The painter Moshe Rynecki was born into a traditional Jewish home in a small town near Siedlice, Poland. He received a yeshiva education before studying art in Warsaw in 1906–1907. He painted familiar scenes from Warsaw Jewish life, both everyday activities and religious holidays and rituals. After the German conquest of Poland, he was forced into the Warsaw ghetto, where he painted this scene of refugees from elsewhere in Poland arriving in the ghetto. He was deported to Maidanek in 1943.
Food was important not just as a means of survival, but also because, as Ma repeatedly told me, “it’s made with love that makes it taste so good.” As a toddler, perched on a chair, I watched each step…
Musicians on ritual stand, Ashdod, late 11th or early 10th century BCE. Music and dance played an important role in Israel and the ancient Near East in both daily life and special occasions such as…
During the bitterest days of my European exile, I turn to the photo album where I keep, along with more recent memories, a few images from my childhood—images that enlarged and corrected, come back to…