1.
Maurycy Gottlieb
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Maurycy Gottlieb was a Polish Jewish realist painter of the Romantic period. He was born in Drohobych to a wealthy, Yiddish and Polish-speaking orthodox Jewish family living in Galicia and it was then part of the Austrian sector of Partitioned Poland, now Western Ukraine. Considered one of the most talented students of Jan Matejko, Gottllieb died at the age of 23, Maurycy was one of Isaac Gottlieb and Fanya née Tigermans eleven children. He was introduced to painting in Lemberg by Michał Godlewski, at fifteen, he enrolled at the Vienna Fine Arts Academy for three years. In 1873 he went to Kraków to study under Jan Matejko, however, an anti-semitic incident at the School of Fine Arts prompted him to leave Kraków after less than a year in spite of Malczewskis protests. He traveled to Norway and stayed in Molde and he returned to Vienna and from there travelled to Munich in 1875 to study under Karl Piloty and Alexander Wagner. In 1876 he won the Gold Medal at the Munich Academy for his painting, Shylock, in the same year, he moved back to Vienna to attend the workshop of Heinrich von Angeli. He lived and worked in Vienna for the two years and produced paintings with biblical themes, as well as illustrations for Friedrich Bruckmann Publishing of Munich. In the fall of 1878, Gottlieb travelled to Rome, where he befriended Henryk Siemiradzki, in 1879 Gottlieb settled in Kraków and began working on his new major project. He died in the year from health complications. Matejko attended his funeral and promised his father to look after his younger brother Marcin, Gottlieb won a gold medal at the Munich art competition for his painting, Shylock and Jessica, portraying a scene from Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice. The painting was exhibited in Lviv in 1877, and in 1878 at Zachęta in Warsaw, Gottlieb based Jessicas face on that of Laura Rosenfeld, to whom he had proposed marriage. However, Laura rejected his proposal and wed a Berlin banker, Gottlieb planned to marry Lola Rosengarten, but when he heard about Rosenfelds marriage, he knowingly exposed himself to the elements, dying of complications from a cold and sore throat. Despite his premature death at the age of 23, more than three hundred of his works survive, though not all are finished, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, many Polish collections unknown in the West were popularized, and his reputation grew greatly. His brother Leopold Gottlieb was born five years after his death, nehama Guralnik, In the Flower of Youth, Maurycy Gottlieb. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Dvir Publishers,1991, arkady, Warsaw, ISBN 83-213-3891-7 Ezra Mendelsohn, Painting a people, Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art. Brandeis University Press, Hanover, New Hampshire, ISBN 1-58465-179-2 Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur, głowa starca - oil painting by Gottlieb in Central Jewish Library
2.
Oil painting
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Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, the choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the oil paint, such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. Certain differences, depending on the oil, are visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium, the oil may be boiled with a resin, such as pine resin or frankincense, to create a varnish prized for its body and gloss. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages, Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. In recent years, water miscible oil paint has come to prominence and, to some extent, water-soluble paints contain an emulsifier that allows them to be thinned with water rather than paint thinner, and allows very fast drying times when compared with traditional oils. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint, Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits, or other solvents to make the paint thinner, faster or slower-drying. A basic rule of oil paint application is fat over lean and this means that each additional layer of paint should contain more oil than the layer below to allow proper drying. If each additional layer contains less oil, the painting will crack. This rule does not ensure permanence, it is the quality and type of oil leads to a strong. There are many media that can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the capacity of oil paint. Traditionally, paint was transferred to the surface using paintbrushes. Oil paint remains wet longer than other types of artists materials, enabling the artist to change the color. At times, the painter might even remove a layer of paint. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a time while the paint is wet, Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch within a span of two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year, art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old
3.
