HOME(less)

HOME(less)

Hebrew-Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum, New York

Published in conjunction with the exhibition

HOME(less)

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum, New York

September 7, 2017 – June 29, 2018

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum, New York

Jean Bloch Rosensaft, Director

Laura Kruger, Curator

Phyllis Freedman, Rose Starr, Curatorial Assistants

Nancy Mantell, Registrar/Director of Traveling Exhibitions

Susan Rosenstein, Archivist

Edward Swenson, Cara Levine, Curatorial Interns

Mariselis Rivera, Museum Intern

Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, NY

Catalogue Design: TabakDesign.com

Exhibition Design/Installation: Klay-James Enos

ISBN: 1-884300-54-5

© 2017 Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion

Presented by the Irma L. and Abram S. Croll Center for Jewish Learning and Culture at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, with the generous support of George, z”l, and Mildred Weissman.

HUC-JIR MUSEUM ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Laura Kruger, Chair

Jean Bloch Rosensaft, Director Suzette Acar

Judy Becker

Sherry Berz

Phyllis Cohen

Elaine Corwin

Robin Cramer

Gail Davidson

Gloria Dobbs

Cynthia Greener Edelman

Vicki Reikes Fox

Ruth O. Freedlander

Phyllis Freedman

Susan K. Freedman

Cantor Mimi Frishman

Betty Golomb

Joy G. Greenberg

Barbara Gross

Cathy Heller

Peggy Heller

Marissa Hollander

Andrew Joscow

Teela Lelyveld

Nancy Mantell

Marjorie Miller

Kevin Penn

Fran Putnoi

Susan Rosenstein

Joan Salomon

Samuel Simon

Helene Spring

Rose Starr

Livia Straus

Mildred Weissman

ADMINISTRATION

Rabbi Aaron D. Panken, Ph.D., President

Rabbi Michael Marmur, Ph.D., Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost

Lissie Diringer, A.B., Vice President for Institutional Advancement

Elizabeth Squadron, M.S., Vice President for Program and Business Development

Jean Bloch Rosensaft, B.A., Assistant Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs; Director, HUC-JIR Museum, New York

Rabbi David Adelson, D.Min., Dean, HUC-JIR, New York

Rabbi Renni Altman, M.A.H.L., Associate Dean, HUC-JIR, New York

Front Cover:

Grace Graupe-Pillard

Truckload, 2014

Oil, alkyd on wood

48″ x 36″

Back Cover:

Chris Jones

After They Had Left, 2016

Mixed media

63″ x 44″

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

Rabbi David Adelson, D.Min., Dean, HUC-JIR/New York

Home, we are told, is where the heart is. It may be less important what that home looks like, or even where it is located, than what it provides emotionally and spiritually. We seek a place of stability, permanence, and comfort in the world, from which we may face the challenges of life.

The yearning for a stable home is not just individual. It is also the existential orientation of our people. When Abraham and Sarah first enter Canaan (Gen. 12:7), we are promised it as a home. We later learn that maintaining this home will require our upholding ethical and communal behavior (Lev. 26:33). And then in the long exile following the destruction of the Second Temple, the longing never ceases. The medieval Spanish poet Yehuda HaLevy writes, “My heart is in the East, and I am at the edge of the West.” Home is indeed where the heart is, but that may be very far from where we are now.

In contrast, we also learn that leaving our first home is a necessary step to growth and achieving our true purpose. The first humans are created in the Garden of Eden, and then we are swiftly expelled from blissful ignorance and complete care into the perils of the wider world. Abraham and Sarah, to achieve their roles as the founders of our faith, are commanded to leave the land of Abraham’s birth and his father’s home (Gen. 12:1). Jacob flees his family home to ultimately become the father of the tribes of Israel (Gen. 28:5).

Both impulses are contained within each of us and within our Jewish story. We seek stability and safety, and we seek adventure and growth. So which is it? Clearly, we need both. We must feed, clothe, and house the body in order to also nurture the mind and spirit. We need to feel love from caregivers and from the universe before we can take risks and grow. And in venturing out, we either find our true home, or we understand the existing home anew. Dorothy had to venture to Oz to return to the same home as a new person. May our Jewish home – a nourishing and grounding Jewish identity and life, whether in our people’s homeland of Israel or here in Diaspora – also be the secure foundation of our exploration of all that is more than us.

HOME(less)

Laura Kruger, Curator, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum

Home – is it an actuality, a concept, a dream, or some combination of these and more? Does it describe a yurt, an igloo, a palace, or a boathouse? Is it primarily a shelter, a refuge, a storage place, a hope, an aspiration, or an ideal? We speak about leaving home, coming home, going home, and staying home. In moments of stress, we focus on the safety of home, in loneliness on the embrace of home, in fear on the security of home, and in plentitude on the hospitality of home.

We find ourselves defining home by physical sensibilities: the intrinsic aroma of one’s home, the security of a locked door, of a protective waterproof roof, of bookshelves, closets, cellars with provisions for unknown situations, treasures, collections, a place to invite friends, to reveal oneself through selections of books, art, objects, random artifacts. We identify ourselves by the idea of a ‘homeland’ although we may have never visited or dwelt in such a place.

We become, when most fortunate, homeowners. We are made “homeless” by arbitrary acts of nature – fire, flood, the heaving of the earth and by war, illness, and poverty.

Humankind has been living in an ever-increasing morass of homeless people, refugees, and displaced individuals. Natural disasters strike leaving people without shelter. Crops fail, climate changes, the sea rises, forests burn, earthquakes and blameless people flee with whatever they are able to carry. And war, the only preventable human-made disaster, continues its destruction.

The disconnection – the loss of confidence in attaining safety, security, and nourishment – defines the homeless situation. There are millions of people in every part of the world who live without consistent shelter, with inadequate food, are separated from family, and with no options to break out of this condition. Victims of wars, feuds, natural disasters, failed agriculture, divorce, or family discord may lack marketable skills and education. With no place to sleep, they live on the streets. Some municipalities provide palliative efforts to feed, house, and nurse these desperate humans.

The artists engaged in exploring this grave situation come from many backgrounds, faiths, and nationalities. They brilliantly reveal the tension of those striving to survive, grasping for remembered dignity.

HOME IN JEWISH TRADITION

Alyssa Gray, J.D., Ph.D., Emily S. and Rabbi Bernard H. Mehlman Chair in Rabbinics; Professor of Codes and Responsa Literature, HUC-JIR/New York

Home in its many dimensions is a major theme in Jewish tradition. In the Hebrew Bible home is a place of hospitality and safety. Abraham welcomed travelers to his tent (Genesis 18:1-5). The children of Israel were protected from the 10th plague by remaining all night in their houses, their lintels and doorposts marked with a sign (Exodus 12:22-23). The “doorposts of your house” are to be marked with God’s words (Deuteronomy 6:9), an instruction that evolves into the mitzvah of mezuzah. The Talmudic story character Onkelos bar Kalonymos touchingly describes the mezuzah as a visible sign of God’s protection of the people within the home (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 11a). Although a place of safety, home is not to be a fortress. The Talmud tells of a pious man who regularly enjoyed visits from the prophet Elijah until he built a gatehouse that insulated him from encountering the poor (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 7b).

