Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Jane Trigere on Switching Gears

Jane Trigere, 64
South Deerfield, Mass.

Jane Trigere Image by Ken Schoen

Job: Textile artist and community volunteer

Previously: Director of the Hatikvah Holocaust Education and Resource Center in Springfield, Mass., now closed.

After leading the Hatikvah Center from 1997 to 2000, Trigere earned a master’s degree but was unable to find another job in the museum/arts administration field. She has been making art and doing volunteer work instead, including establishing the Jewish Historical Society of Western Massachusetts.

Why change? “It had to do with a sense of doing the right thing, which tripped me up. It was a mistake to leave the Hatikvah Center. I told the people who hired me, I’m really not trained in Holocaust education. But I had a wonderful time doing it and it was very successful. I was not clever enough about how to negotiate better circumstances for myself. Instead I thought, ‘somebody else who has the proper training should do this.’”

Proper training: “After leaving my job at Hatikvah, I entered the master’s program in Jewish art and visual culture at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan. It was exhilarating. At the end, I thought, ‘I’m going to find a job and repay the loan in no time flat.’ I applied for a bunch of jobs. I only got two interviews.”

Financial effects: “We live a very simple, happy life. We live off the income of my husband, a Jewish book dealer, in an old firehouse. We live upstairs and the books are downstairs.”

Seeking an outlet: “It’s hard to swallow that nobody wants the skill sets that I have. My husband says, ‘You’re one of the most creative people I’ve ever known. I’m so sorry you don’t have a place to put it.’ I have to make a decision about whether to be happy with my lot. I am. But there is a wistfulness. It used to be a resentment. Now it’s just like, I wish I could have done a little more.”

Becoming an artist: “During all of this, I started making art. Suddenly people asked to borrow my art for exhibitions. There was one at Hebrew Union College that got a lot of press. Recently I had a show at a synagogue in Amherst. All without, frankly, too much effort. It was like, whoa, suddenly I’m an artist. But it hasn’t resulted in any income yet.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.