To Serve My People: Part I
Arthur Szyk believed that Art can change the world and he spent his life trying desperately to prove it. In 1934 he stated “…I am resolved to serve my people with all my art, with all my heart, with…
Auschwitz: A Graphic Novel by Pascal Croci
Pascal Croci's graphic novel, Auschwitz, begins with a question to a witness from Auschwitz-Birkenau; “How long have you been keeping all this to yourself?” The answer, “Fifty-two years,” is shocking. The novel that follows provides a glimpse into…
Kupferminc’s Wanderings
Mirta Kupferminc is an artist who has made her artistic mission a search for meaning in a world profoundly unstable, problematic and filled with the terrors of memory not entirely her own. As the child of Holocaust survivors, uprooted from Europe and planted…
Rosh Hashanah Love Letters: Illuminations of David Moss
How should we approach Hashem at this time of teshuvah? Surely with fear because we understand that our lives hang in the balance. But another element needs to be incorporated. Love. Yes, love must define our relationship…
Brighton Beach Bible
“We are in effect changing the rules as to what is aesthetically acceptable…. It is exciting precisely because we are changing the discourse [about Jewish visual expression and contemporary art].” Joel Silverstein made this startling proclamation in these pages three months ago…
Anette Pier and Michael Hafftka at YUM
Two deeply idiosyncratic exhibitions at Yeshiva University Museum warrant close inspection if only to show how the diverse richness of biblical and Judaic subject matter can inspire contemporary artists. The very eclectic nature of both artist’s works speaks…
Knesset Menorah by Benno Elkan
Knesset Menorah, 1956, cast bronze by Benno Elkan, Jerusalem, Israel
While the heart of Israel’s democracy is to be found in the Knesset in Jerusalem, just across the road is a quiet but persuasive work of art that sums up the…
Memory Paintings
Shmuel the artist is what they called him back in the Old Country. At home and in cheder he was always drawing or modeling something. Born in 1882 in Wolkovisk, Russia he grew up in poverty, his father a Torah scholar and mother…
Ben Schachter’s Eruv Maps
In the world of art and culture the rabbis generally get a bad rap. From time immemorial they have often been thought of as the prototypical zealous guardians, seen as prohibiting all sorts of imagery with righteous abandon, constantly erecting walls…
Arbit Blatas: Centennial Tribute
Barbarism cannot triumph. This is what we believe, as Jews and as Americans. And yet it did a mere seventy years ago in the very heart of what was considered the cultural capital of Europe, Germany and Austria. The rich cultural…
Michelangelo and the Jews: Part II
The Sistine Secrets by Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner raises many intriguing issues about one of the most important works of Western art and its creator, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) as first presented in my review of August 29th. Now…
Michelangelo and the Jews: Part I
The Sistine Chapel in Rome is at the very heart of the Roman Catholic universe, the pope’s private chapel in the Vatican and, notably, is one of the most famous tourist sites in history. Millions of people visit each…