Home might be opulent: King David lived in a house built of sturdy cedar (2 Samuel 7:2). Opulent furnishings are inappropriate if those enjoying them are also unjust (Amos 6:1-8). Home might be simple: the Shunammite woman furnished an apartment gratis for the traveling prophet Elisha, consisting of a bed, table, chair, and lampstand (2 Kings 4:8-10). Elisha may have had nothing to fear from his landlord, but centuries later classical Jewish law protects tenants: for example, a landlord may not evict a tenant during the winter even with 30 days’ notice, because of the difficulty of securing another dwelling during that time (Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 312:5 and commentary). Home might be nothing more than three walls and a “roof” made of plant matter for one week a year, during the Sukkot festival (Leviticus 23:42).

Even God, whose “glory fills the whole earth” (Isaiah 6:3), tells Moses to build a tent sanctuary so that God can have a home among the Israelites (Exodus 25:8). King Solomon upgrades God to a magnificent Temple (1 Kings 8:27-30, 9:3).

But home – whether divine or human–may not last forever. The loss of home – exile – is also a pervasive Jewish theme. The Babylonians destroyed Solomon’s Temple in 586 BCE and the exiles to Babylon wept with homesickness (Psalm 137), although they were also divinely instructed to make themselves (temporarily) at home (Jeremiah 29:4-7). The Talmud says that after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, God roars like a lion three times each night because Israel’s sins led to the Temple’s destruction and the exile of God’s children among the nations of the world (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 3a). The Talmud bids Jews to mark this exile by leaving a small portion of their homes unplastered, a small sign of the dwellings’ impermanence (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 60b).

But Jewish tradition also exemplifies hope that one can go home again. Cyrus invited the Jewish exiles in Babylon to return home to Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 36:22-23). The Balfour Declaration’s twentieth-century promise of a Jewish “national home” (1917) led to the establishment of the modern State of Israel. Western democracy and evolving notions of human rights have opened up many more possibilities of “home” for all persons suffering the pains of homelessness and exile.

FROM HOMELESS TO HOME: HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS AND THE DP CAMPS

Jean Bloch Rosensaft, Director, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum

Recording the moment of liberation at Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945, Dr. Hadassah Rosensaft wrote, “For the greatest part of the liberated Jews, there was no ecstasy, no joy at our liberation. We had lost our families, and our homes. We had no place to go, nobody was waiting for us anymore. We had been liberated from death and the fear of death, but not from the fear of life.”

Displaced persons camps were established by the Allied liberators throughout Germany, Austria, and Italy as temporary havens. Their intention was to quickly repatriate the millions of displaced persons throughout Europe back to their home countries. The Jewish survivors, however, fought forced repatriation to their native lands, where their families and homes had been destroyed and where returning Jews faced rabid anti-Semitism and killings by the local populations.

Dr. Earl Harrison was chosen by President Truman to investigate conditions in the DP camps during the summer of 1945. His report stated: “As matters now stand, we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except we do not exterminate them.” The Harrison Report resulted in improved conditions in these camps and opened up the barbed wire fences to allow the survivors freedom of movement. But with continued restricted immigration to Eretz-Israel and America, and no communities to return to, much of the surviving remnant of European Jewry remained in the DP camps, some waiting well into the 1950’s until they were able to emigrate.

The DP camps sheltered survivors from diverse lands, cultures, and traditions. They were assisted by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the British Section of the World Jewish Congress, the British Jewish Relief Unit, the Jewish Agency, HIAS, and ORT, who provided invaluable resources, including food, clothing, medical supplies, and other practical assistance. The Jewish Brigade – Jewish soldiers from Eretz Israel who had fought in the British Army during the war – were indispensable as teachers and youth leaders in the DP camps’ schools and kibbutzim, preparing young survivors for aliyah to Palestine.

But for the most part, it was the survivors themselves who affected their physical, emotional, and spiritual rehabilitation – without the help of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other helping professionals that are so prevalent after catastrophes in our own time. As they created communities, their self-help brought healing and hope.

Amongst the survivors’ first efforts were memorialization – symbolic monuments standing for the unknown resting places for parents, spouses, children, and siblings who had perished in the ghettos, forests, camps, and hiding places strewn across Europe.

Survivors were principal witnesses for the prosecution at the first military war crimes trial, the Belsen Trial of the Nazi criminals responsible for the administration of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, many of whom had been in the command and administration of Auschwitz- Birkenau.

The religious needs of the community were provided by a survivor rabbinate and American and British military chaplains. In addition to conducting services, establishing religious schools, and mikvahs, the rabbinate addressed such complex issues as the plight of agunoth and agunim (survivors who had married before or during the war, whose spouses had disappeared and who required a designation of widowhood in order to remarry) and the determination of Jewish identity among those deemed “half” and “quarter” Jews under the Nazis’ Nuremberg Laws.

Liberated children came to the DP camps from the concentration camps, ghettos, and hiding places in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, some with their families, many alone. The reunification of families was facilitated by mimeographed lists of survivors displayed at the DP camps – but most survivors suffered from the heartbreaking knowledge that they were truly alone in the world.

The survivors who were educators came forward to teach and restore the children’s capacity for fun. Children spoke many languages, each one different from the other, and modern Hebrew was designated as the common language for instruction.

The majority of the survivors were between 17 and 25 years of age and had been deprived of years of their formative education by the war. Vocational training provided a crucial outlet for the energies of thousands of unemployed young adults in the DP camps and provided a basis for livelihood after emigration one day. Sports activities also became a popular outlet for recreation, socialization, and enhanced physical well-being.

Culture was a vital channel for recovery. Through art, poetry, memoirs, newspapers, theater, and music, the survivors reflected on their Holocaust experiences, transmitted the obligation to remember the past, and began to come to terms with the return to life.

Determined to start anew, the survivors sought to create new families. Soon after liberation, they began to marry, seeking to create an atmosphere of living for the future and not in the past. And soon thereafter, the largest recorded birth rate in post-war Europe took place among the Jewish DPs.

But the DP’s greatest effort was the struggle for a Jewish homeland. David Ben Gurion, then Chairman of the Jewish Agency, visited the DP camps in November 1945 and later wrote: “We were at the time engaged in a hard and bitter struggle with the ‘White Paper’ regime of Attlee and Bevin, who had gone back on the promises of their own party and on the international commitments of their country. The faith I found among the survivors strengthened the spirit of our fighters in the Homeland.”

