NOVEMBER 18 • 2021 | 49

A

t age 30, Jay Saper of East Lansing is an old soul. Through 
his art, writing and teaching, he keeps alive the beliefs and 
history of progressive social/
political activists, including some 
relatives, who preceded him by gener-
ations. 
We met at “Freedom of the Press,
” a 
printmakers’ exhibit at Eastern Market 
in early October. He sat at his table 
patiently, waiting for passersby to stop 
and ask about his work. I was curious. 
I saw Hebrew letters on notecards. I 
saw an eye-catching letterpress poster 
featuring a well-known statement 
from Pirkei Avot about working to 
bring about a better world, with the 
word “organize,
” a more modern refer-
ence to labor unions, tucked subtly in 
the background. 
All his posters are printed on a tra-
ditional letterpress, using handmade 
wood type set by hand. He calls his 
endeavor Pashkevil Press, after the 
Yiddish word for a poster pasted on 
walls in Orthodox communities of 
the past and still seen most typically 
in Chasidic Jewish neighborhoods. 
These posters can express political 
commentary aimed at those in power, 
convey other strongly held opinions or 
announce basic funeral information 
and more. 
“I honor this vibrant Jewish print 
culture by creating prints that engage 
Jewish history and texts, as well as 
support social movements,
” Saper says. 
Yiddish is a big part of his link to 
past generations. He not only learned 
Yiddish to keep this Old-World 
language alive but also teaches it. 
Currently, he is translating a Yiddish 
poetry book by Holocaust survivor 
Rikle Glezer, “who leapt off the train 
from the Vilna ghetto bound for death 
at Ponar to take up pen and pistol 
against the fascists, chronicling her life 
as a partisan through poetry,
” he says. 
This work, with Corbin Allardice, is 
supported by a translation fellowship 
from the Yiddish Book Center in 
Amherst, Massachusetts. 
“I am very interested in connect-
ing to my Jewishness by embracing 
Yiddish, my grandma’s first language,
” 
Saper said. “Her life was in Yiddish. I 
didn’t hear it myself. When she died a 
few years ago, I didn’t want her to be the last in my family to speak 
Yiddish.
”

He participated in summer Yiddish programs in Warsaw, 
London and Weimar, Germany. He has taught the language online 
during the pandemic, and he’ll soon 
teach an online course at Middlebury 
College, the liberal arts school in 
Vermont where he studied sociology. 
Art also is part of his background. 
As the son of Nell Kuhnmuench and 
Roy Saper, founder and owner of the 
highly regarded Saper Galleries in 
East Lansing for more than 40 years, 
he grew up around art. The gallery 
features many Jewish artists, including 
some in Israel. Since the pandemic 
began, Saper moved back to his family 
home, where he has set up a studio. 
He grew up attending Shaarey Zedek, 
a Reform synagogue in East Lansing. 
As I talked to Saper, his old soul first 
revealed itself in two stories involving 
family members. His Aunt Sheri Saper 
grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, where 
her synagogue and her rabbi’s home 
were bombed because the congrega-
tion held the first interracial service 
when they visited freedom riders who 
had been jailed. 
“My aunt was part of integrating 
public schools in Jackson and con-
tinued to do what was right even in 
the face of violence,
” Saper says. “It’s 
incredibly inspiring. I am interested in 
what solidarity has historically meant 
and how we can build that today and 
come together with other communi-
ties with other experiences to build a 
better world. Those stories have a lot 
to lend to our present — a look back-
ward to see how to navigate moving 
forward.
”
Another family story is influencing 
an art series he is working on about 
Henry Ford. “There’s a larger story on 
growing up here and always being sur-
rounding by Ford and his legacy, even 
though the Michigan Jewish commu-
nity knows another story [about his 
antisemitism],
” Saper says. “I want to 
create things that continue to engage 
these things that are protected.
” 
He tells of when Ford got agitated 
by workers unionizing in Detroit, the 
carmaker started sending parts to be 
made in different little towns. One 
was Manchester, Michigan, where his 
great uncle stood up to Ford in those 
early years. This great uncle, with the only Jewish family in town, 
refused to sell his screw plant to Ford. Ford built a plant there and 

continued on page 51

TOP: This statement 
from Pirkei 
Avot about making a 
better world overlays 
the more modern 
statement: Organize! 
ABOVE: A papercut 
of ballerina Franceska 
Mann from Saper’s 
Radical Village 
walking tour of 
Greenwich Village.

