Israel's Interest in' Abstract Art and Artists come again, and again, but you," said the physician. Abstract art and Zionism: "want me to come again and what have the two in com- again." mon? In Russia, they are "The difference between in the same boat. An exhibit the physician and the artist," of abstract art was invaded said Lieberman, "is that the in Moscow by bulldozers and physician buries his mistakes, brcken up. More recently, while the mistakes of the perhaps as a reaction to painter hang on the wall." world opinion, there was an The physician should have indication of a moderating of had his photograph taken. the Russian opposition and The camera can get pure recently also Soviet Foreign realism better than the paint- Minister Andrei Gromyko has er—and much quicker. voiced some statements which may portend a change of Probably no painting is not mind to some degree about somewhat abstract. In every painting, however realistic, Israel. - The Soviet opposes abstract there is something of the painter as well as the thing THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS or person painted. Friday, October 25, 1974-25 The lest of a good painting is not whether it is abstract Celebrate an Old-Fashioned or representational. Family Channuhah A . teacher of painting once said that the test of a good painting is that it makes you feel good. Beautiful, handcrafted A great artist of the last California redwood drei- century was the lady painter, dels. Hebrew letters burned Rosa ifonheur. She lived in into wood. 21 inches tall. Paris and specialized in paint- Playing instructions and ing animals. Her painting, story- of dreidel included. the Horse Fair, hangs among PERFECT the other classics at the Met- CHANNUKAH GIFT ropolitan Museum. Rosa Boi- for children heur was Jewish. The name and grandchildren Bonheur is a translation of mazel tov. $2 each (3, for $5), If you look at a painting prepaid (postage incl.) and it gives you a little thrill and you say or want to say mazel tov, it is good. No THE DREIDEL matter what other critics may , FACTORY® say. 2445 Prince Street Two of our most important Berkeley, Ca. 94705 abstract artists of recent days in America have been Jews--, Rothko and Gottlieb. Some years back, as a young reporter on the old Washington Herald, I was sent to interview Joseph Pen- nel, who enjoyed at the time some reputation for his etch- ings. For some unaccounta- ble reason, he could not help venting his anti-Semitism, telling me Jews didn't figure in painting. I hadn't said they had. I knew very little about painting then. I might have PRESENTS mentioned the German Lieb- erman, or the Italian Pissaro —who was half Jewish, and not only a greater artist than Pennel but a much greater human being. Pisarro was a strong influence on Cezanne, probably the most important figure in modern painting. Cezanne speaks of Pisarro with the tenderness one The Age of Brass speaks of his father. .I might have also mentioned Soutine, Lecturer: Dr. Stanley F. Chyet one of the classics of today, or going a little further back, Associate Director, American —Jewish Archives/Professor of American Jewish the Dutch Jew, Josef Israels. History of - the Hebrew Union College/author of "Lopez of Newport", "Lives and numerous of History"/contributor Voices". "Essays in American Jewish His father wanted him to be articles to many publications/member of Central Conference of American a rabbi, but he became a Rabbis, American Historical Society, Jewish Publication Society. bookkeeper. When he began INTRODUCTION BY Irving Katz to draw pictures on his book- • Board Member Jewish Historical Society of America ' keeping records, his father Executive Director Temple Beth El gave in to his ambition to be • a painter. Chagall, who is semi-ab- The Holocaust and American Jewry stract, is one of the contem- porary greats. Interestingly Lecturer: Dr. Selig Adler enough, at the beginning of Copen Professor of American History of the State University of New York. the Bolshevik revolution, of Buffalo/held visiting professorships at Cornell University