Many survivors advocated for their rights to immigrate to a Jewish homeland and used “illegal” means in the face of the British embargo to go to Eretz-Israel. This period of tension, protests, stormy confrontations, and conferences came to a climax in September 1947 when the “Exodus” ship was intercepted by the British at the shore of Eretz-Israel and forcefully returned to Germany, where its survivor passengers were imprisoned.

The DP camps were clandestine training centers for the Haganah. Tons of food, shoes, clothing, blankets, cases of hospital equipment, medical supplies, and monetary contributions for the JNF and Haganah Fund were contributed by the survivors. Arms were smuggled in crates of personal goods shipped to Palestine, later to be retrieved by the Haganah upon arrival in Eretz-Israel.

With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, legal immigration became a reality and many of the survivors immigrated to Israel, where they were among the builders, fighters, and defenders of the State. Liberalized immigration quotas allowed other survivors to immigrate to the United States, Canada, and other countries.

The fortitude of the DP era has new resonance today, when we are witnesses to the plight of millions of displaced refugees fleeing persecution and death and risking their lives to reach safe havens in Europe. The liminal years of statelessness and homelessness, between liberation and the creation of the State of Israel, is when the victims of the Shoah ceased to be victims and emerged with the courage to rebuild their lives. Their resilience illuminates both the indestructible Jewish spirit and the human capacity to return to life.

HEDDY ABRAMOVITZ

Balcony Sukkah for Two, Jerusalem, 2016

Photograph, 153⁄4″ x 20″

A sukkah is the temporary dwelling in which Jews were instructed to live during the harvest festival celebration of Sukkot (Leviticus 22:42,43). As a symbol of exposure to outdoor elements, away from normal conveniences, disconnected from domestic comforts, it reinforces our dependence on God in all aspects of life. This ad hoc Jerusalem balcony roofed over with palm fronds and swathed with bed linens is a creative adaptation to urban “living in the desert.”

MARLENE ADLER

Living in Harmony, 1992

Watercolor and collage, 30″ x 22″

This large blue house, a collage of styles and artifacts, is a montage of images that define ‘home’ for the artist. Reflecting diverse locations and a range of architecture, it includes worldwide cultures and historical periods. The medicine wheel represents people of all races; the weather vane on the roof shows the four directions of the world. Adler embraces a common humanity, whether in big cities or small towns, to create a home where one can grow, be loved, and find comfort.

IRVING AMEN

Many Children Dwell in My Father’s House, 1963

Woodcut, 101⁄2″ x 131⁄4″

Sigmund Balka Collection, HUC-JIR Museum, New York

Children of different ethnicities and religious backgrounds are depicted eating together at a single table. In this often-polarized world, we see children quickly learning each other’s language and games. We are all in God’s House; may we learn from God’s children.

ANDI ARNOVITZ

Empty Nests, 2016

Found birds’ nests, hand-crafted porcelain heart, 6″ x 3″ x 21⁄2″

Arnovitz, an ‘empty nester,’ depicts herself as the heart of the family and her scattered children as the encircling nests. She expresses her mixed feelings of pride and loss as her five children marry and leave home one by one. “As mothers we want our children to go off, to become adults and independent, but our hearts are forever attached to them.”

ARI BAR LEV

Hazerim Immigrant Transit Camp, 1956

Photograph, 20″ x 24″

Bar Lev’s photography provides a unique insight into the rise and expansion of the State of Israel. With a fifty-year body of work, Bar Lev personifies that spirit and demonstrates the beauty and prosperity that a people’s determination can create.

In this photograph we see immigrants moving into the Negev, ready to make Israel their home.

PAT BERGER

Mildred’s World, c. 1986

Acrylic on canvas, 39″ x 30″

Since 1984, Berger’s mission has been to paint works that make a statement and raise people’s consciousness about the plight of the thousands of homeless persons in this country. She has come to know, photograph, and paint scores of homeless people, understanding that the homeless are not derelicts, but people of all ages and races who for one reason or another are essentially abandoned.

HARRIETE ESTEL BERMAN

How Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?, 2001

Repurposed metal dollhouses, recycled tin cans, 10k gold, sterling silver, 201⁄4″ x 121⁄2″ x 13⁄4″

This seder plate is fabricated from a manufactured, pre-printed metal child’s dollhouse, c. 1949. The pre-cut windows offer a view into the home. Berman, an ardent feminist, uses the domestic setting for a celebration of Passover. By adding an orange, symbolizing inclusivity, to the traditional lamb shank, parsley, roasted egg, horseradish, and charoset, she reinforces the presence and participation of women in Judaism.

CLAIRE BOREN

Home 2, 1998

Mixed media, 181⁄2″ x 16″

As Boren moved from realistic and figurative work toward abstraction, her artistic process unlocked memories of her childhood during the Holocaust. From October 1942 through the spring of 1944 in Poland, Boren and her mother survived by hiding in houses, attics, and in the forest, including three long months in a hole in the ground under a barn’s pigsty. This is one of several works that represent her memories of “home” during the war.

MAYA BRODSKY

Mama and Papa in the Living Room, 2010

Oil on panel, 12″ x 9″

Collection of George Adams

The influences of Vermeer, Van Eyck, and Bonnard find a contemporary counterpart in Brodsky’s intimately scaled painting. Depicting a home interior infused with a warm nostalgia, she contrasts two individuals, comfortably alone together and absorbed in their own thoughts and interests.

BUNNY BURSON

Home Is Where You Are, c. 2015

Mixed media, resin, collage on paper installation, 40″ x 40″

These resin plaques are reminders of the original brass door plates that were inscribed with family names and affixed to the front doors of homes in Berlin prior to World War II. Long after her family had fled Nazi persecution, the phantom silhouettes of the markers remained. Burson couples these ghostly replicas with an original unread/unopened letter delivered after her family was forced to leave.

SAMUEL CHAMBERLAIN

Sunday Afternoon in the Bronx Flat of the Berger Family, 1935

Drawing, gouache, 11″ x 15″

Sigmund Balka Collection, HUC-JIR Museum, New York

This drawing is of the Clifford Odets comedy-drama Awake and Sing, a play about a Jewish family living under one roof, struggling to stay afloat in the 1930’s. The depiction of a household of idealists and realists at home, a location of interaction and vitality, features images of the actors Luther Adler, Stella Adler, and Elia Kazan.

YAACOV CHEFETZ

The World that Vanished: Wieliczka Salt Mine, Poland, 2002

Photograph, 16″ x 12″

In this photograph of his site-specific installation in the Wieliczka Salt Mine, approximately 80 km from Auschwitz, Chefetz impels the viewer to participate in an individual search for memory and a sense of place. The cabin of raw wood planks frames a photograph of ten people, a family lost to the Holocaust. Chefetz will not allow us to forget the reality of the Shoah.

