In times of personal struggle, strife, unsurety, I always look to one of the more subtle areas of my life where I feel I need to build more of a connection in order to get some answers. If you think about it, Jewish art is one of those areas that needs personalization especially when it comes to finding out your roots. There is nothing more refreshing than learning a bit more truth about yourself and who you are.
The Twelve Tribes of Israel is a fine example of what I mean.
If you look at the link above, you’ll see that the lineage of the twelve tribes of Israel in fact, support “a patrilineal descent for about a quarter of current Jews, regardless of their geographic origin, and confirms the historical and Biblical concept of the People of Israel.” (Wikipedia source, The Twelve Tribes of Israel)
It is actually quite amazing that in fact, the genetic evidence of patriarchal lineage affirms our roots as Jews.
So what is the connection to Jewish art you may ask?
It seems that art is the extension of myself and serves as a reminder of just how powerful Jewish themes in art are.
My father’s contracted piece “The Twelve Tribes of Israel” (no link for the present time) is a subtle blends of shapes, colors and odd intertwining of patterns. It’s beautiful but of course, I’m not objective. I went to see it a few years ago at the synagogue in Queens for the first time. I only saw a small template of it as a child and was shocked to see that it wasn’t as big as I thought it would be.
Like art, we are creating our own medium for understanding our own Biblical history. Each piece of my father’s art doesn’t exactly dovetail with history, but on a whole, each tribe fits with the other and creates a wholistic medium. The same principle can also be applied to our lives and roots: each of us has a beautiful Jewish soul reflecting a long and ancient lineage of kings and queens.