Jewry's Role in
Human Affairs
PIONEERS IN THE WORLD OF ART
Evidence of the earliest Hebrew art appears in biblical accounts of the
adornments and decorations of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness and the
Great Temples in Jerusalem. During the ages, artisans ornamented
synagogues and their furnishings, illuminated prayer books and crafted
designs into holy artifacts. But not until the 20th century did most artists
ofJewish origin indulge in realistic representation. The flowering of their
genius was a phenomenon of this century issuing from the palettes of
Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Max Weber, Franz Kline, Jack
Levine, Lee Krasner, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Mark Rothko and
Robert Rauchenberg to name a few. Their predecessors and colleagues
included:
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CAMILLE PISSARRO
(1830-1903) b. St. Thomas, Danish West Indies
Born to a Sephardi family, the often impoverished
painter spent most of his life in Paris and its
vicinity as a leading proponent of Impressionism--
a school of art he helped establish. Early in his
career, Pissarro had been influenced by the works
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of Corot, Manet and other French avant-garde
painters, as well as by the English landscapes of
1
Constable and Turner. But it was Georges Seurat's pointillist technique of
connecting tiny dots of primary colors that he eventually adopted and most
often employed. His main theme,s were orderly but understated landscapes,
urban and river scenes, and panoramas of rural life scintillating with light.
In his passion for the movement he championed, Pissarro helped
arrange Impressionism's first major exposition in 1874, a debut with works
by Renoir, Monet and Cezanne--aspiring young artists to whom he gave
constant fatherly support. His own paintings were at first largely ignored
or reproached by critics and the public. Although discouraged, he persisted
in increasing his output, if only to feed an almost penniless family of eight.
A long, collegial friendship with Paul Gauguin had also dissolved.
His fortunes changed in 1892. A large show of his collected work
finally met with success and financial reward. By the time of his death
eleven years later, the kindly and gentle master had bequeathed more than
1,600 treasured works of art in all media to private and museum collections
worldwide. His legacy also included four sons--Lucien, Georges, Felix
and Paul-Emile--who were themselves talented artists of varied
reputations.
MARC CHAGALL
(1887-1985) b. Vitebsk, Russia. His father worked
for a herring-monger and his mother was a
shopkeeper; from these humble beginnings came
a precocious and gifted son whose surreal-
istic/dreamlike creations spawned a lyrical genre
all its own. By his mid-twenties, he occupied a
ramshackle Parisian studio and cultivated friend-
ships with Bohemian poets and artists like Max
Jacob, Guillaume Appollinaire, Chaim Soutine, Robert Delaunay and
Fernand Leger. Chagall thrived in their heady and audacious fellowship
and nurtured a personal, inventive style which endured for a lifetime:
childhood reveries ofJewish communities transformed into richly colored
fantasies populated by figures and objects of religious folklore and village
life, often swimming in space.
Chagall returned to Russia in 1914 and was appointed Commissar
of Fine Arts in his Vitebsk hometown. But conflicts with local authorities
drove him to Moscow where he designed stage sets for Sholem Aleichem's
plays and was attracted to etching and printmaking. Many hundreds of
such illustrations in literary classics, including the Bible, represent most of
his creative production during that period. Chagall resettled in Paris in
1923 and later fled to the U.S. before the Nazi onslaught.
His return to France in the late Forties, and his growing reputation,
launched a new career phase: major commissions from world-famed
institutions. During the ensuing decades he completed a new ceiling for the
Paris Opera and murals for the Metropolitan Opera House lobby. His glass
window adorns the U.N. building and his tapestries hang in the Knesset.
In an ecumenical breakthrough, Chagall was also the first Jewish artist
contracted by the Vatican, in this instance for a stained glass panel for its
audience hall. - Saul Stadttnauer
Visit many more notable Jews at our website: www.dorledor.org
COMMISSION FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF JEWISH HISTORY
Walter & Lea Field, Founders/Sponsors
Irwin S. Field, Chairperson
Harriet F. Siden, Chairperson
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from page 32
books it had paid for were advocating
hate.
While these examples of efforts to
make the P.A. a responsible entity seem
almost as comic as they do tragic, the
blame for Palestinian corruption is not
Arafat's alone. Israel played a part, too.
In an effort to create a viable economy
for the Palestinians, Israel encouraged its
own business sector to invest in the terri-
tories. But the result was not a vibrant
free economy. Instead, Israeli companies
partnered with some of Arafat's cronies
and were silent partners to the corrup-
tion and graft of the Palestinian kleptoc-
racy. The Israeli government itself provid-
ed Arafat with cash and other resources,
all in the hope that by keeping him well
lubricated with baksheesh or "bribes," he
would keep the peace for Israel.
In fact, the hopelessly utopian rheto-
ric of Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres notwithstanding, that was the plan
all along. The late Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin was openly cynical about
the nature of Arafat's regime. He hoped
that controlling terror would be easier
for Arafat because his government
would not be a democracy like Israel.
That was a mistake. The only trustwor-
thy peace is one between democracies.
Arafat took the money, and paid
Israel back with blood and terror.
Fear Complicity
The coming months will, no doubt,
bring us more examples of goodwill
programs designed to "reform" ArafaCs
regime. The CIA itself has been volun-
teered to oversee the consolidation of
Arafat's security services.
As some on the left are quick to point
out, Oslo skeptics and chose who are not
sympathetic to Palestinian Arab "aspira-
tions" (like this writer) are not in a good
position to persuade the Palestinians to
play by the rules of democratic etiquette.
Indeed, most Israelis and friends of Israel
don't really care that much about the
Palestinian right to the pursuit of happi-
ness. All they want is for the Palestinians
to cease trying to kill Israelis.
But to forget that past aid to the same
people only made the situation worse is
worse than willful blindness. Arafat's war
policy is actually popular with the
Palestinians whom we want to give self-
government. Encouraging this trend
would make us complicit in the blood to
be shed in the future by Arafat or any of
those likely to succeed him.
Is the United States really interested in
creating another rogue terrorist state that
will pose a threat not only to Israel, but
also to the rest of the region — and the
United States itself? Despite the lack of
alternatives to Arafat, this is no time for a
revival of Oslo and its fantasies.
Unless the Palestinians discard Arafat's
reign of terror and adopt a democratic
mode of government, the chances for
peace with Israel are nil.
Unless the donor nations make this a
condition for future aid, there is no
chance that Arafat, and those like him,
will be deposed.
And unless the Palestinians — the peo-
ple in the street as well as those with Swiss
bank accounts — give up their desire for
war on Israel, more aid will only prolong
the violence.
It is true that it is not up to us to
determine the Palestinians leaders or
tell them how to live. But we can
determine whether or not we wish to
subsidize terror in the name of
Palestinian reform.
Call it paternalism, imperialism or
naked self-interest, but without a com-
plete change in the way Arafat and
company operate and think, there
should be no American money for the
Palestinians and no pressure on Israel
to accommodate them. E
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