MELANIE DANKOWICZ

Welcome, 2016

Anodized aluminum, 18″ x 12″

“Blessed are you in coming, and blessed are you in going,” an inscription reminding us that the gate or doorway to a home is the welcoming point of transition between one’s personal sanctuary and the rest of the world.

YUSSEL DERSHOWITZ

Jewish Family at Home, c. 1920

Oil on canvas, 211⁄2″ x 311⁄2″

Collection of Abe and Jeanette Sonenshein and Family

In the privacy and comfort of their own home, a young Eastern European family delights in their first child, a son.

DOEprojekts

(a socially-engaged, collaborative art practice)

DEBORAH ADAMS DOERING, GLENN N. DOERING, VERONICA BETANI, and CEBO MVUBU

Performance Circle One – Home, 2012

Silk embroidery thread on linen, 30″ x 23″

A large zero and a one dominate this small house, representing the tension between the hope for the stability of home and the desired growth and movement of those living within. The bare tree branches seen through the windows on either side of the house represent individuals’ growth that can be permanently or temporarily stunted as a result of the interpersonal dynamics within a home.

DORIT JORDAN DOTAN

Home Bound, 2016

Photography and digital art, 14″ x 20″, one of six sections

Fear of losing one’s home is the artist’s emotional heritage. Dotan explains, “For generations, my family has not freely chosen where home is.” This work connects the generations of her family’s transient history. Layers of paint, wallpaper, historic Shanghai maps, landscapes, and images of lost, abandoned, or stolen homes are set in juxtaposition to the refugees who often were forced to move on. As depicted in these collages, home is a flexible concept rather than a fixed place.

ROSALYN A. ENGELMAN

Where Shall I Go?, 2017

Acrylic on canvas, collage, barbed wire;

2 sections: 67″ x 36″ and 20″ x 17″

Raging against the inhuman policies restricting the movements of people to safe havens, Engelman includes images of bloodied children, men, and women, detained and stranded in the limbo of persecution. Derogatory slogans scream out as the artist appeals for help from the viewer.

SHARON EPSTEIN

Canopy of Stars, 2016

Painted textile, 26″ x 36″

A huppah is the canopy under which a Jewish bridal party stands during their wedding ceremony. It represents a spiritual home protecting and blessing the bride and groom. Epstein includes Jewish symbolism: the pomegranate signifies fertility as well as a multitude of stars reminding us of God’s promise to Abraham that he will have children as numerous as the stars of heaven. Epstein’s travels to India influence her choice of colors and textiles.

ROBERT FORMAN

Engine Co. 5, 2013

Colored strands of yarn glued to board, 35″ x 24″

Forman lives in a converted firehouse, c. 1898, in Hoboken, NJ. Using his highly developed technique of ‘yarn painting,’ adapted from the indigenous Mexican tribal Huichol Indians, he creates a kaleidoscope of images reflecting the long history and events of his historic house.

LARRY FRANKEL

By a Simple Twist of Fate, 2017

Photography printed on metal, 20″ x 24″

The home of a family in Great Barrington, MA, housing special needs foster children, was decimated by fire. Although the entire community raised several thousands of dollars to alleviate the situation, the sudden event turned comfort into chaos. Frankel’s technique enables him to feature several aspects in one glance.

AYANA FRIEDMAN

My Home Is Not My Castle, 1992

Photograph, 23″ x 161⁄2″

The Mamila neighborhood is located in the heart of Jerusalem, in the valley between the Old and New Cities. Between 1948 and 1967, this area lay on the border between Jordan and Israel. During the 1967 War, many houses were destroyed and the area became a no-man’s land. This photo- montage, showing the ruined homes and the walls that remain, provides testimony to the lives of the Jews and Arabs who resided there before 1948.

DAVID GOLDBERG

Self Portrait, from the Old Country, 2015

Photographic print, 20″ x 30″

Superimposing his self-portrait over a 1939 map of a soon-to-be devastated Europe, the artist memorializes the actual site of his family’s intersection with history. From a larger art project titled A Family History, he pinpoints the moment at which conditions prompted endangered people to flee to safety in America.

KEN GOLDMAN

Bayit, 2016

Limited edition 3-D print, sandstone plastic, leather, 13⁄4″ x 21⁄4″ x 13⁄4″

Goldman always travels with his oldest and most precious possession – his tefillin/phylacteries. The Hebrew term for each of the tefillin’s two boxes that hold the parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah is bayit/home. This suggests that when the tefillin are worn, they create a portable home and a connection to family. The tefillin boxes are worn at the top of the forehead and on the biceps of the arm which is not one’s dominant arm. With its inscriptions describing God’s protection and the Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land, the tefillin act as a daily physical reminder of the plight of the stranger, the immigrant, and the refugee.

SUSAN GRABEL

Sita, 1992

Clay, wood, 18″ x 16″

Sita is part of a series called Faces of Alienation. During the 1980’s, Grabel was involved with Project Hospitality, an organization on Staten Island working with the homeless. She made a series of clay portrait reliefs enclosed by grates, screens, and wood slats to suggest that we can be imprisoned from the inside by our own defenses and biases and from the outside by social stereotypes.

GRACE GRAUPE-PILLARD

Truckload, 2014

Oil, alkyd on wood, 48″ x 36″

Holding onto one another for survival, a group of faceless people reduced to conceptual and physical abstraction are crowded together on an overflowing truck. Bundled together with their earthly possessions, Truckload is not about a specific time and place; rather it depicts the tragic plight of refugees the world over.

BARBARA GREEN

Home: The Present and the Past, 2017

Oil on linen, 30″ x 40″

This multi-image painting travels back through time. The artist has painted a memory tableau moving from her Brooklyn childhood to her contemporary dwelling in her Catskill studio at her easel. Frequently, when called upon to remember ‘home,’ we start with the earliest thoughts in our parents’ home, seeking moments of security, family, success, and connection.

DEBBIE TEICHOLZ GUEDALIA

Homeless in the Holy Land, 2014

Photograph, 18″ x 15″

This is an intimate photograph of a person on the fringes of society. He may have a ‘homeland,’ but he lacks the actuality of a ‘home.’

HANAN HARCHOL

The House He Already Has, c. 2013

Archival print, 38″ x 30″

Hanan Harchol, working in a graphic novel style, constructs a philosophical discussion between his father and himself. The generation gap allows for two points of view in this single graphic dialogue, each point having its own validity. The topic under discussion is ‘gratitude.’ The Jewish construct is that true gratitude requires an honest appraisal of what you actually have. Doing so will allow you to acknowledge your blessings.