Ashkenazi Jews
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The traditional diaspora language of Ashkenazi Jews is Yiddish, with Hebrew used only as a sacred language until relatively recently. Throughout their time in Europe, Ashkenazim have made important contributions to philosophy, scholarship, literature, art, music. Ashkenazim originate from the Jews who settled along the Rhine River, in Western Germany, there they became a distinct diaspora community with a unique way of life that adapted traditions from Babylon, The Land of Israel, and the Western Mediterranean to their new environment. The Ashkenazi religious rite developed in such as Mainz, Worms. The eminent French Rishon Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki would have a significant impact on the Jewish religion, in the late Middle Ages, the majority of the Ashkenazi population shifted steadily eastward, moving out of the Holy Roman Empire into the Pale of Settlement. The genocidal impact of the Holocaust devastated the Ashkenazim and their culture, immediately prior to the Holocaust, the number of Jews in the world stood at approximately 16.7 million. Statistical figures vary for the demography of Ashkenazi Jews, oscillating between 10 million and 11.2 million. Sergio DellaPergola in a calculation of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. Other estimates place Ashkenazi Jews as making up about 75% of Jews worldwide, genetic studies on Ashkenazim—researching both their paternal and maternal lineages—suggest a significant proportion of Middle Eastern ancestry. Ashkenazi Jews are popularly contrasted with Sephardi Jews, who are descendants of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, there are some differences in how the two groups pronounce certain Hebrew letters, and in points of ritual. The name Ashkenazi derives from the figure of Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, son of Khaphet, son of Noah. The name of Gomer has often been linked to the ethnonym Cimmerians, the intrusive n in the Biblical name is likely due to a scribal error confusing a waw ו with a nun נ. In Jeremiah 51,27, Ashkenaz figures as one of three kingdoms in the far north, the others being Minni and Ararat, perhaps corresponding to Urartu, called on by God to resist Babylon. Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia, viewed as the cradle of Germanic tribes and his contemporary Saadia Gaon identified Ashkenaz with the Saquliba or Slavic territories, and such usage covered also the lands of tribes neighboring the Slavs, and Eastern and Central Europe. In modern times, Samuel Krauss identified the Biblical Ashkenaz with Khazaria, sometime in the early medieval period, the Jews of central and eastern Europe came to be called by this term. In conformity with the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain was denominated Sefarad, France was called Tsarefat, Rashi uses leshon Ashkenaz to describe German speech, and Byzantium and Syrian Jewish letters referred to the Crusaders as Ashkenazim. Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France and Germany following the Carolingian unification, the term Ashkenazi came to refer to both the Jews of medieval Germany and France. Outside of their origins in ancient Israel, the history of Ashkenazim is shrouded in mystery, the most well-supported theory is the one that details a Jewish migration from Israel through what is now Italy and other parts of southern Europe
4.
Hebrew calendar
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The Hebrew or Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits. The present Hebrew calendar is the product of evolution, including a Babylonian influence, when to add it was based on observation of natural agriculture-related events in Israel. Through the Amoraic period and into the Geonic period, this system was displaced by the mathematical rules used today. The principles and rules were codified by Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah in the 12th century. Maimonides work also replaced counting years since the destruction of the Temple with the modern creation-era Anno Mundi, the era used since the Middle Ages is the Anno Mundi epoch. As with Anno Domini, the words or abbreviation for Anno Mundi for the era should properly precede the date rather than follow it, AM5777 began at sunset on 2 October 2016 and will end at sunset on 20 September 2017. The Jewish day is of no fixed length, the Jewish day is modeled on the reference to. there was evening and there was morning. In the creation account in the first chapter of Genesis, based on the classic rabbinic interpretation of this text, a day in the rabbinic Hebrew calendar runs from sunset to the next sunset. In most populated parts of the world this is always approximately 24 standard hours, halachically, a day ends and a new one starts when three stars are visible in the sky. The time between sunset and the time when the three stars are visible is known as bein hashmashot, and there are differences of opinion as to which day it falls into for some uses. This may be relevant, for example, in determining the date of birth of a child born during that gap, there is no clock in the Jewish scheme, so that the local civil clock is used. The civil clock is used only as a reference point – in expressions such as, Shabbat starts at. In Judaism, an hour is defined as 1/12 of the time from sunrise to sunset, so, during the winter, an hour can be less than 60 minutes. This proportional hour is known as a shaah zmanit, a Jewish hour is divided into 1080 halakim or parts. A part is 3⅓ seconds or 1/18 minute, the ultimate ancestor of the helek was a small Babylonian time period called a barleycorn, itself equal to 1/72 of a Babylonian time degree. These measures are not generally used for everyday purposes, instead of the international date line convention, there are varying opinions as to where the day changes. One opinion uses the antimeridian of Jerusalem, the weekdays start with Sunday and proceed to Saturday, Shabbat
5.
