From sad portraits of Jews to intricate mosaics, Ilana Shafir has created many works of art. I had the pleasure of attending a Highland Park Arts Commission lecture Thursday night (thanks, Jill, for getting me out of the house) where Ilana spoke to a full audience.
Ilana was born in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. She always wanted to study art formally, but as a teenager there was no opportunity. Then the Nazis invaded. Her family managed to escape to a little village called Kula, where she drew portraits of the villagers. When asked how she managed to get art supplies during the war, she replied: “It was a miracle.” After the war, she studied at the Art Academy of Zagreb. In 1949 she made Aliyah (moved to Israel). She settled in Ashkelon, where she still lives today, with a garden full of her mosaics and her whimsical ceramic creatures.
In order to find models for her portraits in her early days in Israel, she went to the local “ma’abara” (transit camp) and created sketches, paintings and prints of the exotic (to her European eyes) residents from Yemen, North Africa, and other areas of the world where Jews had left to come to Israel. I was disappointed that these lovely portraits as well as earlier ones from her European days, which she showed us in her slide show, are not on her website.
At some point someone said to her: “Who is going to hang portraits of sad Jews in their museum?” Around the same time she developed an allergy to turpentine. At first she wore gloves, but this was not enough. She told us a funny aside, that on Purim, when the kids dressed up as artists in Ashkelon, they wore gloves!
Her art style switched to fantastic ink and watercolor paintings, ceramic creatures, and finally, the medium she loves the most, mosaic. She told us it takes 6-7 months for her to complete a mosaic. Talk about stamina and drive.
If you are in Ashkelon, her mosaics are on display in various public places, including a syngagogue, where her mosaic of Jerusalem has the names of family members who perished in the Holocaust and a “Z”, standing for the star Jews had to wear in Sarajevo during the war. Other Jewish themes are the Burning Bush (shown under her photo on this post) and the Tree of Life (with one tree on top of another, each generation has its roots in the former generation, she explained).
The presentation was an introduction by her daughter, a talk by Ilana with slide show, and a short movie by her son, Giora. Learn more: http://www.shafirart.com/
Translation: Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d, King of the universe, Who has made nothing lacking in His world and created in it goodly creatures and goodly trees to give mankind pleasure. (This transliteration and translation is the Chabad version.)
and we went on our merry way.
If you are in Highland Park/Edison area, this tree is located on North 8th in Edison, near the Shabbos park.
My husband told me there is a custom of fasting after Pesach (and after Sukkot as well) that is called BaHaB. The “B” is for Beis (Monday), the “H” for Hei(Thursday) and the final “B” again is for Monday. Those were the days on which people fasted after Pesach. As it is not considered acceptable to fast in Nissan, which is a happy month, one starts the BaHaB after Rosh Chodesh Iyar. Here is one article on BaHaB.
As I ate too much over the holiday, I really liked the idea that some pious people used to restrain themselves for a few days after the holiday. I actually thought of the idea for this post on Monday, but in order to write the post, I would have to think about food. Again.
Let’s start post-Sedarim. On Wednesday, I baked a delicious banana cake that required seven separated eggs (recipe is in Jeff Nathan’s Adventures in Jewish Cooking) that my family devoured by Thursday. On Thursday night I made blintzes with potato starch, which by the way, is easier than making them with flour. On Thursday morning I baked my sponge cake. Friday was a major cooking day: chicken with lemons and parsley, tongue, potato kugel, meatballs, chicken soup, steamed cauliflower, ratatouille, red cabbage with apples (again, see Jeff Nathan’s Adventures in Jewish Cooking). I also again made my Slavery and Freedom salad, only this time with parsley, because I didn’t have any mint. At least that food had a spiritual value because of its name! My Eldest Son made Pesach brownies, which I didn’t really eat, but I did nibble. On Friday night I was invited to the home of my neighbor the fabulous cook, where I had the great pleasure of meeting blogger Larry Lennhoff and his wife Malka Esther, who promised me at some point she would read and comment on my blog. My neighbor the fabulous cook served: curried carrots, eggplant salad with tomatoes and garlic that my Middle Son actually liked, cucumber salad, a garden salad, soup with matza balls, chicken, potatoes, sweet potatoes, jello and fruit salad with nuts. There were also these chocolate candies on the table, which of course I had to sample. By Sunday lunch I had no need for dessert, but somehow the last of the sponge cake got placed in front of me at dessert time, and somehow I ate one, then two, then three, then four slices. They were little slices. On Sunday afternoon I was offered some brownies at a friend’s house and was pleased with myself that I had the courage to say “no, thank you.” And the conversation about ice cream on Sunday afternoon made me feel like enough is enough.
So maybe I won’t fast next week, but a severely-reduced diet sounds like a welcoming notion.
I love the contrasts in Judaism. On Purim, we have v’nahafoch–as we turn around Haman’s decree against us. On Yom Kippur, we try to be sealed in the Good Book, as opposed to the other one. After Tisha B’Av, a sad fast day when the Temple was destroyed, we soon have Tu B’Av, a day where unmarried girls wearing white danced in the fields outside Jerusalem. Passover is a time when we remember both the sufferings of bondage and sweet taste of freedom.
