundreds of one-to-five min-
ute videos uploaded, Segalovich has
become a TikTok microcelebrity in the
world of art history.

Though her TikToks are a combi-
nation of musings, public service
announcements and do-it-yourself
scholarship, Segalovich has an over-
arching interest in “anti-authoritarian
folk art history.” Rather than look-
ing at art through the lens of one
artist creating a new style or format,
Segalovich focuses on art and art tradi-
tions made in community and passed
down through generations.

Jewish art scholarship fits into this
philosophy, as Jewish tradition and
architecture is built on folk traditions
and community spaces. But like most
things Jewish, it is fraught with differ-
ing points of view.

“One of the things that a lot of people
say is, you know, there is no such thing
as Jewish architecture; there’s no such
thing as, like, defining a building as
being inherently Jewish,” Segalovich
said. “What I think is more specific
and maybe a little bit better for me is to
say that there are many types of Jewish
architecture; there are many different
types of Jewish art.”
Segalovich’s research has led her to
explore early 20th-century American
modernist synagogues that favor
large, sweeping shapes; Yemenite and
Sephardi synagogues with ornate ritual
art; and Eastern European shtetl syna-
gogues with detailed murals.

“We have the principle of hiddur
mitzvah, which is making your origi-
nal art as beautiful as you possibly can
and kind of enhancing the mitzvah
[of religious celebrations],” Segalovich
said. “That has obviously been taken in
different directions by different com-
munities at different times.”
Raised in New Haven, Connecticut,
Segalovich developed a love for art
and art history after her godfather
gifted her “The Styles of Ornament” by
Alexander Speltz, a 1959 tome of more
than 3,765 illustrations.

“I was just super, just completely
obsessed with these drawings,” she said.

Segalovich got her bachelor’s in fine
arts and minored in visual studies
(an application of art history) from
Haverford College in 2019, writing her
thesis on ornaments in Central and
Eastern Europe and studying abroad in
Croatia, Bulgaria and Hungary, among
other Central European countries.

She planted roots in Philadelphia after
graduating. The city is home to its own brand
of ornamentation that embodies
Segalovich’s interests: graffiti.

“Graffiti is as old as art in itself,” she
said. Art historians consider cave paint-
ings and drawings to be the first
graffiti, but the folk art form had its
modern genesis in Philadelphia,
where artist Cornbread and a group of
friends began tagging their names —
spray-painting initials and nicknames
on bridges and buildings — across the
city in the 1960s. The “Wicked” graffiti
style was born, easily recognizable by
its flowing letters but individualized
across different artists.

It’s a way of envisioning art more
expansively, as a community project
rather than an institution’s invention.

“That’s what’s really interesting to
me ... art that is created by communi-
ties and architecture that’s created by
communities and stuff that is, in some
way, ground-up as opposed to being
top-down,” Segalovich said. JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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