Kippah
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A kippah is a brimless cap, usually made of cloth, worn by Jews to fulfill the customary requirement held by orthodox halachic authorities that the head be covered. It is usually worn by men in Orthodox communities at all times, most synagogues and Jewish funeral services keep a ready supply of kippot. There is considerable debate among Halachic authorities as to whether or not wearing a kippah at all times is required, however, according to some authorities it has since taken on the force of law because it is an act of Kiddush Hashem. The 17th-century authority Rabbi David HaLevi Segal suggested that the reason was to distinguish Jews from their non-Jewish counterparts and he held that nowadays wearing a kippah is required by halacha. Other halachic authorities like Sephardi posek, the Chida hold that wearing a head covering is a midat hasidut, in a recent responsum, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel Ovadia Yosef ruled that it should be worn to show affiliation with the religiously observant community. The Talmud states, Cover your head in order that the fear of heaven may be upon you, Rabbi Hunah ben Joshua never walked 4 cubits with his head uncovered. He explained, Because the Divine Presence is always over my head and this was understood by Rabbi Yosef Karo in the Shulchan Arukh as indicating that Jewish men should cover their heads and should not walk more than four cubits bareheaded. Covering ones head, such as by wearing a kippah, is described as honoring God, in many communities, boys are encouraged to wear a kippah from a young age in order to ingrain the habit. The Talmud also implies that men did not wear a kippah. He said to him, When he visits you, bring him to me, when he arrived, he saw that he wore no head-covering. Why do you not have head-covering, because I am not married, was the reply. Thereupon, he turned his face away from him and said, See to it that you do not appear before me again before you are married. The Tanach implies that covering ones head was a sign of mourning, And David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, and wept as he went, then all the people who were with him each covered his head and went up weeping as they went. And their nobles send their lads for water, they come to the pits, and find no water, their vessels return empty, they are ashamed and confounded, and cover their heads. Because of the ground which is cracked, for there hath been no rain in the land, and Mordecai returned to the kings gate. But Haman hasted to his house, mourning and having his head covered, the argument for the kipa has two sides. The Vilna Gaon says one can make a berakhah without a kippah, recently, there has been an effort to suppress earlier sources that practiced this leniency, including erasing lenient responsa from newly published books. According to Rabbi Isaac Klein, a Conservative Jew ought to cover his head when in the synagogue, at prayer or sacred study, when engaging in an act
6.
Sefer Torah
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A Sefer Torah is a handwritten copy of the Torah, the holiest book in Judaism. It must meet strict standards of production. The Torah scroll is used in the ritual of Torah reading during Jewish prayers. The text of the Torah is also printed and bound in book form for non-ritual functions. It is then known as a Chumash, and is accompanied by commentaries or translations. Torah reading from a Sefer Torah is traditionally reserved for Monday and Thursday mornings, as well as for Shabbat, the presence of a minyan is required for the reading of the Torah to be held in public during the course of the worship services. As the Torah is sung, following the often dense text is aided by a yad, according to halakha, a sefer Torah is a copy of the formal Hebrew text of the Torah hand-written on gevil or klaf by using a quill dipped in ink. Producing a sefer Torah fulfills one of the 613 commandments, an error during transcription may render the sefer Torah pasul. According to the Talmud, all scrolls must also be written on parchment that is treated with salt, flour. Scrolls not processed in this way are considered invalid, the calfskin or parchment on which the sacred Hebrew text is written is mounted into a wooden housing called עץ חיים in Hebrew. The housing has two rollers, each of which has two handles used for scrolling the text, four handles in all, most modern Sifrei Torah are written with forty-two lines of text per column. Very strict rules about the position and appearance of the Hebrew alphabet are observed, see for example the Mishnah Berurah on the subject. Any of several Hebrew scripts may be used, most of which are fairly ornate, some errors are inevitable in the course of production. If the error involves an other than the name of God. If the name of God is written in error, the page must be cut from the scroll and a new page added. The new page is sewn into the scroll to maintain continuity of the document, the old page is treated with appropriate respect, and is buried with respect rather than being otherwise destroyed or discarded. It is an honor to be chosen for this. It is a mitzvah for every Jewish male to either write or have written for him a Sefer Torah
7.