and the University Chagall was made commis- of Rochester/outhor of numerous major articles which received wide dissemi- sar of painting in his area. nation in historical and popular journals/author of The Isolationist Impulse" and "The Uncertain Giant: American Foreign Policy Between the Wors"/ The Bolsheviks only later listed in current edition of Who's Who in America. discovered that abs tract INTRODUCTION BY Dr. Joseph Gutmann painting was not kosher. Professor of Art and Art History at Wayne State University When Hitler came to power, Chagall's paintings were in- eluded lay the Nazis in an Bernard Panush, Chairman exhibition of what they called Harry Laker, President Rabbi Milton Arm, Moderator "degenerate *art." What bet- ter reason could there be for ADMISSION FREE abstract painting than the 21 100 W. 12 Mile Road ( between Lahser and Evergreen) knowledge that the Nazis Southfield, Michigan were against it? By DAVID SCHWARTZ (Copyright 1974, JTA, Inc.) DREIDELS art on the grounds of "So- cialist realism." It wants peo- ple, dogs, cats, houses, ma- chinery painted. Everything real. In the same way, the many Arabs with their lands and their oil are more real than Israel. It would be dif- ferent if the Jews had twenty nations like the Arabs instead of one. Moses was against repre- sentational art. He forbade the making of representa- tional images. What were. his reasons? Perhaps the ex- planation is that he lived in a period when things were worshiped. Even on Mt. Sinai, when 'Moses communed with the Most High, the Israelites could not resist the impulse to fashion the image of a calf to worship. Perhaps we are still in the same groove — worshiping things. An eminent Yiddish writer said the reason the Israelites made a golden calf was that they didn't have enough gold to make a cow. The highest forces, Moses knew, are abstract. Truth, love, electricity, freedom, are abstract. Soviet Russia is in special need of the last. To say one approves ab- stract art is not to deny the good in the representational variety. The picture of a house by a lake can be beau- tiful. The noted German Jewish painter, Max Lieberman, painting the portrait of a physician, who protested the many sittings, was told, "A patient comes to me, I exam- ine him and give him a pre- scription. I don't ask him to ADULT EDUCATION .COMMITTEE Congregation Beth Achim PRELUDE TO THE AMERICAN BICENTENNIAL: Tue s day W. d OE: 6 - 8 be ' 2 9 Nove m ber 5, 197 OE: ( Fu es dc FROM SEIXAS TO KISSINGER BETH YENNAH SCHOOLS 60th ANNIVERSARY DINNER f V • LOBO HALL SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1974 Special Guest Speaker THE HONORABLE JUSTICE ARTHUR J. GOLDBERG Former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Ambassador to the United Nations and Former Secretary of Labor GENERAL CHAIRMAN: IRWIN I. COHN DINNER .CHAIRMAN: I. WILLIAM SHERR GOLDEN TORAH AWARD RECIPIENT: HILLEI, L. ABRAMS SPONSORS Harold Beznos Max Biber A. Howard Bloch Jack J. Carmen Ernest L. Citron Irwin I. Cohn Reuben Dubrinsky Dr. Arnold Eisenman . Kenneth Fischer Sidney Fischer Nathan I. Goldin Rubin Grevnin Samuel Hechtman David B. Holtzman Arnold Joseff Mrs. Morris Karbal Daniel A. Laven Joseph Nusbaum. Irving I. Palman Julius Rotenberg Alex Saltsman I. William Sherr Max Stollman Phillip Stollman HONORARY CHAIRMEN Marvin Berlin A. Howard Bloch Ernest L. Citron Nathan I. Goldin Samuel Hechtman Arnold Joseff Mrs. Morris Karbal Daniel A. Laven Joseph Nusbaum Seymour Rabinowitz Julius Rotenberg Alex Saltsman Meyer Weingarden COMMITTEE Hillel L. Abrams Isadore Averbuch Max Biber Leonard Borman Benjamin Brodman Jack .1: Carmen Max Carmen David N. Cohen Solomon N. Cohen Henry Dorfman Morris Dorn Reuben Dubrinsky Dr. Arnold Eisenman Kenneth Fischer Sidney Fischer Reuben Grevnin David B. Holtzman David Kuperwasser Sol Lessman Irving I. Palman Alvin Reifman Solomon Rothenberg Nathan Soberman A. M. Silverstein Charles Snow Max Stollman Phillip Stollman Louis Topor Julius Wainer Charles Weiner Mrs. Robert Weinbaum Eugene Zack FOR RESERVATIONS AND INFORMATION, Please Call: 557-6750