Located in the Marais District in Paris, le Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme houses a superb collection of periodicals, photos, graphics and other materials connected to the Dreyfus Affair, which is remembered as critical to modern Jewish history, and as having a pivotal impact on Theodor Herzl—formerly an advocate for assimilation—and his intense desire to create a Jewish homeland. The museum has recently acquired a collection of 200 illustrations by journalist and artist Maurice Feuillet depicting the proceedings at the trial of Emile Zola in 1898, and at Dreyfus’ second court-martial in 1899. 

An observant Jew and patriotic Army officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted in 1894 of selling secrets to Germany after a sham trial in which witnesses lied and forged documents were submitted as evidence. In egalitarian France, his supposed crime opened the floodgates of hatred for the Jews as an ethnic group, revealed in the thousands of caricatures, anti-Semitic editorials and even board games preserved today. Two years later the real traitor was identified, leading to novelist Emile Zola’s open letter to the president of France, published on the front page of the journal L’Aurore in 1898. In it, he accused specific individuals in the French government of subverting the truth. Subjected to death threats and mob violence, Zola was tried and convicted for insulting authority. Dreyfus was pardoned and released from confinement on Devil’s Island after his second trial in 1899, but he was not exonerated until 1906. 

A sampling of Feuillet’s sketches reveals his sources in Japanese art. With an economy of line, the young artist assigned to cover the trials conveys the stoicism of the physically deteriorated Captain Dreyfus, now ill and emotionally spent from his five-year imprisonment and the shame he had suffered. Her back to the viewer, Mrs. Dreyfus is rendered in profile, dignified and perfectly attired in a dark shirtwaist and plumed hat. At his 1898 trial, Zola glares at a man who is perhaps the prosecuting attorney. His expression defiant, the writer adopts a posture that may have been disrespectful in a court of law at that time, one leg crossed over the other. It is not difficult to discern that Feuillet was in sympathy with the innocent man and those who were fighting for justice.
 
It’s satisfying to learn that elsewhere in Europe, plans are going ahead to mount exhibits that were cancelled due to the pandemic. At London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery, “Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty,” which was to have been on view in 2020, has been rescheduled and can now be seen from May through November of this year. A survey of the artist’s woodcuts, the show is comprised of art loaned from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. 

As Elizabeth Smith, the Foundation’s director, has commented: “The extensive survey of Frankenthaler’s woodcuts is an exciting opportunity to introduce the artist’s printmaking to U.K. audiences through works from our collection. It will continue to advance the understanding and appreciation of her ground-breaking contributions to art.” 

Celebrated for her lyrical interpretation of Abstract Expressionism and her impact on the New York and Washington Color Field School, Frankenthaler was born in New York City in 1928, and studied art at Bennington College. After she was discovered by influential critic Clement Greenberg early in her career, she became a star and exhibited her large-scale paintings widely. Referencing the methods of first-generation Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock, her process involved pouring and dripping that resulted in an entirely different, lyrical effect, produced by the thinning of the paint absorbed by the raw canvas and her use of a wide range of translucent tonalities. 

Later, Frankenthaler would expand her medium, even applying the juicy residue of crushed berries on the surface of the canvas. 
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Mounted a decade after her death in 2011, the Dulwich installation will shine a light on the artist’s constantly evolving style and experimental methods through its focus on her large-scale, fluid and painterly woodcuts, executed from the 1970s on. Employing innovative processes and unconventional tools, Frankenthaler continued to draw inspiration from the aesthetics of Japan. A number of the woodcuts in the installation—including the room-sized “Madame Butterfly” (2000), produced in collaboration with Tyler Graphics artist Kenneth Tyler and woodblock print specialist Yasuyuki Shibata—represent a fusion of American and Japanese printmaking methods.

New York’s Morgan Library features an online version of an exhibit devoted to “The Book of Ruth: Medieval to Modern,” which was on view when the museum closed in March. A survey of the library’s manuscript collection of the biblical Book of Ruth, the show put the spotlight on a modern manuscript of the Old Testament story, a recent donation from Joanna S. Rose, the collector and patron who commissioned the work. Completed over a two-year period from 2015-2017, this newest Book of Ruth is an 18-foot long two-sided English and Hebrew accordion-fold vellum manuscript. Artist Barbara Wolff, renowned for her mastery of the technique of illumination, rendered illustrations in black ink, gouache, and gold and silver platinum. 

As beautiful as it is, Wolff’s creation is more than just a dazzling surface; a wealth of treasures is revealed in these panels, which include both figurative and non-figurative images. Her intricate and painstaking process partners with her ability to mine underlying nuances of emotion through her choice of subject and enhances the narrative in ways that will deepen the understanding of the story of Ruth even to those possessing an extensive knowledge of the Old Testament and commentaries.

The Bible records the story of Ruth, a young widow who pledges to share the life and faith of her Jewish mother-in-law, Naomi. Together they leave Bethlehem to escape the famine. They arrive in Moab, where Ruth meets Naomi’s relation, the wealthy landowner Boaz. After his wheat is harvested, he allows Ruth to collect the leftover grain from the threshing floor. The couple is destined to marry and become the great grandparents of the future king of Israel, David, and, according to Christian tradition, possess direct lineage to Jesus.