Tallit
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A tallit pl. tallitot is a fringed garment traditionally worn by religious Jews. The tallit has special twined and knotted fringes known as tzitzit attached to its four corners, the cloth part is known as the beged and is usually made from wool or cotton, although silk is sometimes used for a tallit gadol. The term is, to an extent, ambiguous, the term tallit alone, usually refers to the tallit gadol. There are different traditions regarding the age from which a tallit gadol is used, in some communities, it is first worn from bar mitzvah. The Bible does not command wearing of a prayer shawl or tallit. These passages do not specify tying particular types or numbers of knots in the fringes, encyclopaedia Judaica describes the prayer shawl as a rectangular mantle that looked like a blanket and was worn by men in ancient times. Also, it is white and made either of wool, cotton. Traditionally the tallit is made of wool or linen, based on an understanding that reference to a garment in the bible in connection with a mitzvah refers specifically to wool and linen garments. Though other materials are used, the debate has not reached a conclusion. There is also debate about mixed wool and linen tallit, since the bible forbids klayim - intertying wool and linen together, with the two exceptions being garments of kohanim and tzitzit. Concerning tzitzit, chazal permit using wool and linen strings in tandem only when genuine tekhelet is available, according to the biblical commandment, a blue thread is included in the tzitzit. In Modern Hebrew the word is pronounced, with the stress on the final syllable, in Yiddish it is, with the stress on the first syllable. The plural of tallit in Hebrew is tallitot, pronounced, the Yiddish plural is taleisim, pronounced. Tallit is an Aramaic word from the root T-L-L טלל meaning cover, Tallit literally means cloak or sheet but in Talmudic times already referred to the Jewish prayer shawl. In modern Hebrew idiom, the expression, a completely blue tallit is widely used to refer to something that is ostensibly. The expression stems from rabbinic lore about the biblical figure Korah who led a revolt against the leadership of Moses, koraḥ was said to have asked Moses a number of vexatious, mocking questions, one of which was, Does a tallit made entirely of blue yarn require tzitzit. If so, what addition of holiness could the tzitzit contribute to a tallit which was entirely of the same sky-blue yarn. Koraḥ ostensibly subscribed to the laws that were the subject of his questions to Moses, the phrase more kosher than tzitzit is a Yiddish metaphoric expression with similar connotations but is not necessarily used in a sarcastic sense
8.
Tel Aviv
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Tel Aviv-Yafo is a major city in Israel, located on the countrys Mediterranean coastline. It is the center and the technology hub of Israel, with a population of 432,892. Tel Aviv is the largest city in the Gush Dan region of Israel, Tel Aviv is also a focal point in the high-tech concentration known as the Silicon Wadi. Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv is a global city, and is the thirty eighth most important financial center in the world. Tel Aviv is known to have the third-largest economy of any city in the Middle East after Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City, the city receives over a million international visitors annually. Known as The City that Never Sleeps and a party capital, it has a lively nightlife, the city was founded in 1909 by Jewish immigrants on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa. It is named after the Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzls 1902 novel, Altneuland, the modern citys first neighbourhoods had already been established in 1886, the first being Neve Tzedek. Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffas, Tel Aviv and Jaffa were merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Avivs White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, Tel Aviv is the Hebrew title of Theodor Herzls Altneuland, translated from German by Nahum Sokolow. The name was chosen in 1910 from several suggestions, including Herzliya and it was found fitting as it embraced the idea of a renaissance in the ancient Jewish homeland. Aviv is Hebrew for spring, symbolizing renewal, and tel is a man-made mound accumulating layers of civilization built one over the other and symbolizing the ancient. Although founded in 1909 as a settlement on the sand dunes North of Jaffa. The marketing pamphlets advocating for its establishment in 1906, wrote, In this city we will build the streets so they have roads and sidewalks and electric lights. Every house will have water wells that will flow through pipes as in every modern European city. Since 1886, Jewish settlers had founded new neighborhoods outside Jaffa on the current territory of Tel Aviv, the first was Neve Tzedek, built on lands owned by Aharon Chelouche and inhabited primarily by Mizrahi Jews. Other neighborhoods were Neve Shalom, Yafa Nof, Achva, Ohel Moshe, Kerem HaTeimanim, once Tel Aviv received city status in the 1920s, those neighborhoods joined the newly formed municipality, now becoming separated from Jaffa. The Second Aliyah led to further expansion, in 1906, a group of Jews, among them residents of Jaffa, followed the initiative of Akiva Aryeh Weiss and banded together to form the Ahuzat Bayit society. The societys goal was to form a Hebrew urban centre in an environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics
9.
