כּשר

I Find

1993

Jenifer Bar Lev, Israeli, b. United States., 1948

Art: Ephraim Moses Lilien

Rosh Hashanah greeting, attributed to Happy Jack (born Angokwazhuk) (Inupiaq, b. Alaska, c. 1870-1918), Nome, Alaska, United States, 1910, engraved walrus tus and gold inset

With the arrival of whalers in the 19th century, Inuit carvers expanded their repertoires as they exchanged techniques and materials. The complexity and diversity of Inuit subjects increased as more sophisticated interpretations displaced schematic figures and linear ornamentation. The most innovative and influential of the carvers was the Alaskan Inuit Angokwazhuk, known as “Happy Jack.” He is credited with the introduction, after 1892, of the art of engraving walrus tusks with a very fine needle, which resulted in an almost perfect imitation of newspaper halftones and fabric textures.

Zeh ha-Sefer Tehillim (This Book of Psalms), Morris (Moshe) Weinberg, illustrated manuscript on paper, Chicago: 1910-1912

This monumental Hebrew Book of Psalms was painstakingly crafted by the talented scribe-artist Moshe Weinberg over a three year period from 1910 to 1912. It is an outstanding and highly creative example of the flowering of American Jewish calligraphic art in the early years of the twentieth century.

Weinberg was born in 1854 in the small Polish village of Kolne. Though the exact date of his migration to the United States is unknown, his intentions in creating this volume are clearly stated in his introduction:

“When I arrived in this land… and saw its ways and how so many of the People of the Lord are steeped in backbreaking labor, exhausting the body, resting neither day nor night, from seeking to feed themselves and their extensive families; They have not sufficient time even to pray properly, three times a day; to say nothing of the recitation of Psalms, which is totally unfamiliar to them …so I said to myself, I will publish this precious book, with large letters and beautiful pictures, pleasing to the eye.”