For her sources, Wolff studied diverse and wide-ranging texts by theologians, scientists, philosophers and historians. Expanding her understanding of the narrative, they addressed topics that ranged from Iron Age (1200-1000 BCE) archeology, biblical anthropology, and 21st century climate change, to cartography and horticulture. With her thorough knowledge and understanding of the iconographical traditions of medieval manuscripts and codices that include this story, Wolff chose to follow a new path. She approached the narrative from a different perspective, augmenting the events recounted in the Old Testament through her pictures of Israel’s landscape, geology, flowers and plants as well as farming implements, shoes, clothing and textiles used during this time. As the backdrop for the Old Testament story, the illustrations convey a sense of immediacy through their subtle and poignant references to the plight of the poor, the vulnerable and the immigrant in today’s world.

Wolff’s art has been previously featured at the Morgan. Of her esoteric medium, she has noted: “It's like being an alchemist….It's magic turning these pieces into gold. You live a 13th-century timeline in the 21st century.” Wolff has observed: “the work is slow in the best sense of the word. By slow I mean with thoughtfulness, deliberation, great care.”

​Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing 522D, a gift of the LeWitt family installed in the museum’s lobby space since 2018, is also available for online viewing.  A giant at 20 x 30 feet, the richly colored geometric work was not painted by the artist, but existed as a set of detailed instructions, generated during the 1980s, to be executed directly in the space where it would be installed. A 20th century master, LeWitt, (1928-2007), laid the groundwork for Minimalism — a cerebral approach to art-making developed in the 1960s and ‘70s in response to the improvisatory and emotional Abstract Expressionist Movement. Wall Drawing 522D manifests the artist’s groundbreaking rethinking of process as opposed to fabrication, articulated simply and directly in his 1967 statement:  “In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work.  All of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair.”

​Simon Barazin is an architect and interior decorator whose renovation of the 20-year old Barzilay Café in Tel Aviv’s Hashmal Garden district has elevated the standard coffee shop to a new level of design aesthetics, visually redolent of Donald Judd’s geometric sculptures and Dan Flavin’s light works. Installing specially treated glass windows that optimize the changing qualities of the natural light flooding the cafe throughout the day, Barazin reconfigured its three spaces—kitchen, roasting room and seating area—to exploit the reflective surfaces of made-to-order seating, brightly colored illuminated tables and gleaming metal countertops, for a Barzilay experience that is artsy, fun and inviting. Glass partitions allow for customers in the main room to see and smell the coffee being roasted.

The owner of his own firm specializing in design and spacial experience, Mr. Barazin studied at Israel’s famous Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, where he is now a teacher.

This month, Theater J, part of the Edlavitch Jewish Community Center in Washington, D.C. has enabled audiences across the country to register and enjoy free dramatic readings of new English versions of two early 20th century Yiddish plays at https://theaterj.org/yiddish-theater-lab/.

A finalist for the 2019 O’Neill Theater Center Festival in Waterford, Connecticut, Alix Sobler’s Miriam, is a reworking of Miryam, Peretz Hirschbein’s 1905 drama about a prostitute—a frequent subject for the Yiddish stage, strongly influenced by European Realist theater in that era—originally published in Hebrew. Known as the “Yiddish Chekov,” the prolific Hirschbein (1880-1948) is best remembered for his classic Green Fields. Featuring an all-female cast, it focuses on the lives of three women, who forge a bond as they reveal their unfortunate histories and look forward to a better life. Laley Lippard directs actresses Felicia Curry, Diane Figueroa Edidi and Kimberly Gilbert. Miriam can be seen live via Zoom on Sunday, June 7, at 5:00 pm, and will available from Monday, June 8 until midnight, Wednesday, June 10.
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Allen Lewis Rickman has translated and adapted One of Those (1912) by Polish poet, playwright and author Paula Prilutski (1876-19??), which will air on Thursday, June 18 at 5:30 and will be streamed until midnight, Sunday, June 21. Its premiere performance in Warsaw was mounted by the legendary actress-manager Esther-Rokhl Kaminska, mother of Ida. Despite its grim narrative, this proto-feminist story of Judith, a rebellious young woman who suffers the dire consequences of her actions, is supposed to be very funny. Kevin Place will direct an ensemble, tba.
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Alix Sobler’s play Sheltered won the 2018 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition. A graduate of Brown University, she received her MFA in playwriting from Columbia University in 2017. Playwright, director and actor Allen Lewis Rickman has adapted, directed and written Yiddish supertitle translations for New York’s Folksbiene and New Yiddish Rep. 