MARILYN HENRION

SOHO Unfolded, 2016

Digitally manipulated photography, pigment printing on linen, collage on stretched canvas, 12″ x 36″

As a lifelong New Yorker, Henrion’s work is deeply rooted in the urban geometry of her surroundings. The pulsating rhythms of the images stem from a barrage of architectural fragments in brilliant colors that reflect our view of skyscrapers.

NATHAN HILU

How the Statue of Liberty Came About, 2014

Crayon, chalk, colored pencil on Arches paper, 16″ x 12″

Hilu purports that the original model for

the Statue of Liberty by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was an African model in Paris. He offers a novel multiethnic interpretation of the meaning of this landmark as a symbol of welcome and homecoming to countless immigrants.

TAMAR HIRSCHL

Nested, 2017

Collage, mixed media, 58″ x 45″

Hirschl deals primarily with issues of political and cultural unrest. Her layered images seek to make sense of the fractured modern State of Israel. Positioning the shields of the scriptural twelve tribes over a contemporary map, she stitches a historical map onto the work, suggesting the grafting of the story of the Jews onto present-day reality.

JUDITH HURWITZ, sewn by PHYLLIS FREEDMAN

The Freedman Table, c.1975

Shabbat challah cover, embroidery on linen, 12 1⁄2″ x 18″

Hurwitz’s design is an homage to an 18th-century German Shabbat challah cover. It represents the Freedman family kitchen table. Each piece shown was displayed on the family’s shelves at the time. Every member of the family had his/her own kiddush cup. The candlesticks recall beloved grandparents. The pet dog that sat on a pew rescued from an old synagogue was famous for waiting by the window for the family to come home.

CHRIS JONES

After They Had Left, 2016

(back cover image)

Mixed media collage of book and magazine images, board, and polymer varnish, 63″ x 44″ x 1″

Courtesy of Marc Straus Gallery, New York, NY

British sculptor Chris Jones creates complex architectural sculptures using fragmented images from magazines and used books. In this work, the empty rooms imply that the residents have moved. We are left to imagine what their lives might have been like from stylistic clues left behind. Jones reminds us that everything comes with embedded history. If walls could talk.

TOBI KAHN

Mezuzot, 2012

Lacquered wood; three objects, each measuring 8″x 21⁄2″ x 21⁄2″

A mezuzah is comprised of a piece of parchment inscribed with specific Hebrew verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21). It is contained and protected in a decorative case. Homes become consecrated when a mezuzah is attached to the doorpost. Kahn’s mezuzot of lacquered wood are contemporary in style but traditional in purpose.

NANCY KOENIGSBERG

Alone, 2017

Woven annealed steel wire and stone, 131⁄2″ x 91⁄2″ x 2″

Embracing a strong and simple visual form, Koenigsberg has created the ultimate basic image of a house and weights it with a stone as its foundation. This may be the essential visual glyph for ‘house.’ Through its simplicity, it conveys “a sense of isolation or, conversely, a solitude that is relished.”

BODO KORSIG

Child, 2016

Photograph, 16″ x 20″

This image is from a vast series of photographs of the homeless and minimally-housed worldwide. The series brings to the fore the plight of children living in poverty in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa.

ELIZABETH LANGER

My Old House, 2010

Collage, 13″x 101⁄2″

Langer created this collage shortly after her return to New York City. All around her were new construction, nameless, faceless sterile grids. My Old House was her protest against the encroaching sterile cityscape.

JACOB LAWRENCE

This Is a Family Living in Harlem, 1941

Print, from the “Migration Series,” 24″ x 18″

One of the first nationally-recognized African- American artists, Jacob Lawrence illustrated the culture and history of the Great Migration, c. 1940-41, and expressed his concern for human freedom and dignity. Growing up in Harlem during the Depression, Lawrence (1917-2000) was profoundly influenced by his surroundings and the community’s emerging African-American writers, artists, and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance. Calling his style “dynamic cubism,” he distilled images and experiences into flat, angular forms and bright colors.

JOHN K LAWSON

The Mayor of Main Street, 2015

Mixed media collage, 40″ x 30″

This is a portrait of David Magadini, a man who chooses to be homeless in Great Barrington, MA. Magadini walks up and down Main Street in worn clothes, pushing a shopping cart full of his worldly possessions. Consistently rejecting charitable offers of shelter, clothing, food, and medical attention, seemingly happy, he challenges our humane attempts to “make things better.”

IRIS LEVINSON

Beyond the Red Line, 2016

Acrylic with collage on canvas, 50″ x 50″

Beyond the Red Line was inspired by news reportage: first, a broadcast about the brutality of the refugee camps, followed by a profile of a glamorous celebrity. The imagery in this work engages us in the dichotomy of shattered lives versus sheltered lives in contemporary culture and the world.

RICHARD MCBEE

Abraham, Sarah, and the Three Strangers, 2000

Oil on canvas, 30″ x 40″

Hospitality and acts of hesed/loving-kindness are the heart of the home. This biblical tale reminds us to be kind to strangers and to feed the hungry. Our guests may not be angelic messengers, but in the process of sharing a meal we may grow to understand and appreciate each other.

LEONARD MEISELMAN

Asylum Seeker, 1992

Oil on canvas, 48″ x 33″

An asylum seeker peers anxiously over a barricade seeking his future. As a refugee, his eyes reflect his unceasing anxiety for himself and his family. Hope is lost, replaced by unending despair.

MICHAEL MENDEL

Bronx Tenement Playground, c. 2012

Watercolor, 91⁄2″ x 71⁄2″

“The Seventh Floor.

Ten small apartments. Tiny rooms and large families.

The hallway is the playground.

‘Bet you can’t,’ declares Sofia.

‘Bet I can,’ responds Mariana.

‘Mets suck!’ blurts Mateo.

‘Up yours’ retorts Diego.

The screech of chalk, children’s graffiti.

‘Dinner time, Samuel.’

The smell of arroz con pollo from apartment #7M

mixes with the ever-present pungent aroma of weed

from #7G.

HOME”

E. MURDOCK

Sioux Village, 1942

Watercolor, 8 1⁄2″ x 11 1⁄2″ each

Collection of Laura and Lewis Kruger

1. Murdock, a journalist who also sketched his subjects for his articles, provides an idyllic vision of Indian life, very different in reality from the harsh dislocation and privations endured by Native Americans after their ancestral homelands were plundered. A mother is re-telling the saga of their tribal dislocation and pointing to the vast emptiness of separation.

JEANETTE KUVIN OREN

Huppah, 2012

Fabric, 80″ x 80″

A Jewish wedding canopy/huppah symbolizes a couple’s new home. Like the tent of Abraham and Sarah, the huppah indicates the newlyweds’ readiness to welcome visitors. This huppah, using a papercut motif technique in fabric, reflects beautiful, graceful shadows on the pair and their surroundings. This huppah was created for the wedding of the artist’s daughter.

