Ars Judaica, Volume 11
The Bar-Ilan Journal of Jewish Art
The Michael J. Floersheim Memorial for Jewish Art
About the editors
Bracha Yaniv is Professor of Jewish Art at Bar-Ilan University. Her research topics are Jewish ceremonial objects and synagogue art. She is the author of The Carved Wooden Torah Arks of Poland and Ceremonial Synagogue Textiles from Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Italian Communities, both of which will be published in English by the Littman Library.
Sara Offenberg is Lecturer in the Jewish Art Department at Bar-Ilan University. She published articles and a book on Jewish-Christian relations in art and literature, the image of the Jew in Christian art and literature, Hasidei Ashkenaz, Piyyut Commentary, and Hebrew illuminated prayer books.
Mirjam Rajner is Lecturer in the Jewish Art Department at Bar-Ilan University. Her numerous publications deal with the early art of Marc Chagall, the art of Russian, Polish, and South-Eastern artists of Jewish origin in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, and the art created during and immediately after the Holocaust.
Ilia Rodov is Head of the Department of Jewish Art at Bar-Ilan University. He is the author of many works on European synagogue art, focusing on the history, patronage, and meanings of synagogue paintings, sculptures, architectural decoration, and furniture design.
About the contributors
Matthew Baigell, Rutgers University of New Jersey
Batya Brutin, Beit Berl Academic College, Zofit
Warren Zev Harvey, Department of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Moshe Idel, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem; Department of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Sara Offenberg, Department of Jewish Art, Bar-Ilan University
Nils Roemer, University of Texas at Dallas
Debra Higgs Strickland, School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow
Annette Weber, Hochschule für Jüdische Studien, Heidelberg
Contents
Editors’ Note
‘The Masorah is a Fence to the Torah’ Monumental Letters and Micrography in Medieval Ashkenazi Bibles
ANNETTE WEBER
Visualization of Colours, 1: David ben Yehudah he-Hasid’s Kabbalistic Diagram
MOSHE IDEL
The Boy from the Warsaw Ghetto as Holocaust Icon in Art
BATYA BRUTIN
Robert Kirschbaum’s Art: Abstract, Intellectual, Spiritual
MATTHEW BAIGELL
Book Reviews
Dreaming of Michelangelo
Asher D. Biemann, Dreaming of Michelangelo: Jewish Variations on a Modern Theme
NIELS ROEMER
The Jewishness of Christian Art
Herbert L. Kessler and David Nirenberg (eds), Judaism and Christian Art: Aesthetic Anxieties from the Catacombs to Colonialism
DEBRA HIGGS STRICKLAND
Micrographic Midrash in Fourteenth-Century Barcelona
Dalia-Ruth Halperin, Illuminating in Micrography: The Catalan Micrography Mahzor MS Heb. 806527 in the National Library of Israel
WARREN ZEV HARVEY
Former Synagogues and Host-Miracle Shrines in Germany and Austria
Mitchell B. Merback, Pilgrimage and Pogrom: Violence, Memory, and Visual Culture at the Host-Miracle Shrines of Germany and Austria
SARA OFFENBERG
Ars Judaica is an annual publication of the Department of Jewish Art at Bar-Ilan University. It showcases the Jewish contribution to the visual arts and architecture from antiquity to the present from a variety of perspectives, including history, iconography, semiotics, psychology, sociology, and folklore. As such it is a valuable resource for art historians, collectors, curators, and all those interested in the visual arts.
Volumes of Ars Judaica are distributed by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization throughout the world, except Israel. Orders and enquiries from Israeli customers should be directed to:
Ars Judaica
Department of Jewish Art
Bar-Ilan University
Ramat-Gan 52900
telephone 03 5318413
email ajudaica@mail.biu.ac.il