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HE CANADIAN JEWI
SH REVIEW
OCTOBER 12, 1951
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THREE DIMENSIONS FOR THE JEWISH ARTIST
OPT Stoops In Mootrool co-ordinating for too Move moot drivo of tho Combined Jewish Appeal Women'! Diviiion met or a tea for captains of the zones section at the home of Mrs. L. GoMschleger, 768 Bolotoot Avenue. Co-control chairmen, with Mrs. Goldschleger Is Mn. Selig Weiss, 5386 Grovehill Place. Front, left to right, ore Mesdames M. J. Prupas, 4745 Ridaovale Avenue; Selig Weiss, L. GoMschleger, and A. Rothschild, 2295 Wilson Avenue, a representative of Montreal OUT Group Number Seven. Top: Mesdames J. Adelmon, 3570 Ridgewood Avenue; A. Balinsky, 2191 Maptewood Avenue; H. T. Michelin, 4565 Kensington Avenue; H. Herbert, 5520 Mountain Sights; B. S. Harrison, 32 Nelson Avenue. Absent when the picture was token were: Mesdames J. Fell, 4702 Coolbrooke Avenue; M. Finiffter, 5001 lona Avenue; and A. Parks, 5637 Clanranold Avenue.
�Drummood Photos
The Canadian Jewish Review is still the only /Jewish publication in Canada printed in any language reaching the Jewish community which is able to claim membership in the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
(Continued from. Page Seven) matics? A beard and tallith again and again? There is very little for an artist in Jewish subject matter." In my opinion such people simply have no understanding of the matter. There is hardly another people on earth as rich in themes as is our people. That is because we live a threerdimension-al existence, aB no other people does. We live in our past as far as Abraham, we repeat the experience of the Exodus from Egypt every year, we carry our past with us as if it were an organic part of our existence. The second dimension of our existence is the present, a dimension full of intensity, full of tragic moments but also of triumphs. We live also in our future, we have ideals for which we live, ideals set for us by our prophets, to be realized in the days to come.
No other people experiences such a three-dimensional existence. Some know only one dimension � the present; others live in two dimensions�the past and the present . . .rarely in three, equally vivid and intense. What does that signify for the Jewish artist? It means a great variety of Jewish themes. The past with its Biblical figures, stories, miracles, prophecies, old books to illustrate like
n September 25, 1951vThe Bank of Nova Scotia officially opened the new home of the Bank's General Office and Main Toronto Branch in the Bank of Nova Scotia Building, King and Bay Streets, Toronto.
Thus another chapter is written in the Ufe___
and growth of a nation. More than a story of steel and stone, the new building is part of the vigorous life of the nation. It came into being through the ever-expanding demand for increased banking service by Canadians and through a busy city's need for many thousands of additional square feet of modern office space. It tells a story in form and substance, of confidence in Canada's future.
Materially, the building is the third highest bank building in the British Empire and the most modern structure of Its kind in Canada. Its 25 floors enclose 320,000 square feet of floor space, providing everything that is new in modern banking and commercial office accommodation. It is veritably a city within a city ... a city that thousands of men and women will enter daily in the course of business.
The new Bank of Nova Scotia Building means more than modern banking services and office accommodation. It is a magnificent symbol of Canada's progress, ft is a building we invite you to visit when you are next in Toronto.
The new Bank ef Nova Scotia Building in Toronto, opened September 25, 1951.
The BANK of
P-SS4
NOVA
MAM SAfdKBJM ROOM
�Functional perfection and architectural excellence combine lo provide swift and efficient hanking service.
MORE THAN 380 BRANCHES IN CANADA AND ABROAD
VAUlTf�55-ton steel doors such as this contribute to the security built into the vaults in tiro of the below-*tr eel-Level floors.
the Pirkey Ovoth, Song of Songs, Psalms, Proverbs and so many more gems of spiritual grandeur, wisdom, ethics and humor. Those themes have been but little touched by art. Such treatment as they were given was by non-Jewish artists, who portrayed their subjects with evangelical appearance and non^Hebrew faces snd expression. It is time for the Jewish artist to give the Bible a Jewish face in art�a gigantic proposition.
The present is no less rich for a Jewish artist who wants to be an artists of his people. The every' day life of a Jew iB full of material. Consider our models, our individual types. Nothing is more monumental than a fine figure of an old man, a Jewish patriarch, sitting bent over a book�better called a Sefer. There is a big difference between a book and a Sefer. A book is a brief encounter, you read it through and discard it. Not so with a Sefer. You never read it through once and for all. The reading is usually in fragments, a page, a passage upon which you dwell. The Sefer is of large format with broad margins around the text. Upon those margins there are traces of tears, candle grease, notes of births, deaths, marriages, Yahr-zeits and other of life's marks.
The margin of a Sefer is as significant for the reader as the text itself, and when an old patriarch, rich in years and experience, sits in silence by the light of a lamp, the picture for a Jewish artist is magnificent. Maurice Maeterline^, the Belgian poet, said: "When I see an old man bent . over his book by the light of a candle in the silence of the night, it seems to me that the whole universe is listening to the sound a fallen hair from his head is making upon the page." And when ten Jews sit together and study Torah the Shechinah rests over them. (Pirkey Ovoth).
No less fine a picture is that offered by two Jews playing chess with the customary kibitzer peering from behind, or a group telling stories, smiling, laughing . . . ^ecaupe, tragic as our life is, .W*<flBlgklf hnmrWeinS" shsarl oned us.; And what about our. women-folk, at home, with the children, at licht-bentchen, and our children in Cheder? The every day life of a Jew is rich, as only an intense people could enrich it. In the street, in the market place, in the synagogue, in moments of joy such as weddings, in holidays, play, mournings. What, too, of the Chassidic genre? And the constant discussions upocv the park benches! Why, endless is the selection of subjects for s Jewish artist, if only he has love for his people, their faces, their souls, their ways of life, if only he has understanding of their humanity. Nothing in the world is of greater charm and expressiveness*.
And now the third dimension� the future. There are dreams and ideals for us in our future stretch of life as a people, because our rebirth as a nation is not a short "come-back". A Kabbalist might calculate at least five thousand years of existence ahead for us! We need all of the years�because we have to bring about the "Mal-chuth Shomayim" on earth. The Jewish artist could paint some of these visions. Israel, the land of our beginnings and future, forms the center for all such wisdom. While the past could be presented in the classic style, and the present in realistic manner, the future .could be kept in symbolic or mystic tones.
Still the main object is not quite reached yet The technical
(Continued on Page Thirteen)
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