You’ve seen him in many guises: the Frankenstein monster, the Incredible Hulk, even as the heart-breaking protagonist of Diane Arbus’ photograph, Jewish Giant with his Parents in the Bronx. But even in his original guise, his dramatic, but very soulless persona, he just can’t be kept down. He is the Golem, whose name and brief and violent existence in the Prague ghetto continues to resonate in novels by authors including Elie Wiesel and I.B. Singer, poetry, plays, comics, operas, ballet and an early film classic whose imagery inspired several generations of those seeking to capture the monster’s persona. 
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Legends vary regarding the larger than life male creature, but one of the most prevalent attributes its creation to the 16th century by Rabbi Loew of Prague, a mystic who in at least one version of the folktale had the power to enervate inanimate clay by means of cabalistic rituals and prayers. Controlled by combinations of Hebrew letters imbued with magical powers, the super strong Golem could destroy any enemy and would be ready to do so in times of trouble. Incapable of thought, the Golem could only obey orders, that is, until it didn’t.  

Now wonderfully restored with color added, the early German expressionist cinematic feature, The Golem (1920), directed by and starring Paul Wegener in the title role (which can now be viewed on YouTube) depicts Loew as a medieval sorcerer who not only violates God’s law by creating life, but does so by calling on the devil for his help. When he loses control over the Golem, the monster violently turns against the Jewish community, wreaking havoc. Characteristic of German films of this era, the use of stylized two-dimensional sets – the endless stairs and crumbling architecture of the nearly animate ancient ghetto – is what sets this movie apart.

An actor who worked for the great Jewish theater director Max Reinhardt, Wegener had become obsessed with the Golem legend in 1913 and had based several of his films on the story.

While thousands of graphic art aficionados are familiar with the many guises of the comic book Golem, his giant form packs the greatest wallop when it can be experienced in three dimensions. California-based artist Joshua Abarbanel created his first small-scale Golem in 2013 for a Los Angeles gallery show centered around sacred texts. The multi-media artist remembered that “I spent a lot of time thinking about the subject and experimenting with Hebrew letters for both their aesthetic forms and various word associations. Eventually the Golem story came to my mind, especially the version in which the Golem is ‘activated’ and ‘deactivated’ through the power of Hebrew letters.” In this work, Abarbanel fuses the Golem’s physical and metaphysical natures; his sculpture is constructed from a dense wooden latticework of calligraphy referencing its magical birth and unique mission.
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The artist’s monumental, Golem-size version commissioned by Berlin’s Jewish Museum for its 2016 show devoted to the mythic creature will soon be on view again in the city of Worms, where it will be on display at Rashi House for SchUM on the Rhine – from Medieval Era Into Modernity, a city-wide celebration of the region’s Jewish heritage.

 If your budget, work schedule or other circumstances have put a damper on that bike trip on the continent, a great sightseeing holiday is not out of the question for anybody these days. Jewish history in all its glory comes to you via three websites reviewed below.

Sponsored by the Council of Europe under the umbrella of its “Cultural Routes” program, (www.AEPJ.org), the website of The European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage is supported by a consortium of 21 organizations, including B’nai B’rith Europe. Claude Bloch, B’nai B’rith Strasbourg and historian of the Jewish community of Alsace, who founded the association and developed its annual European Day of Jewish Culture, is now its honorary president; its current president is B’nai B’rith leader Françoise Moyse. Visitors to its pages are able to hop from country to country, exploring both restored and unrestored synagogue landmarks housed in an ever-growing group of European countries, from the United Kingdom to Turkey; the journey is augmented by three themed sections charting modernist currents (spanning Art Nouveau and Art Deco through Expressionism), surveying the construction of Polish wooden synagogue buildings and locating places where important Jewish women left their mark. Through their beautiful and detailed photos, even those who possess an expertise in subject matter connected to 19th and 20th century art and history will come away with new insights that recontextualize Judaism’s significant contribution to, and inspiration from, the evolution of European culture.

Far from stagnant, the AEPJ website is continually introducing and developing new methods for expansion and education through its “incubator” pages, recent additions to the site that outline opportunities for those who wish to create, develop, learn or teach. Innovations in technology meld the past with the present on a sister website, Parallel Traces: a new lens on Jewish heritage, (https://paralleltraces.eu/), where award-winning entries of cutting edge multi-media works and pictures shining the light on Jewish life and history by European artists and photographers can be viewed. Through this site, those interested can also download three apps devoted to different aspects of Jewish heritage.

AEPJ has recently entered into a collaboration with Ruth Ellen Gruber, coordinator of Jewish Heritage Europe (https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/), a site sponsored by the Rothschild Foundation, which includes the latest news about resources for restoration support and recently opened heritage sites. Here, a series of exhibits describe and document imagery and symbolism specific to Jewish architecture, liturgical objects and decoration, folk art and monuments, including gravestones, located throughout the continent. Similar to the presentation on the AEPJ site, a series of photo galleries are devoted to the art and architecture of specific countries. This joining of forces will surely foster the continued appreciation and renewed understanding of such important and literally eye-opening subject matter. To be sure, there is much that remains unexamined.
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For those inclined to venture closer to home, but who still want to thrill to some amazing sights, the website of The Shapell Collection (https://www.shapell.org) has much to offer. There, everyone can see and learn about actual letters written by Jewish Civil War Soldiers or tour curated exhibits which spotlight Jewish legends like Albert Einstein or investigate the lives of President Abraham Lincoln and the writer Mark Twain, historic figures impacted by their encounters with the Jewish community here and abroad, all presented in the letters and manuscripts they left behind.