Ars Judaica, Volume 8
The Bar-Ilan Journal of Jewish Art
The Michael J. Floersheim Memorial for Jewish Art
More info
Bringing to light little-known artistic traditions, the latest volume of Ars Judaica focuses on the local and temporal contexts of objects and their images and explores collective and personal memories and identities in art.
Rivka Ben-Sasson examines modes of symbolic perception of nature prevalent in religious thought and art by analysing images of the lulav and etrog. Iwona Brzewska and Waldemar Deluga discuss the significance of Hebrew script in paintings and prints of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries originating from the borderland between the Catholic and Christian Orthodox domains of eastern Europe. Michelle Klein studies the typological development of the havdalah candle-holder, based on an analysis of 170 examples. Matthew Baigell suggests that American Jewish artists are characterized by concern for the betterment of humankind; his sources include Jewish postcards, photographs, and caricatures as well as the work of contemporary American Jewish artists. Astrid Schmetterling discusses how Else Lasker-Schüler’s Orientalism offered a serious aesthetic-political challenge to both German and Jewish society. Mor Presiado argues that the contemporary use of sewing and embroidery by contemporary Jewish women artists to depict women’s experience of the Holocaust initiates a new, feminist response to the Holocaust.
The Special Item in this volume, an article by Shalom Sabar on the earliest illustrated Esther Scroll by Shalom Italia, is an illuminating insight into early modern Jewish art in the making. Also included are exhibition and book reviews.
About the editors
Bracha Yaniv is Head of the Department 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.
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 Lecturer in 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.
Contributor information
Matthew Baigell, Professor Emeritus, Department of Art History, Rutgers University
Elisheva Baumgarten, Department of Jewish History and Gender Studies Program, Bar-Ilan University
Rivka Ben-Sasson, Department of Art History, Hebrew University in Jerusalem
John E. Bowlt, Professor, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Iwona Brzewska, Department of Education, Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw
Waldemar Deluga, Professor, Institute of the History of Art, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw
Michele Klein, Rehovot, Israel
Katrin Kogman-Appel, Professor, Department of the Arts, and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and the Social Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva
Esther Levinger, Professor, Department of Art History, University of Haifa
Márta Nagy, Professor, Department of Classical Philology, University of Debrecen, Hungary
Mor Presiado, Department of Jewish Art, Bar-Ilan University
Shalom Sabar, Professor, Department of Jewish and Comparative Folklore; Department of Art History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Astrid Schmetterling, Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London
Contents
Editor’s Note
BRACHA YANIV
Botanics and Iconography: Images of the Lulav and the Etrog
RIVKA BEN-SASSON
A Note on the Hebrew Script in Christian Art between Wrocław and Lviv
IWONA BRZEWSKA and WALDEMAR DELUGA
The Havdalah Candle-holder
MICHELE KLEIN
Social Concern and Tikkun Olam in Jewish American Art
MATTHEW BAIGELL
‘I am Jussuf of Egypt’: Orientalism in Else Lasker-Schüler’s Drawings
ASTRID SCHMETTERLING
‘These Threads Captured Shadows’: Sewing and Embroidery in Holocaust Art Works of Contemporary Jewish Women Artists
MOR PRESIADO
Special Item
A New Discovery: The Earliest Illustrated Esther Scroll by Shalom Italia
SHALOM SABAR
Exhibition Review
Hommage à Lucien Hervé
MÁRTA NAGY
Book Reviews
Mati Meyer, An Obscure Portrait: Imaging Women’s Reality in Byzantine Art
ELISHEVA BAUMGARTEN
Marc Michael Epstein, The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination
KATRIN KOGMAN-APPEL
Herbert L. Kessler and David Nirenberg, Judaism and Christian Art: Aesthetic Anxieties from the Catacombs to Colonialism
KATHY ARON-BELLER
Jewish Dimensions in Modern Visual Culture
ESTHER LEVINGER
Musya Glants, Where Is My Home? The Art and Life of the Russian Jewish Sculptor, Mark Antokolsky, 1843–1902
JOHN E. BOWLT
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
