The Jewish Renaissance Boxing Club

(Zsuzsi Flohr , Tatiana Kai-Browne, Veronica Lion and Sarah Mendelsohn) was formed out of a transnational collective that came together in Vienna 2014 to create a space for the critical analysis of Jewish, queer and further identity positions and culture.

The Jewish Renaissance Boxing Club (JRBC) is an ongoing project since 2014.

The JRBC takes boxing as both an activity and a cultural, political metaphor. Boxing requires awareness of boundaries: taking responsibility for your opponents and for yourself. Our goal is to open the metaphor of boxing in myriad ways; as a cultural reference, as communal and recreational physical practice, as an image for dealing with differences within the concept of identities, and many more, in the same way that it takes part in our lives within our collective.

The JRBC is an experiment for us and for everyone participating. We wish to learn from our experiences and one another and seek to work on them in regard to continue a process of questioning and creating community.

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The Jewish Renaissance Boxing Club – Vienna revitalizes histories of Jewish cultural and community life through boxing, critical political discourse and performance.

Through a program of boxing lessons, performances, lectures, and discussions, The Jewish Renaissance Boxing Club – Vienna (JRBCV) attempts to create a space for productive dialogue about the interdependence of Jewish, queer and further identity positions. We understand renaissance as this effort of recontextualizing a multidirectional Jewish being and practice in Vienna by relating to previous forms of collectivity, like Jewish sports clubs; Hakoah Vienna (1909) and Maccabi Vienna(1895).

Boxing has enabled us to rethink normative bodily stereotypes of female and queer bodies, and the body in general. Boxing requires awareness of boundaries, knowing when to hit harder, knowing when to stop. It requires taking responsibility for your opponents and for yourself. You will hurt and you will get hurt.

The JRBCV asks what politics of identity and allyship can learn from boxing training and from reclaiming conventional forms for masculine, dominant, hegemonic aggression.

The JRBCV is an experimental approach to identity and cultural histories, in search of intersections among our individual perspectives, individual histories, and perceptions of an overlapping context Vienna in our time, individualities and impulses which may at times contradict each other. The JRBCV is an experiment: for us and for everyone participating.

more info: http://www.wienwoche.org/en/366/the_jewish_renaissance_boxing_club_-_vienna
contact: jrbc.vienna@gmail.com

Documentation of The JRBCV

First Public Statement of The Jewish Renaissance Boxing Club – Vienna:
Introductory lecture-performance addressing the references, goals, and questions of The Jewish Renaissance Boxing Club Vienna, followed by informal discussion and workshop, with Zsuzsi Flohr, Tatiana KaiBrowne, Veronica Lion, Sarah Mendelsohn
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.896230507135377.1073741881.118414524916983&type=3

Exploring Alliances and Breakages Between Queerness, Jewishness and Sports
Sporty Lecture-performance by Marty Huber (performer, writer, theorist, and queer activist)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.897703036988124.1073741889.118414524916983&type=3

Wiener Zeitung
Der etwas andere jüdische Rahmen Von Alexia Weiss
http://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/wien/stadtpolitik/776240_Der-etwas-andere-juedische-Rahmen.html

Feministisch-queeres Boxen bei Wienwoche
http://wien.orf.at/m/news/stories/2726590/

Radio Grille Zu hören auf Orange 94.0
Radio Cricket – jewish, queer, boxing – 11/2015

The Jewish Renaissance Boxing Club – Vienna
…revitalizes histories of Jewish cultural and community life through boxing, critical political discourse and performance.
In September 2015 a Series of events took place at wienwoche 2015. Boxtrainings, Lectures, Performances and Workshops were organised by the group.

+++ Cut-outs of the First Public Statement of The Jewish Renaissance Boxing Club – Vienna
+++ Interview with Zsuzsi Flohr of the JRBCV

The Jewish Renaissance Boxing Club – Vienna are Zsuzsi Flohr, Tatiana Kai-Browne, Veronica Lion and Sarah Mendelsohn

“… because it is really nice in a community doing something together practical and we didn’t want to cook.”
Zsuzsi Flohr
http://cba.fro.at/302111