MARK PODWAL

Most Families Managed to Acquire a Cow, 2016

Archival pigment print, 20″ x 15″

This work, from the series Kaddish for Dabrowa Bialostocka, is a visual diary of Podwal’s visit to the town of his mother’s birth. The drawings are based on what he saw and heard from the elderly residents as they reminisced about their former Jewish neighbors. The Germans burned the town to the ground in 1941.

ARCHIE RAND

Herzl, 1998

Acrylic on canvas, 20″ x 16″

Theodor Herzl, the visionary of modern Zionism, called for the restoration of a Jewish homeland. This portrait is based on the iconic photograph of Herzl taken in 1901 at a hotel in Basel, Switzerland, during the Fifth Zionist Congress. Herzl leans on the railing of the balcony, contemplating the future Jewish State. Rand based this portrait on the photograph, and optimistically envisions today’s Israel and its hopes for support from the United States.

TRIX ROSEN

Walking on Broken Glass, 2017

Collage on hot press, bright cotton rag paper with archival pigmented inks, lead pencils, cotton fibers, fluid matte medium, 17″ x 22″

Rosen’s personal experience has taught her that homes are sometimes the place of terrible violence. Ten years ago, she lost her loft home of forty years due to gentrification. The owner was not able to evict her but tried many destructive ways to shatter her sense of safety.

MARILYN ROSENBERG

Elbow Room, 2003.

Artist ‘accordion’ book

Gouache, watercolor, graphite, ink on paper with collage, 103⁄4″ x 61⁄4″

For Rosenberg, home is similar to a maze in which one’s perspective is continually changing. “This book is a visual narrative, daily thoughts scattered through drawings of empty apartment rooms, real and imagined, waiting for me.”

JUDY SIROTA ROSENTHAL

The Threads of Creation, 2006-2008

Wild bamboo, silk thread; six objects, each measuring approximately 5″- 8″x 1⁄2″

Generally enclosed in a protective covering, a mezuzah is a parchment inscribed with specified verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21), including the phrase “You shall love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” Rosenthal uses natural bamboo, wrapped with silk thread, reflecting the concept that Torah is a tree of life.

JOAN ROTH

Katherine Vera, 42nd Street and 9th Avenue, c. 1977

Photograph, 16″ x 20″

Roth has completed many important photographic essays during her career. Enabled by a grant from the Fund for the City of New York, Roth provided a breakthrough Report to the Manhattan Bowery Project in 1978 dealing with the plight of homeless women living on the streets of New York.

ROCHELLE RUBINSTEIN

Village in Silk, 2015

Block printed, hand painted, embroidered, quilted wall hanging, 51″ x 64″

These similarly shaped structures were inspired by Sherpa homes in the Himalayas, stone structures in Ireland, and her father’s birthplace in Hungary. Rosenthal explains, “The material creates a sense of comfort and pleasure, and the related units and colors conjure the harmony of a cohesive supportive community.”

ISSACHAR BER RYBACK

In the Shtetl, 1917

Lithograph, 101⁄2″ x 151⁄2″

Sigmund Balka Collection, HUC-JIR Museum, New York

Born in Ukraine, Ryback grew up during the era of pogroms. As an adult, he was determined to preserve the memory of Jewish life in the rural shtetls. Ryback embarked on a journey in 1916, sponsored by the Jewish Historical and Ethnographical Society, that provided rich material for his work. He depicted Jewish life in an abstract style, influenced by cubism and Russian constructivism.

CLAIRE JEANINE SATIN

Pentimento: Family Roots, 2008

Images on transparent vinyl, metallic overlay, crystal beads, nylon thread, 12″ x 6″

This unique transparent book is a timeline of Satin’s family history and references her various family homes. All of the pages can be seen simultaneously, and they can be seen with images “melting/moving” into one another as each page turns to the next. The use of transparent materials is a hallmark of this renowned book artist’s work.

DEIDRE SCHERER

Shelter, 2016

Woven paper strips, 21″ x 31″

Shelter is created by weaving hand-torn strips of fine art paper, previously printed with an original digital print based on the artist’s fabric work. After color manipulation and printing, adhering both silk tissue paper and gold acrylic paint to the prints, she rips apart two separate prints-on-paper to create strips for the warp and weft. Featuring two women and a cat, Shelter speaks to the nature of loneliness, friendship, and domestic companionship.

RUTH SCHREIBER

Where (Did the Temples Stand)?, 2017

Inkjet print, 12″ x 151⁄2″

Both the First and Second Temples stood on what we know today as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Only the Western retaining wall of the Second Temple has survived. The Temple was considered ‘God’s Home,’ a place for people to pray, bring sacrifices, and attend to one’s spirituality. Schreiber imagines the exact location of ‘God’s Home’ on the Temple Mount and creates a blueprint overlay of how the Temple might have appeared.

CLARISSA SLIGH

Swim, 2005

Offset lithograph, 22″ x 17″

Sligh draws on experiences accumulated over her lifetime growing up in an African- American blue-collar community in the Southeast. Writing about this work, she asks, “Am I safe… I don’t know how to swim.” Swimming is her metaphor for survival.

LINDA SOBERMAN

Shelter Glass House, 2008

Glass, metal, 101⁄2″ x 7″ x 5″

Creating three-dimensional objects has always been essential to Soberman’s art practice. This serene, totally transparent house alludes, perhaps, to the adage, “People in glass houses should not throw stones.”

FRED SPINOWITZ

Mezuzah, 2017

Watercolor, plexiglass, 9″ x 10″ x 4″

A home becomes consecrated when a mezuzah is affixed to the doorpost. A mezuzah is comprised of parchment inscribed with verses from Deuteronomy and protected by a case. Spinowitz inscribes each of the three letters of the name of God, Shaddai, onto individual scrolls.

JOLIE STAHL

Paisley Village, 2016

Assemblage of wood, paint, fabric, 34″ x 14″

Stahl’s assemblage calls on diverse images of vernacular homes, based on the nesting instinct of birds. Birds build nests to provide safe shelter for their newborn chicks. While the birdhouses are permanent, their inhabitants come and go, bringing more materials to enhance the home. Stahl’s art-making process is similar. Her painted and mosaic assemblages are composed of repurposed waste from construction sites together with pieces chosen from her collection of multicultural fragments.

LINDA STEIN

Case 874, 2015-16

Mixed medium collage, wood, metal, fabric, and mixed media, 9″ x 9″ x 3″

In her series, Cabinets, Cupboards, Cases and Closets, the artist explores issues of global displacement. Her work addresses traumatic memory loss, as well as a restored sense of sanctuary and safety. These scraps and fragments of travel and travail serve as reminders of past personal relationships and experiences. They become talismans and connections and are a strong reinforcement of memory.

