Arts

Mikhail Gleizer was born at the end of the Second World War in the Soviet Ukraine under the reign of the dictator Joseph Stalin.

One of the greatest insights Jacques Derrida laid out in his conceptualization of Deconstruction was that a thing can coexist with its opposite, and in fact, neither can be properly understood without the other.

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 on August 29.

A Monet and other art stolen from Jews during the Holocaust have been found in the home of an 81-year-old German art collector. David Toren is waiting for the Germans to hand over at least 1 of those paintings.

At first glance, Moritz Rabinowitz and Baruch Spinoza have very little in common.

The midrashic world is a dangerous place to inhabit. It delves into our sacred texts to fathom their deeper meanings, solve vexing textual and conceptual problems and, finally, make sense of the holy words in contemporary terms. Midrash is passionate and deeply creative, like the current midrashic paintings of Brian Shapiro.

In a 1934 article, titled "New Training for Future Artists and Art Lovers," Mark Rothko drew upon his experience teaching at the Brooklyn Jewish Academy to explore a new model of art instruction.

Perhaps upholding Leviticus 19:31, which insists, "Do not turn to those who worship Ob or to wizards; do not desire to become defiled by them,"

What makes the Land of Israel so special? Given to us by G-d, this wonderfully diverse corner of earth is much more of a gift than meets the eye.

out half a year ago, my friend Miriam asked if I knew of any artists or architects whose repertoires included sukkahs. My thoughts immediately turned to the gorgeous sukkah my grandfather designed and built every year and to the retractable roof in the dining room at the Bostoner Rebbe's synagogue, Congregation Beth Pinchas. But for the life of me, I couldn't think of any artist who had developed an interesting aesthetic approach to the sukkah, which is the only Jewish experience (save mikvah perhaps) that completely surrounds us.

Just because the miracle of Chanukah defied physics doesn’t mean illustrations and illuminations of the Temple and Tabernacle menorahs haven’t grappled with the physics of flame orientation.

When on April 5th, First Lady Michelle Obama visited Prague's Pinkas Synagogue with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and David Axelrod, a senior White House advisor, she expressed particular interest in the synagogue's collection of drawings by children from the concentration camp of Terezín, which they created under the tutelage of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898-1944).

Everybody reads comics. From the New York Times to the Post there is hardly any periodical published that doesn’t sometimes feature a cartoon or comic; some kind of drawn image with text to entertain or provide commentary. Even the Jewish Press. When most people think of comics they immediately think of fictional comic books that kids read or the comic strips in the daily newspapers for adults.

Lobell’s hilarious documentary brings humor to an otherwise poignant visit to a place where so much culture and history have been lost.

Oftentimes, the art world functions like an ecosystem, whereby certain artist-producers generate innovative, new content, and artist-consumers readily borrow from those raw materials and shape them into new products.

Exile is punishment; exile is a constant reminder of our fallen status; exile fills us with longings for a permanent home we cannot possess.

Beneath Baruch Spinoza's smiling bust on his tombstone on the grounds of the Nieuwe Kerk in the Hague is an inscription of his famous motto, "caute" (written cavte on the stone, see image one), or "cautiously" in Latin. Between that admonition and the dates of his life - 1632 to 1677, cut short by an illness whose identity is hotly debated - is the Hebrew word "amcha" or "amach", Hebrew for "your people" or "your nation."

Amid the rising action in Disney's "The Lion King," Simba - already a dashing mature lion - follows the monkey, Rafiki, through marshland, until arriving at a loch.

The first song he sang was “Racheim,” and when he opened his mouth, the band was in shock: they didn't know this kid could actually sing.

A tallit with pastel-colored circular candies on the atarah (literally crown, the top, embellished portion of the garment); a hand held golden bulldozer used to collect chametz on Passover; a mezuzah that shows the three letter name of God (shin, daled, yud, the Sustainer) on a computer keyboard above an "Enter" button, where the text of the mezuzah appears (in the typography of a Torah scroll) on the monitor.

Something is blooming in Brooklyn that promises a dramatic revitalization of Jewish visual culture.

There are still some who believe that, had Peres beaten Netanyahu, there would have been a peace deal.

Some artists are very deliberate; planning, plotting and calculating each aesthetic move to nurture an elaborate artistic program or a growing career. They are proud to assert control over their creativity.

Who are you? Who am I? Questions of cultural identity among artists have raged from the early twentieth century to yesterday's memoir.

It's Lebowicz's first trip to Israel as a comedian and hopes to give both residents and visitors something to look forward to during their Pesach vacation.

One of my favorite places when I was growing up in Boston was the used bookstore on Beacon and St. Mary’s streets. Boston Book Annex could play a used bookshop on television; it was dimly lit and cavernous, crawling with cats, and packed with a dizzying array of books, many of which sold three for a dollar. But used bookstores of this sort, however picturesque and inviting, are a relatively modern phenomena. In the Middle Ages, for example, I would never have been able to afford even a single used book unless I had been born into an aristocratic family. (Full disclosure, I was not.)

Ever since artists created berry juice paintings of buffalos on cave walls, seeking to offer the hunters mastery over their prey, artists have used limited, physical materials to create transcendent, idealized art.

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-1930’s, Szyk’s art almost always had a political edge. As we noted on these pages arch 12 & 19 2010, the Szyk Haggadah (1934 -1936) was originally an explicitly anti-Fascist creation. Therefore the recent publication by Historicana of “Heroes of Ancient Israel: Playing Card Art of Arthur Szyk” is notable for its lack of overt political content. Indeed, its strength lies in a subtler affirmation of Jewish sovereignty and wisdom.

Michael and Judy Steinhardt are putting their magnificent Judaica collection up for sale at Sotheby’s in New York on April 29. The results of 44 years of diverse collecting will be on view from Wednesday April 24 and simply must be seen by anyone interested in Jewish visual and material culture.

Though the members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities had a copy of Lucille Ball's signed 1936 communist registration card, they accepted her excuse that she joined the party just to please her grandfather, because her name wasn't Jaffe, Chodorov, Berman or Phillip Loeb. So says Jim Brochu in his one-man show about Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel, which argues that McCarthyism overlapped to a large extent with anti-Semitism. "She could have called her show I Love Lenin and they would have forgiven her. And they did forgive her," he adds.