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Dateline: Israel at the Jewish Museum Photography is a tantalizingly young medium that burst upon the visual scene with the spectacular daguerreotype invented in France in 1839.  Its use and popularity quickly spread from Europe to the Middle East so much so that an early…
The Jewish Gallery Something is blooming in Brooklyn that promises a dramatic revitalization of Jewish visual culture.  While it has been a long time a coming, nonetheless it is cause for heartfelt celebration, and, most importantly, your support.  On May 9th Aryeh L. Wuensch and…
Murals and Mosaics in Antiquity Jewish Art: Any cultural production that utilizes Jewish subject matter and content drawn from; 1) all material found in Jewish sacred texts and those secular texts that explore Jewish social life and history, 2) Jewish history, from Antiquity to the…
Books to Papercuts Seldom has a people’s cultural expression changed in so short a period of time as the revolution that overtook the Jews with the invention of moveable type and the printed book. Johannes Guttenberg’s invention in the 1450’s quickly swept south and the…
The Past and Future Collide As the Enlightenment marched across Europe in the form of the Napoleonic conquests the effects on Jewish Art were unmistakable. Ghetto walls were breached and torn down exposing the Jewish population and its artists to a myriad of Christian and…
The New Age of Individuals Contemporary Jewish life has been dominated by the crisis of the Modern, shaping more than anything else the profiles of Jewish Art. Traditional society is challenged, pre-modern peoples are forced into colonial empires and nationalist aspirations spout across the globe.…
After the Catastrophe: Prelude The Holocaust, dominating Jewish Art for much of the late 20th century, is arguably the first form of Jewish Art to penetrate the mainstream cultural dialogue. The division between Jew and non-Jew in the arts begins to be erased. This unique…
Contemporary Jewish Art We have documented eighteen hundred years of Jewish Art production in the preceding five sections of the Jewish Art Primer. These artworks are rich and varied creative expressions of Jewish life found in mosaics, murals, manuscripts, illustrated Haggadahs, micrography, papercuts, graphic arts…
The Passion of Leah Ashkenazy “…There is just something about that little girl that I can’t get out of my mind. How does she face those fire-breathing beasts?”  Four and a half years ago I wrote about Leah Ashkenazy’s painting, The End of Childhood as a…
Terna's Touch Frederick Terna has a soft touch.  His images are neither strident nor angry.  The horror behind many of them is paradoxically softened by symbols and metaphors.  He is not an illustrator; indeed much of his work over the last sixty years is abstract. …
Chava Roth's Meanings Pleasure and Meaning.  In the visual arts they are equally essential.  The pleasure of looking at an object, its contours, colors, texture and subsequent visual excitement is fundamental to engaging the viewer.  Lacking visual enjoyment and complexity a painting, drawing or print…
Ozeri's Bukharan Conversation Look someone in the eye and you immediately begin a narrative. Photograph them while they are looking at the camera and a cascade of narratives are launched. That is the nature of our visual selves, one of the strongest desires of the…

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