About
Camp Swig Poster Workshop 1975
Camp Newman Poster Workshop 2017
Peretz Wolf-Prusan was born in 1954 in Los Angeles, California. He grew up in a sign shop run by his grandfather, hand painted signs and gold leaf, and his father, who made neon signs. LA in the 1960’s and 70’s was the home of Sister Corita Kent and her screen printing workshop at Immaculate Heart College. Her social justice poster art, along with the work of Ben Shahn, had a profound influence on Peretz and he took up screen printing, making posters against the war in Vietnam and in support of the Soviet Jewry.
Peretz came to the Bay Area to teach screen printing at UAHC Camp Swig and to study printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute (1976-1978). He is of the last graduating class at the Center for Experimental and Interdisciplinary Arts at San Francisco State University (1985). His CEIA final project was a performance piece incorporating spoken word and art, “Storytelling for Anatoly” was produced in 1982 at the Judah Magnes Museum in Berkeley.
From 1974 to 1984 he created Ketubbot (Illuminated Jewish Wedding Documents). His work is included in Ketubbah: Jewish Marriage Contracts of Hebrew Union College, Skirball Museum, and Klau Library, by Shalom Sabar. The Skirball Museum acquired drafts and copies of his Ketubbot and presented an exhibit, “Leaping Letters,” in 1981. Peretz published A Guide to Hebrew Lettering, UAHC Press, 1981.
His love for Hebrew letters and texts led him to change course, close his studio and enter the Rabbinic program of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. His 1990 rabbinic thesis was “Hiddur Mitzvah: The Rabbinic Esthetic Imperative.”
From 1990 to 2010 Peretz served Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco, as rabbi and senior educator. In 2002 he was awarded the Covenant Award as “An Exceptional Jewish Educator who has had a significant impact on others, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the transmission of Jewish knowledge, values, and identity." In 2004 he became a Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute.
From 2010 to 2020 Peretz was the Rabbi-In-Residence at KehillahSF and served on the leadership team and teaching faculty of Lehrhaus Judaica.
He stepped away from leadership responsibilities to make room for independent teaching and printmaking.