ROMAN VISHNIAC

Basement Home of a Porter and His Family, Warsaw, c. 1937

Photograph, 14″ x 11″

Collection of HUC-JIR Museum, New York

Roman Vishniac’s photographic images have profoundly influenced contemporary notions of Jewish life in Eastern Europe before World War II. He captured both the poverty and dignity of a Jewish family in Warsaw, as well as their dire and marginalized situation.

DAVID WANDER

Lot’s Wife, 1990

Oil on canvas, 52″ x 60″

Wander has based this painting on an interpretation of the story of Lot’s Wife as a divorced woman looking back on her destroyed life. In the biblical version, the family flees their burning home. In Wander’s interpretation, marriage and the ideal of a safe home and relationship are abandoned. The inner voice warning “don’t look back” is not heeded. The woman turns and sees her dream in flames, recalling the moment when Lot’s wife cannot return as her heart has turned to salt.

JOYCE ELLEN WEINSTEIN

Resting, 2000

Charcoal on paper, 18″ x 24″

This figure is at home, resting and comfortable in her private domain. She is so comfortable that she almost appears to be an extension of the sofa on which she is reclining. The figure epitomizes the idea of ease, comfort, and privacy in what it means to be ‘at home.’

RUTH ELLEN WEISBERG

Keep the Gates Open…We Are Not the Last, 2004

Mixed media on unstretched canvas, 41″ x 53″

Courtesy of Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Inc., Los Angeles, CA

Weisberg depicts the illegal immigration of Holocaust survivors to Palestine, challenging Britain’s embargo. The ship’s name, Haviva Reik, memorializes one of thirty-three Jewish parachutists dispatched from Palestine by the Jewish Agency and the British Army Special Operations Executive on military missions to Nazi-occupied Europe. Reik was captured and shot by the Germans.

TINA WEISS

Sigd – An Ethiopian Jewish Holiday, 2017

Photograph, 8″ x 12″

The traditionally-garbed Ethiopian Jewish community of Israel celebrates the holiday of Sigd on the 29th of Heshvan. Sigd remains a central observance and communal occasion for Ethiopian Jews in Israel as they celebrate the fulfillment of hopes and dreams, and their return to their homeland, Zion.

PAUL WEISSMAN

Home, 2017, Lithograph, collage, 16″ x 30″

Our home in the vast concept of space is the planet Earth. To the best of current knowledge, no human life exists elsewhere on other planets. All attributes, including oxygen, water, night/day, rain, and seasons, exist as the qualities of our unique planet placement, our home.

SARA ZIELINSKI

The Man and Fridge I, 2016

Monotype, 30″ x 22″

Courtesy of Childs Gallery, Boston, MA

Where but at home can we casually roam around in our ‘scanties’ in search of a cold drink in the middle of the night? This monotype is a form of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. A unique print, it can be spontaneously executed without a prior sketch.

DAVID ZIMMERMAN

Last Refuge 123, 1992

Photograph, 36″ x 46″

Courtesy of Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, New York, NY

There is hidden beauty in many things. The palette, form, and odd two-dimensionality of this pile of abandoned clothing, weathered by the relentless desert climate of New Mexico, attracted the artist’s attention. Zimmerman met the man who lived beneath it, whose shelter was a hole in the ground, roofed with tin and supported by an abandoned refrigerator. This weather-beaten pile of clothing, thatch for the roof, was an inventory of his existence.

Checklist

Heddy Abramovitz

Balcony Sukkah for Two, Jerusalem, 2016

Photograph, 153⁄4″ x 20″

Marlene Adler

Living in Harmony, 1992

Watercolor, collage, 30″ x 22″

Irving Amen

Many Children Dwell In My Father’s House, 1963, Woodcut, 101⁄2″ x 13″

Sigmund Balka Collection, HUC-JIR Museum, New York

Andi Arnovitz

Empty Nests, 2016, Found birds’ nests, porcelain, 6″ x 3″ x 21⁄2″

Ari Bar Lev

Hazerim Immigrant Transit Camp, 1956

Photograph, 20″ x 24″

Pat Berger

Mildred’s World, 1986, Acrylic on canvas, 39″ x 30″

Harriete Estel Berman

How Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? 2001, Repurposed metal dollhouses, recycled tin cans, 10k gold, sterling silver, 201/4″ x 12 1⁄2″ x 1 3/4″

Claire Boren

Home 2, 1998, Mixed media, 18 1⁄2″ x 16″

Maya Brodsky

Mama and Papa in the Living Room, 2010

Oil on panel, 12″ x 9″

Bunny Burson

Home Is Where You Are, 2015, Mixed media, resin, collage on paper installation, 40″ x 40″

Samuel Chamberlin

Sunday Afternoon in the Bronx Flat of the Berger Family, 1935

Drawing, gouache, 11″ x 15″

Sigmund Balka Collection, HUC-JIR Museum, New York

Yaacov Chefetz

The World That Vanished: Wieliczka Salt Mine, Poland, 2002, Photograph, 16″ x 12″

Melanie Dankowicz

Welcome, 2016, Anodized aluminum 18″ x 12″

Yussel Dershowitz

Jewish Family at Home, c.1920

Oil on canvas, 21 1⁄2″ x 31 1⁄2″

Collection of Abe and Jeanette Sonenshein and Family

DOEprojekts

Performance Circle One – Home, 2012

Silk embroidery thread on linen, 30″ x 23″

Dorit Jordan Dotan

Home Bound, 2016, Photography and digital art, 14″ x 20″ (6 sections)

Rosalyn A. Engelman

Where Shall I Go?, 2017

Acrylic on canvas, collage, barbed wire; 2 sections: 67″ x 36” and 20″ x 17″

Sharon Epstein

Canopy of Stars, 2016,

Painted textile, 26″ x 36″

Robert Forman

Engine Co. 5, 2013, Colored strands of yarn glued to board, 35″ x 24″

Larry Frankel

By a Simple Twist of Fate, 2017

Photography printed on metal, 20″ x 24″

3 Tzedakah Boxes, 2015, Wooden boxes, printed acetate, 81⁄2″ x 81⁄2″ each

Ayana Friedman

My Home Is Not My Castle, 1992

Photograph, 23″ x 161⁄2″

Galmon Winford

Sandy (Sandy Kofax), Print, 14″ x 9″

Hank Greenberg, Print, 12″ x 18″

David Goldberg

Self Portrait, from the Old Country, 2015

Photographic print, 20″ x 30″

Ken Goldman

Bayit, 2016, Limited edition 3-D print, sandstone plastic, leather, 13⁄4″ x 21⁄4″ x 13⁄4″

Susan Grabel

Patricia, 1993; Sita, 1996; Emil, 1992:

