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Contemporary Jewish Art

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Paintings by Leah Raab and Shany Saar, NY Studio School, MFA Thesis Exhibition Whether it is the disastrous report of the 12 spies or the furious condemnation that doomed an entire generation to die in the wilderness, the Torah narrative in Bamidbar turns terribly grim…
The Abstract Omer paintings of Yitzhok Moully I have always had a problem with the Omer.  Doing the mitzvah of counting the omer was of course pretty easy.  Remembering to start the second evening of Passover and remembering to stop the day before Shavous took…
Arthur Szyk (1947) Jacob Steinhardt (1957) David Wander (2011) The megillahs beg to be illustrated.  Each is associated with a notable holiday and each presents an idiosyncratic view of Jewish history and experience.  Those that are not overtly narrative cry out to be narrated while…
Ruth Weisberg Unfurled (2007 catalogue of exhibition at Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA) There is a special class of Jewish artists who toil in the rich fields of Tanach and Jewish practice for years and years, quietly establishing a foundation of visual and intellectual…
Bezalel’s Legacy: Commentary on Jewish Craft and Art Bezalel, oh Bezalel, what company you keep!  Your parsha, Ki Sisa, takes us from humble devotion to God’s commandments to the utter collapse of Israel’s faith.  God inspired creativity morphs into pernicious communal idolatry that expressed gnawing doubt and…
Bradford’s Borders Revisited John Bradford’s paintings span over 40 years of intensive exploration of the joys of the biblical narrative.  He has explicated its myriad passionate moments from almost every narrative in Genesis, Exodus, Bamidbar to the stories of Tanach such as Ruth and Naomi,…
The Eruv and Jewish Community in New York and Beyond What a wonderful exhibition Yeshiva University Museum has mounted with It’s a Thin Line: The Eruv and Jewish Community in New York and Beyond.  Sensitively curated by Zachary Paul Levine under the watchful and expert…
Sh’ma/Listen: The Art of David Gelernter Shma’ah, 2010-2012, by David Gelernter, courtesy Yeshiva University Museum We must listen and really see the recent works of David Gelernter, artist, author and professor of computer science at Yale University.  His statements in the gallery video are riveting. And…
Visualizing the Bible in a New Light The rather large grasshoppers all have different human faces.  The trees have human bodies with branches sprouting out of their heads. The animals in the Peaceable Kingdom garden seated at Isaiah’s feet are painted purple, pink, blue and…
The Eruv in Contemporary Jewish Art For most observant Jews, the eruv is invisible.  Each week we prepare for Shabbos: ready our food, conclude our mundane affairs, shower, dress and put the house keys in our pocket and check the web that the local eruv…
Heroes of Ancient Israel: The Playing Card Art of Arthur Szyk Arthur Szyk (1894, Lodz, Poland–1951, New Canaan, USA) was a driven man determined to serve his people through his art.  A passionate supporter of Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionists from at least the mid-1930s. Szyk’s art…

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