Tisha B’Av

art by Laya Crust, inspired by Miklos Adler

We will be observing Tisha B’Av this Saturday night, July 21, 2018 through Sunday evening, July 22. It is the anniversary of the destruction of both the First Temple (586 BCE) and the Second Temple (70 CE) in Jerusalem. Although they occurred about 655 years apart they occurred on the same day in the Hebrew calendar. Many other Jewish tragedies are also remembered on Tisha b’Av-  the day has been called the “saddest day in Jewish history”. We read the Book of Eicha which was written by the prophet Jeremiah, and other calamities are commemorated by reading kinnot (poetry of sorrow).

Tisha B’Av is treated as a day of mourning. We fast from sunset to sunset- unlike most other Jewish fasts which last from sunrise to sunset. We don’t wear leather, listen to music, swim, and we sit on the ground. One tradition is to eat a hard boiled egg dipped in ashes before the fast begins. The “Book of Lamentations”, “Eicha” in Hebrew, is read by candle light sitting on the floor.

We also read Jeremiah 8:13 – 9:23, a series of some of Jeremiah’s gloomiest prophecies.  Invasion, siege, famine, starvation, doom, devastation, death, lament, cruelty are the themes of this haftarah. The dirge is unrelieved by words of comfort. These words reflect the emotion of Tisha b’Av.  The image chosen for Tisha b’Av is based on a woodcut by the Shoah artist Miklos Adler. Miklos Adler was a Hungarian Concentration camp survivor who depicted the autrocities of the Shoah. He was born in 1909 and died in 1965 in Israel.He painted,drew and did woodcuts. His woodcuts can be seen in a powerful haggadah called “The Survivor’s Haggadah”.The picture I drew is based on one of his haggadah woodcuts. It shows Jews waiting at a train station, looking at smoke in the form of faces rising out of crematoria chimney stacks.

I hope you have a meaningful fast and that we all endeavour to make Israel strong, and make the world a better place. Maybe we will see peace… we can work towards that. If you have comments or reflections on Tisha B’Av or the imagery please post your ideas.I would love to hear from you.

Best, Laya

Shemot

 art by Laya Crust

Isaiah  27:6 – 28:13 and 29: 22,23

Isaiah (prophet)- c. 740 – 681 BCE

The haftarah for Shemot is from the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah lived during the fall of the kingdom of Judah to the Assyrians. At this point Judah was the only Jewish independent sovereignty. The others had all fallen due to immorality, drunkenness and failure in faith.  Isaiah predicts that Judah will also be defeated.  It is a trerribly low point for the Jews.

This is similar to the situation of B’nei Yisrael in the parsha. Jacob’s descendants had gone to Egypt under the protection of the Pharaoh . They lived and flourished in Goshen, separate from the Egyptians. According to the parsha  after Joseph dies the Pharaoh says, “Behold, the children of Israel are too many and too mighty for us…”  and that was the beginning of the end of comfortable living for b’nei Yisrael. When the new Pharaoh Egyptians noticed them- their numbers, their individuality and their strength he became concerned- maybe even paranoid. To counter the success and numbers of the Hebrews  Pharaoh began the process of their enslavement. By the time Moses was born the Hebrews were almost at their lowest point. They had lost their independence and they were commanded to drown any baby boy who was born to them.

       

                                   Barcelona Haggadah         Golden Haggadah

The children of Israel were at their most desperate point in their history until that time.  Unbelievably their situation worsened following Moses and Aaron’s appeal to Pharaoh.

The greatest similarity between the the haftarah and the parsha is the depths to which b’nei Yisrael had fallen. Unfortunately Jews have faced those unbearable conditions and situations numerous times.  I wanted to show the hopelessness and pain of B’nei Yisrael in my illustration for the parsha and haftarah of Shemot, and tie it to a broader history. The Shoah was the darkest time for Jews in recent history.  As in Egypt the Jews quickly moved from positions of honour and equality to  those of poverty and enslavement. In the parsha the murder of baby boys was mandated. Of course in the Shoah the mandate was taken further than that.

In my investigations of imagery  I found a series of woodcuts by Miklos Adler, a Jew from Lithuania who had been transported to Auschwitz and then to Vienna. He was liberated from Theresienstadt. The woodcut I chose shows Jewish slaves labouring under the whip of an S.S. soldier, with a Jewish corpse disregarded at the feet of the Nazi. Miklos Adler did a series of 16 woodcuts. 7 of them were printed in “A Survivor’s Haggadah”  which was edited and compiled by Yosef Dov Sheinson for Pesach, 1946.

