Enemies wtihout cause
This painting is based on an actual event of witnessing several crows attacking another crow. This vivid recollection prompted me to sketch it from memory, and later I painted this;murder of crows; which has a universal theme of helpless victims of cruelty. An ancient lament from Lamentations 3: 48-59 is collaged onto the painting. Enemies without cause; is literally;haters without cause, considered to be the primary reason for much of Israel's sorrow and long history of persecution. Significant dates of persecution starting when Joseph was sold into slavery to Egypt are listed on the left side, using the Hebrew calendar. Each date is significant: the dispersion of the tribes, destruction of the temple, and finally, the Arab Islamic invasion into the Holy land. The dates on the right, use the conventional calendar, starting with the crusades, chart the expulsion of Jews from various European countries, the pogroms in Russia, the Holocaust, and conclude with the modern state of Israel. While the dates refer to persecution of an identifiable people, they also demonstrate the endless nature of cruelty. Numbers are impersonal symbols that could mean anything or nothing.
The other number on this painting is symbolic of a number that a Holocaust victim might have had tattooed on the arm. I thought it should be a number of a person but which one? Someone whose death symbolizes both being hated with out cause and also redemption. I used the numerical equivalents of Hebrew letters for Yeshua reading from right to left. Great sorrow results from hatred without cause and according to my Israeli friends, redemption may come only as the result of love without cause. Though a lament, this painting is also a prayer of hope.
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