Clay and wood, 18″ x 16″ each

Grace Graupe-Pillard

Truckload, 2014, Oil, alkyd on wood, 48″ x 36″

Barbara Green

Home: The Present and the Past, 2017

Oil on linen, 30″ x 40″

Debbie Guedalia

Homeless in the Holy land, 2014

Photograph, 18″ x 15″

Hanan Harchol

The House He Already Has, c. 2013

Archival print, 38″ x 30″

Marilyn Henrion

SOHO Unfolded, 2016

Mixed media, 12″ x 36″

Nathan Hilu

How the Statue of Liberty Came About, 2014,

Crayon, chalk, colored pencil on Arches paper,

16″ x 12″

Family Table, 2015,

Crayon, chalk, colored pencil on Arches paper,

20″ x 26″

Tamar Hirschl

Nested, 2017

Collage, mixed media, 58″ x 45″

Judith Hurwitz and Phyllis Freedman

The Freedman Table, c. 1975

Embroidery on linen, 121⁄2″ x 18″

Chris Jones

After They Had Left, 2016

Mixed media collage, board, polymer varnish, 63″ x 44″ x 1″

Courtesy of Marc Straus Gallery, New York, NY

Tobi Kahn

Mezuzot, 2012, Lacquered wood; three objects, 8″ x 21⁄2″ x 21⁄2″ each

Nancy Koenigsberg

Alone, 2017, Woven annealed steel wire and stone, 131⁄2″ x 91⁄2″ x 2″

Bodo Korsig

Photographs of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Johannesburg, South Africa

Series of 20 photographs, 16″ x 20″ each

Elizabeth Langer

My Old House, 2010,

Collage,

13″ x 10 1⁄2″

Jacob Lawrence

This Is a Family Living in Harlem, 1941

Print, from the “Migration Series,” 24″ x 18″

John K Lawson

The Mayor of Main Street, 2015

Mixed media collage, 40″ x 30″

Emmett Leader

Two Tzedakah Boxes, 1999, Clay,

11″ x 11″ x 5″ each

Iris Levinson

Beyond the Red Line, 2016

Acrylic with collage on canvas, 50″ x 50″

Richard McBee

Abraham, Sarah, and the Three Strangers,

2000, Oil on canvas, 30″ x 40″

Leonard Meiselman

Asylum Seeker, 1992, Oil on canvas, 48″ x 33″

Michael Mendel

Bronx Tenement Playground, c. 2012

Watercolor, 91⁄2″ x 71⁄2″

Child of Slums, 2010, Watercolor, 13 1⁄2″ x 13 1⁄2″

1. Murdock

Sioux Village, 1942

Watercolors, 81⁄2″ x 111⁄2″ each

Collection of Laura and Lewis Kruger

Jeanette Kuvin Oren

Huppah, 2012, Fabric, 80″ x 80″

Mark Podwal

Most Families Managed to Acquire a Cow,

2016, Archival pigment print, 20″ x 15″

Archie Rand

Abraham Offers Hospitality to the Angels,

1992, Acrylic on canvas, 18″x 24″

Herzl, 1998, Acrylic on canvas, 20″ x 16″

Laurel Robinson

Home for an Etrog, c. 1999

Painted wood, mixed media, 11″ x 6″ x 6″

Trix Rosen

Walking on Broken Glass, 2017

Collage, cotton rag paper, archival pigmented inks, lead pencil, cotton fibers, fluid matte medium, 17″ x 22″

Marilyn Rosenberg

Elbow Room, 2003, Gouache, watercolor, graphite, ink, paper, collage, 103⁄4″ x 61⁄4″

Judy Sirota Rosenthal

The Threads of Creation, 2006-2008

Wild bamboo, silk thread; six objects,

5″ – 8″ x 1⁄2″ each

Joan Roth

Katherine Vera, 42nd Street and 9th Avenue,

1. 1977, Photograph, 16″ x 20″

Sophie, Sonia, Mary Ellen Barbara, 1974

Photograph, 16″ x 20″

Maggie and Marcia, 1985

Photograph, 16″ x 20″

Rochelle Rubinstein

Village in Silk, 2015

Block printed, hand painted, embroidered, quilted wall hanging, 51″ x 64″

Issachar Ber Ryback

In the Shtetl, 1917

Lithograph, 101⁄2″ x 151⁄2″

Sigmund Balka Collection, HUC-JIR Museum, New York

Claire Jeanine Satin

Pentimento: Family Roots, 2008

Polyvinyl, crystal beads, thread, 12″ x 6″

Deidre Scherer

Shelter, 2016, Woven paper strips, 21″ x 31″

Ruth Schreiber

Where (Did the Temples Stand)?, 2017

Inkjet print, 12″ x 15 1⁄2″

Clarissa Sligh

Swim, 2005, Offset lithograph, 22″ x 17″

1. Siligund

“Mjöl” (Meal), Embroidery, 71⁄2″ x 93⁄4″ (framed)

Linda Soberman

Shelter Glass House, 2008

Glass, metal, 101⁄2″ x 7″ x 5″

Fred Spinowitz

Mezuzah, 2017, Watercolor, plexiglass,

9″x10″x4″

Jolie Stahl

Paisley Village, 2016

Wood, paint, fabric, 34″ x 14″

Linda Stein

Case 855, 2015-16; Case 873, 2015-16; Case 874, 2015-16;

Mixed media assemblages,

9″ x 9″ x 3″ each

Arthur Szyk

Israel Declaration of Independence, 1948

Photomechanical print, 161⁄2″ x 21″

Roman Vishniac

Basement Home of a Porter and His Family, Warsaw, c. 1937,

Photograph, 14″ x 11″

Collection of HUC-JIR Museum, New York

David Wander

The Empty Chair, 1996

Oil paint, wood, 38″ x 171⁄4″

Lot’s Wife, 1990,

Oil on canvas, 52″ x 60″

Joyce Ellen Weinstein

Resting, 2000, Charcoal on paper, 18″ x 24″

Ruth Ellen Weisberg

Keep the Gates Open…We Are Not the Last,

2004, Mixed media on unstretched canvas, 41″ x 53″

Courtesy of Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Inc., Los Angeles, CA

Tina Weiss

Sigd – An Ethiopian Jewish Holiday, 2017

Four photographs, 8″ x 12″ each

Paul Weissman

Home, 2017, Lithograph, collage, 16″ x 30″

Yankee Stadium

Home Plate, 1975, 19″ x 19″

Sara Zielinski

Man and Fridge I, 2016

Monotype, 30″ x 22″

Courtesy of Childs Gallery, Boston, MA

David Zimmerman

Last Refuge 172, 1992, Photograph, 36″ x 46″

Last Refuge 123, 1992, Photograph, 36″ x 46″

Courtesy of Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, New York, NY