Silent Prayer, Synagogue of Amsterdam, “The Amidah”

Jules Adler’s many paintings depicting the everyday lives of the working-class in Paris and labor strikes earned him the nickname “the painter of the humble.” Les Las (The Weary) was inspired by a…

Édouard Moyse’s paintings of Jewish religious life earned him the nickname “the painter of rabbis.” His paintings often depict an idealized Judaism not situated in a specific place or time. The…

Yehudah Pen painted this self-portrait shortly after opening the School of Drawing and Painting in Vitebsk. An early example of his self-portraiture, the painting is simple compared to later ones…

In The Wandering Jew, a man driven mad with horror runs through an apocalyptic landscape full of crucifixes and strewn with corpses. A protest against the long history of Christian persecution of Jews…

Jankiel’s Concert was inspired by a scene from Pan Tadeusz, Adam Mickiewicz’s 1834 epic poem, considered the national poem of Poland. The character of Jankiel, the Jewish innkeeper, is the most…

Ephraim Lilien’s photograph of Theodor Herzl, considered the father of modern political Zionism, depicts him staring off into the distance like a lonely prophet. The congress in Basel in 1901 was the…