27 May
Arts & Culture

Chagall's Crucifixions

By Kayla Green For the first time in history, Marc Chagall’s Bible-themed engravings, originally intended as a gift for his second wife, are on display to the public. The engravings are part of the “Chagall and the Bible” exhibit in Paris’s Museum of Jewish Art and History which contains 105 of Chagall’s engravings illustrating the 1956 edition of the Bible. The full exhibit consists of half of Chagall’s preliminary sketches for the book’s engravings, 25 oil paintings of Biblical scenes and watercolor and gouache mock-ups of Chagall’s glass work.  These intimate and historically rich pieces lend insight into the deep complexity of Chagall’s Jewish legacy, from his identity as a Jew in exile to his reawakening upon his first visit to Israel. Most importantly, they are able to convey Chagall’s interesting perspective of what it means...

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27 May
Arts & Culture

Chagall’s Crucifixions

By Kayla Green For the first time in history, Marc Chagall’s Bible-themed engravings, originally intended as a gift for his second wife, are on display to the public. The engravings are part of the “Chagall and the Bible” exhibit in Paris’s Museum of Jewish Art and History which contains 105 of Chagall’s engravings illustrating the 1956 edition of the Bible. The full exhibit consists of half of Chagall’s preliminary sketches for the book’s engravings, 25 oil paintings of Biblical scenes and watercolor and gouache mock-ups of Chagall’s glass work.  These intimate and historically rich pieces lend insight into the deep complexity of Chagall’s Jewish legacy, from his identity as a Jew in exile to his reawakening upon his first visit to Israel. Most importantly, they are able to convey Chagall’s interesting perspective of what it means...

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11 Feb
Arts & Culture, Culture, Latest

People of the Book: Interview with Julie Orringer

By Symi Rom-Rymer Sitting on a faux cowhide bench with rock music blaring at full volume in a small coffee shop in one of Brooklyn’s hipper neighborhoods, it would be hard to feel further away from the turbulence and romanticism of 1930s Paris.  But I was swept back to that era as I spoke with Julie Orringer, whose debut epic novel—The Invisible Bridge, among the New York Times’ 100 best books of 2010—I wrote about in a recent post.   Inspired by her grandparents’ experiences before and during the Holocaust, Invisible Bridge follows the fate of Andras Lévi, a young Jewish Hungarian architectural student on the cusp of a new life in interwar Paris.  Refreshingly, unlike many Holocaust novel protagonists, Lévi is not from the East European shtetl.  He is urban, ambitious and, like many of his...

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