The sculptor Chaim Gross was born in the Carpathian mountains in Austrian Galicia, the son of a lumber merchant. Uprooted by the mayhem of World War I and its aftermath, he settled in New York City in 1921 and pursued the study of sculpting. He became known for direct carving in wood and did not turn to modeling and casting in bronze until the 1950s. He worked in a figurative style. From the 1950s, biblical and Jewish themes dominated his work.
Soutine was a prominent member of the School of Paris (École de Paris), a group of young artists, many of whom were Eastern and Central European Jews. He has been described as a “liminal” figure. He…
Solomon Molkho, the sixteenth-century messianic pretender, included a sketch of his own fanciful flag in his signature. His flag, modeled after those of the Maccabees, included the Hebrew word “Macabi…
It happened in the days of Ahasuerus—that Ahasuerus who reigned over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India to Ethiopia. In those days, when King Ahasuerus occupied the royal…