Marlyn defies categorization. She has made herself up. Between movie theatres and her husband, the yeshiva student, between cigarettes and fashion and Shabbat Challah, Marlyn Venig finds the time to be an artist, a mother of seven, a cultural studies doctoral student, a poet, activist and teacher. She is the first and only ultra-orthodox cinema in the world critic (as of the summer of 2015), author of the book Ultra-Orthodox Cinema (Hebrew), a member of the Israeli Film Council and the founder, together with the Israeli Forum for Women in Film and Television, of mevakrot, a website for women film critics and “Tavlat hamevakrot,” a film listing put together by Israeli women critics. It is hard to define or label her; maybe we don’t need to.

The Marlyn Lexicon was a cultural event which drew you into Marlyn’s world of ideas and introduced you to her own personal lexicon which spanned ethnic divides and genres. In the living room of her home in one of the city’s ultra-orthodox neighborhoods, guests met for a group dialogue led by Shifra Cornfeld—an author and journalist who also feels at home with words. Shifra too comes from the ultra-orthodox community, but, unlike Marlyn, Shifra left her ultra-orthodox Jerusalem home to pursue a secular life.

The meeting between these two women allowed us to explore inspiring sources of inspiration from both the secular and religious worlds—writing, design, cinema and poetry—worlds that could have perhaps only come together in Marlyn’s living room.