Menachem Wecker
By Menachem Wecker
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News Decimated in the Holocaust, a Norwegian Jewish community revives
The Jewish community in Bergen — Norway’s second largest city — was decimated during World War II, when Nazis murdered 750 of Norway’s 1,700 Jews. But now Jewish life in Bergen has returned — officially. Bergen Jews created a new organization, Det Jødiske Samfunn i Bergen, last year, and the city recognized it in December….
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Art Remembering Keith Sachs, Who Gave Philadelphia A Very Memorable Gift
In 2013, Keith L. and Katherine Sachs scheduled an appointment with Timothy Rub. Rub, director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, looked forward to seeing the museum trustee and his wife, but didn’t think much of it. “Out of the blue, the two of them came into my office, sat down, and said,…
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Culture How One Word Changed The Course Of World War II
One of the most tightly-written communications in military history came more than 60 years before Twitter. On Dec. 22, 1944, Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe had to be awoken from a nap during the Battle of the Bulge when a German delegation arrived at the U.S. encampment in Bastogne, a Belgian town. English and German letters…
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Culture What Do You Do When You Come Face To Face With The Spanish Inquisition?
“Nobody,” the Monty Python skit goes, “expects the Spanish Inquisition,” and the same goes for visitors to the Prado Museum in Madrid. Turning a corner on the second floor, viewers come face-to-face with Emilio Sala Francés’ 1889 painting “The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain.” In the picture, a lavishly-dressed Jewish emissary has laid a…
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Culture Jewish Philanthropist Establishes Kansas City As Cultural Mecca
When he would go to New York on art-buying excursions with his late wife, Marion, Henry Bloch would balk at the price tags. “It was very expensive,” the 94-year-old H&R Block founder and philanthropist said. “They talked me into it.” Asked what he meant by “very expensive,” Bloch repeated, “Very expensive.” Bloch was on hand…
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Culture Why Was This Italian Artist So Interested in Painting Synagogues?
Nearly 275 years after Alessandro Magnasco’s death, experts still aren’t sure what to make of his work — particularly four paintings of synagogues. Known as il Lissandrino, Magnasco was born 350 years ago Feb. 4th. He wasn’t Jewish, but synagogues were among his most frequent subjects, notes the Cleveland Museum of Art, which owns “Interior…
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Culture Do We All Have an Inner Gandhi — and a Hitler Too?
When Ajay Raju saw Jitish Kallat’s “Covering Letter” installed in India two years ago, he was struck by the experience of walking through the mist “screen” or “curtain,” upon which was projected a 1939 letter that Mahatma Gandhi wrote to Adolf Hitler. “You almost feel as though you’ve crossed the threshold of history,” says Raju,…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Archie Rand’s Biblical Art
One of my greatest Jewish art surprises of 2016 came during a tour of two provocative Archie Rand exhibitions — “Sixty Paintings from the Bible” (1992) and “The Book of Judith” (2012) — at Cleveland State University with professor and curator Samantha Baskind. It’s not that Rand was a surprise to me — you may…
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