I had fun re-creating the above salad presented by Ellie Krieger at The Jew and the Carrot. In general, the Jew and the Carrot is a great blog for anyone with culinary interests. I stole that gorgeous photo from their blog post. Here’s the description prior to the ingredients for the salad:
The tension between bitter and sweet is most clearly tasted when we eat charoset, which represents the mortar used during our bitter servitude, yet is most likely the sweetest thing at your seder table. Here’s a wonderful salad that Ellie created which plays off this tension in new and unexpected ways:
So, with this recipe’s combination of sweets and bitters, I decided to nickname it my Avdut L’Herut Salad, or From Slavery to Freedom. My kids won’t eat it (my Eldest Son already complained my kitchen smells disgusting, he doesn’t share my love of onions, garlic and herbs), but hopefully, my nieces, sister-in-law and mother-in-law will enjoy! My husband eats all my food. My best customer.
Paper Goods: All are acceptable, including all paper plates, bowls and cups, all paper and plastic table cloths, as well as all paper towels. It is suggested to not use hot foods or drinks on starched paper goods. Styrofoam products [emphasis mine] may be used instead.
So this is the only time of year I buy Styrofoam. Not only is this stuff bad for the environment, it’s bad for your health, too. (I try not to think too much about this. Stress is bad for your health as well). DO NOT put Styrofoam in the microwave. Buy some uncoated paper plates and use those.
On a positive note, it is always so wonderful to see the greens on the Seder table. In Eastern Europe, where it was hard or impossible to get greens, potatoes were substituted for Karpas and horseradish for Maror, the bitter herbs. Nowadays, we can have both the greens (Romaine Lettuce for Maror and Parsley for Karpas) and the Eastern European traditions.
A tradition I’ve heard of for pre-school children is to plant parsley in a cup on Tu B’Shvat (usually occurs in February) and to nurture the plant so that it is ready to be used by Pesach. Not being very good at indoor gardening, however, (outdoor gardening is much more forgiving; Mother Nature helps), I do have some parsley growing outside my kitchen. Parsley is a biennial, so the little plants I grew from seed last summer (the ones that didn’t die in year one) are now thriving:
Menachem Wecker just posted an interview we did over email on his blog, Iconia. I really enjoyed answering his questions; the connection between Judaism and art for me brings up many issues, struggles, joys.
One Friday, when R’ Aryeh Levin davened Minchah at the Kossel, he saw a woman crying bitterly. To his inquiry about her distress, she said that her son was hospitalized in isolation in a Jerusalem hospital for lepers. R’ Levin decided to visit the hospital, where he found that there were twelve Jews along with three hundred Arabs. Upon seeing him, the Jews burst into tears. “We have not had a visitor for years,” one man said. R’ Levin made it his business to visit them every Friday. One time they said to him, “Each time you come, we think this is the last time we will see you. All we do here is await death. No one has ever been discharged from this place.”
When the Jews asked for kosher food, R’ Levin’s wife would cook for them, and he personally brought the food to them. On Rosh Hashanah his son accompanied him to blow the shofar for them.
One time, R’ Levin asked the Rebbe of Sochachov to assist him in bringing food to the patients in the leper hospital in Bethlehem. He noted that R’ Levin went into each patient’s room to exchange a few words with them.
“Why do you take so much time to visit this Arab hospital?” the Rebbe asked. “Don’t they have their own clergy?” R’ Levin answered, “There is one Jewish patient there who needs my visit. Once I am there, I will not discriminate, and I will visit all the patients.”
I did this painting about two years ago. The subject is havdalah, the ceremony after the end of Shabbat that we do every week. After saying the havdalah prayer, my husband pours a little wine (or grape juice) unto a plate, and I put the candle in the liquid to extinguish the flame. Can spot the two little cloves, symbolic of the besamim (spices) that we smell so we should have a good week? (Shavua tov = good week)
The havdalah in oils painting has a Rembrandtesque quality that I love.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has a nice d’var torah on Parshat Tazria. Why is circumcision a sign of the covenant? First, he tells a bit about life during the time of Hosea:
Hosea lived in the eighth century BCE. The kingdom had been divided since the death of Solomon. The northern kingdom in particular, where Hosea lived, had lapsed after a period of peace and prosperity into lawlessness, idolatry and chaos. Between 747 and 732 BCE there were no less than five kings, the result of a series of intrigues and bloody struggles for power. The people, too, had become lax: “There is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, killing, stealing and committing adultery; they break all bounds and murder follows murder” (Hos. 4: 1-2).
He then contrasts the word Ba’al, which means husband in Hebrew but also refers to the idol of those times, with the word Ish.
[Ba’al] was also, of course, the name of the Canaanite god – whose prophets Elijah had challenged in the famous confrontation at Mount Carmel. Baal (otherwise known as Hadad, and usually portrayed as a bull) was the god of the storm, who defeated Mot, the god of sterility and death. Baal was the rain that impregnated the earth and made it fertile. In terms of myth, Baalism is the worship of god-as-power.
In contrast, Ish(man) and Ishah(woman) are explained:
Here the male-female relationship is predicated on something quite other than power and dominance, ownership and control. Man and woman confront one another in sameness and difference. Each is an image of the other, yet each is separate and distinct. The only relationship able to bind them together without the use of force is marriage-as-covenant – a bond of mutual loyalty and trust in which each makes a pledge to the other to honour one another and the reciprocal duties that bind them together in a moral bond.
His conclusion:
Now we understand why the sign of the covenant is circumcision. For faith to be more than the worship of power, it must affect the most intimate relationship between men and women. In a society founded on covenant, male-female relationships must be built on something other and gentler than male dominance, masculine power, sexual desire and the drive to own, control, possess. Baal must become ish. The alpha male must become caring husband. Sex must be sanctified and tempered by mutual respect. The sexual drive must be circumcised and circumscribed so that it no longer seeks to possess and is instead content to love.
Aside from me: so does this mean in Birkat HaMazon, the blessing after meals, I can say “Ishee instead of Baalee”? (Both mean my husband)