History of the Jews in Ukraine
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Jewish communities have existed in the territory of Ukraine from the time of Kievan Rus and developed many of the most distinctive modern Jewish theological and cultural traditions such as Hasidism. According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitute the third biggest Jewish community in Europe, while at times it flourished, at other times the Jewish community faced periods of persecution and antisemitic discriminatory policies. In the Ukrainian Peoples Republic, Yiddish was a state language along with Ukrainian and Russian, at that time there was created the Jewish National Union and the community was granted an autonomous status. Yiddish was used on Ukrainian currency in 1917-1920, before World War II, a little under one-third of Ukraines urban population consisted of Jews who were the largest national minority in Ukraine. Ukrainian Jews are comprised by a number of groups, including Ashkenazi Jews, Mountain Jews, Bukharan Jews, Crimean Karaites, Krymchak Jews. In the westernmost area of Ukraine, Jews were mentioned for the first time in 1030, an army of Cossacks and Crimean Tatars massacred and took into captivity a large number of Jews, Roman Catholic Christians and Uniate Christians in 1648–49. Recent estimates range from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand Jews killed or taken captive, during the 1821 anti-Jewish riots in Odessa after the death of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople,14 Jews were killed. Some sources claim this episode as the first pogrom, at the start of 20th century, anti-Jewish pogroms continued to occur. When part of the Russian Empire in 1911 to 1913, the antisemitic attitudes can be seen in the number of libel cases. In 1915, the government expelled thousands of Jews from the Empires border areas, during the 1917 Russian Revolution and the ensuing Russian Civil War, an estimated 31,071 Jews were killed during 1918–1920. During the establishment of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic, pogroms continued to be perpetrated on Ukrainian territory, in Ukraine, the number of civilian Jews killed during the period was between 35 and 50 thousand. Pogroms erupted in January 1919 in the northwest province of Volhynia, the actions of the Soviet government by 1927 led to a growing antisemitism in the area. Ukraine had 840,000 Jews in 1959, a decrease of almost 70% from 1941, Ukraines Jewish population declined significantly during the Cold War. In 1989, Ukraines Jewish population was slightly more than half of what it was thirty years earlier. The overwhelming majority of the Jews who remained in Ukraine in 1989 left Ukraine and moved to countries in the 1990s during. Antisemitic graffiti and violence against Jews are still a problem in Ukraine, by the 11th century, Byzantine Jews of Constantinople had familial, cultural, and theological ties with the Jews of Kiev. For instance, some 11th-century Jews from Kievan Rus participated in an assembly held in either Thessaloniki or Constantinople. One of the three Kievan city gates in the times of Yaroslav the Wise was called Zhydovski, in Halychyna, the westernmost area of Ukraine, Jews were mentioned for the first time in 1030
10.
Yom Kippur
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Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. Its central themes are atonement and repentance, Jewish people traditionally observe this holy day with an approximate 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services. Yom means day in Hebrew and Kippur comes from a root that means to atone, Yom Kippur is usually expressed in English as Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur is the day of seventh month and is regarded as the Sabbath of Sabbaths. Rosh Hashanah is the first day of that month according to the Hebrew calendar, on this day forgiveness of sins is also asked of God. Yom Kippur completes the period known in Judaism as the High Holy Days or Yamim Noraim that commences with Rosh Hashanah. According to Jewish tradition, God inscribes each persons fate for the year into a book, the Book of Life, on Rosh Hashanah. During the Days of Awe, a Jew tries to amend his or her behavior and seek forgiveness for wrongs done against God, the evening and day of Yom Kippur are set aside for public and private petitions and confessions of guilt. At the end of Yom Kippur, one hopes that they have been forgiven by God, the Yom Kippur prayer service includes several unique aspects. One is the number of prayer services. Unlike a regular day, which has three services, or a Shabbat or Yom Tov, which have four prayer services. The prayer services also include private and public confessions of sins, as one of the most culturally significant Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur is observed by many secular Jews who may not observe other holidays. Many secular Jews attend synagogue on Yom Kippur—for many secular Jews the High Holy Days are the times of the year during which they attend synagogue—causing synagogue attendance to soar. Erev Yom Kippur is the day preceding Yom Kippur, corresponding to the day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei. This day is commemorated with additional morning prayers, asking others for forgiveness, giving charity, performing the ritual, an extended afternoon prayer service. Leviticus 16,29 mandates establishment of this day on the 10th day of the 7th month as the day of atonement for sins. It calls it the Sabbath of Sabbaths and a day upon which one must afflict ones soul, Leviticus 23,27 decrees that Yom Kippur is a strict day of rest. Five additional prohibitions are traditionally observed, as detailed in the Jewish oral tradition, the number five is a set number, relating to, In the Yom Kippur section of the Torah, the word soul appears five times
