Missing Women of the Book
Jews and books... as natural a combo as love and spring, wine and cheese, and for sure God and His people... they are meant to be together. Proud to be known as the People of the Book we parade the…
The Problem with God
The problem with God is His holiness. After thousands of years of countless trials and many too many unmentionable “sufferings of love” (Berachos 5a) the Jewish people continue to love Him even as many flee His embrace. From the Binding of…
Fleeting Prayer
Manhattan Mincha Map: Photographs by Jaime Permuth
Mincha is the most fragile of prayers. It is typically caught on the run, sandwiched between a hurried lunch and return to the ordeals of the workday. Even if prayed somewhat leisurely after work in the late…
Lost Objects Found
As one enters the theater the stage is dominated by three levels of scaffolding filling the entire proscenium behind a gray scrim. Plunged into darkness as the lights go down a single face is illuminated on the stage by a bolt of…
The Southern Jewish Experience, Photographs by Bill Aron, Text by Vicki Reikes Fox
Imagining the tempting aroma of pecan pie and fresh challah the age-old rhythms of Southern Jewry unfold before our eyes in the seductively handsome exhibition of photographs, Shalom Y'all, currently at the…
Rembrandt Etchings
Walking out of the US Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C. the stench of mass murder was overpowering. Western Civilization, that hubristic culture celebrating man's highest aspirations, seemed obscene. Stately government buildings that bespoke American power and beneficence only reminded me of American rejection…
The Nineteen Diaspora Paintings
Why should we bother with art? A waste of time, bitul Torah, perhaps even a lure into apikores.... viewing art, not to mention making it, could be viewed as a can of worms best left unopened. Alas, our tradition is to…
Maus: Flash Back to the Present
Survivor Memory into Holocaust Art, Part II
The Negative Heart of Maus
Last week we examined the first volume of Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman. It is a complex and engrossing work that combines the testimony of a…
Maus: Flash Back to the Present
Survivor Memory into Holocaust Art, Part I
History's Limits
Elie Wiesel encapsulates the problem of Holocaust art by insisting that “Auschwitz defies imagination and perception; it submits only to memory. It can be communicated by testimony, not fiction.” Art as…
Desecration or Sanctification
Ferruccio Furlanetto as Cardinal Brogni, Neil Shicoff as Eleazar, and Soile Isokoski as Rachel in Halevy's La Juive
The curtain rises to reveal a towering wall of translucent glass behind which the chorus sings “Te deum laudamus, You are God, we praise you,”…
Director of the Jewish Image: Frederic Brenner's Photographs at the Brooklyn Museum
Jews with Hogs, Miami Beach, Florida, 1994, Fiberbase gelatin silver print, 117 x 41 by Frederic Brenner
Jews with Hogs (1994) is the first image one encounters in Frederic Brenner's exhibition of photographs of…
Marking the Land of Israel:
Photographs of Chanan Getraide
What makes the Land of Israel so special? Given to us by God this wonderfully diverse corner of earth is much more of a “gift” than meets the eye. It is a gift that carries responsibility as…