Founded in 2004, the Conney Project on Jewish Arts is an initiative of the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Made possible by the generosity of Mildred and Marv Conney, the Conney Project supports Jewish arts and cultural programming, and encourages new narratives of Jewish identity in the arts, including literature, music, and the visual and performing arts.
Under the directorship of Professor Douglas Rosenberg from 2004-2022, the Conney Project raised awareness of the contributions of Jewish artists across disciplines, and encouraged new scholarship and production in the field by hosting eight bi-annual themed conferences.
Moving forward, under the current directorship of Professor Erika Meitner, the Conney Project plans to integrate its Jewish arts and cultural initiatives into wider arts communities, draw in robust and diverse audiences, and make Madison a destination for the Jewish arts by sponsoring 1-2 events per year across artistic disciplines that are free and open to the public.
The Conney Project aims to speak to people across communities, and celebrate what’s special about Jewish arts and culture, while creating visionary programming—events, exhibits, readings, and performances—that gathers people together around Jewish culture to meet our current moment with empathy, nuance, and the potential for change.
The History of the Conney Project
Marvin Conney (1927-2021), together with his wife Mildred (known fondly as “Babe”), established the Mildred and Marv Conney Fund to support programming about Jews and the arts. Their vision continues today in the Conney Project on Jewish Arts.
Marv and Babe met as students at the UW-Madison, where they both graduated in 1950. Babe stayed, earned a Master’s degree in Mathematics, and then taught Math. After his father passed away at age 59 in 1958, Marv took over the family business that specialized in protective safety gear for the workplace. Over the next forty years, Marv — with Babe as his devoted partner and advisor — navigated the business, moved it to Madison in 1964, and grew it into one of the largest privately owned safety houses in the country.
Their son David describes his father as “a visionary and a builder,” who pursued his philanthropic projects “as vigorously as he did his own business.” Among other interests, David recalls, Marv “was especially enthralled with the predominance of Jewish composers and lyricists throughout the history of modern musical theatre.”
In 2003, Marv made a generous gift to CJS as a way of honoring his own father, who was not only in the protective clothing business but was also a struggling song lyricist who loved the arts. In creating the Conney Project, explains David, Marv’s goal was to “look at Judaism in America through contemporary music, Broadway, film, television, dance, literature, and painting — and how each art-form can tell a Jewish story. And in America, of course, a Jewish story, at its essence, involves the American dream, optimism, opportunity, diversity, tolerance, social responsibility, social justice, resilience, and survival.”
Professor Douglas Rosenberg of the UW Art Department became the founding director of the Conney Project, and in 2005 he designed the first Conney Conference, a biennial gathering for scholars and artists representing a wide range of arts, including music, theater, film, television, comedy, dance, literature, and painting.
David Conney recalls that his father was always brainstorming about how to expand the reach of the Conney Project, “how best to fulfill the vision he and Babe had some twenty years ago when they made an initial contribution to the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies to explore building a program that focused on the intersection of Judaism and the arts.”
The Conney Project is deeply grateful to Marv and Babe for their wisdom, imagination, and foresight in creating one of the only initiatives of its kind in the country, and we look forward to expanding its programming in the coming years.