There is such darkness and horror conveyed in the images in that Haggadah that I felt it connected the three time periods together- B’nei Yisrael in Egypt, the Jews under the Assyrians, and the Shoah.

Today, January 8, 2015, is the day after a terrible massacre of political cartoonists in France. The perpetrators of the assassinations are men who hate democracy. They blame democracy for the ills of the world. In the 1930’s and 40’s the Jews were blamed for Germany’s economic problems. In Egypt Pharaoh was ready to enslave and blame B’nei Yisrael for whatever he feared at the time. Blame is easy and can become toxic and evil very quickly. It’s easy to blame someone else or “society” for a difficulty we face or for an offence an “underdog” has committed. Each of us should try to safeguard against empty blame and try to solve the difficulties we face. That way we can be stronger as a nation and as a world.

Vive la liberte. May democracy and respect prevail.

Shabbat Shalom,

Laya

Artist in residence for The Pomegranate Guild  of Judaic Textiles  https://pomegranateguild.wordpress.com/

Visit my website  http://layacrust.com/

 

Shemot

Isaiah  27:6 – 28:13 and 29: 22,23

Isaiah (prophet)- c. 740 – 681 BCE

The haftarah for Shemot is from the Book of Isaiah. He was a prophet who lived during the fall of the kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians. At this point the tribe of Judah was the only tribe that had independence. Isaiah’s words are poetic but very strong. He criticizes the Northern Kingdom, the kingdom of Ephraim, describing their drunkenness and gluttony.  He goes on to predict that Judah too will fail. At the end of the haftarah Isaiah does manage to impart some comforting words. He says that the nation of Israel will return to G-d and sanctify Him.

The hafatarah takes place at a very difficult time for the Jews. The sovereignty and power of the northern kingdoms have disappeared and Judah will follow the same path.

This is similar to the situation of B’nei Yisrael in the parsha. Jacob’s descendants had gone to Egypt under the protection of the Pharaoh who was in power during Joseph’s time. They lived in Goshen, separate from the Egyptians. According to the parsha  after Joseph dies the Pharaoh says, “Behold, the children of Israel are too many and too mighty for us…”  and that was the beginning of the end of comfortable living for b’nei Yisrael. We can assume they lived in dwellings  similar to those of the Egyptians and had enough to eat. But once the Egyptians noticed them, their numbers, their individuality and their strength those in power became concerned- maybe even paranoid. To counter the success and numbers of the Hebrews  Pharaoh began the process of their enslavement. By the time Moses was born the Hebrews were almost at their lowest point. They had lost their independence, they were enslaved and were building the treasure cities of Pitom and Raamses, and they were commanded to drown any baby boy who was born to them. They were at their most desperate point in their history until that time.  Unbelievably their situation worsened following Moses and Aaron’s appeal to Pharaoh.

I thought about the similarities of the haftarah and the parsha. The greatest similarity was the depths to which b’nei Yisrael had fallen. Unfortunately Jews faced those unbearable conditions and situations numerous times.  The Shoah would be the darkest time in recent history.  As in Egypt the Jews quickly moved from positions of honour and equality to  those of poverty and enslavement. In the parsha the murder of baby boys wss mandated. Of course in the Shoah the mandate was taken further than that.

I wanted to show the hopelessness and pain of B’nei Yisrael in my illustration for the parsha and haftarah of Shemot. In my investigations of imagery  I found a series of woodcuts by Miklos Adler, a Jew from Lithuania who had been transported to Auschwitz and then to Vienna. He was liberated from Theresienstadt. The woodcut I chose shows Jewish slaves labouring under the whip of an S.S. soldier, with a Jewish corpse disregarded at the feet of the Nazi. Miklos Adler did a series of 16 woodcuts, 7 of which were printed in “A Survivor’s Haggadah”  which was edited and compiled by Yosef Dov Sheinson for Pesach, 1946.

There is such darkness and horror conveyed in the images in that Haggadah that I felt it connected the three time periods together- B’nei Yisrael in Egypt, the Jews under the Assyrians, and the Shoah.

Those were horrible periods of time to put it mildly. In the parsha HaShem sends Moses to the children of Israel because He has not forgotten them and will free them. The haftarah concludes with a positive prediction.  Isaiah says that , “[the house of] Jacob shall not now be ashamed…. they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob. and shall stand in awe of the Holy One of Israel.” And in present times? We cannot forget the loss of millions of lives and many more millions of their descendants z”l. But we can look with pride at the land we once again own, the innovations and improvements to the world brought by Israeli and non-Israeli Jews and the amount of Jewish learning that exists. We must be ever cognizant and protective of the continued freedom for our people.