Charles London, Author at Hadassah Magazine

Letter from Virgina: Back to a Southern Shtetl

Most immigrants in 19th-century America wanted to assimilate as fast as they could. Not so the Litvaks who set out to create this prosperous, Orthodox

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Mar 28

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In 1959, Jewish artist Marc Chagall was commissioned to create a stunning stained glass window for Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Centre’s synagogue, now called the Abbell Synagogue.⁠
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“All the time I was working, I felt my mother and father looking over my shoulder; and behind them were Jews, millions of other vanished Jews, of yesterday and a thousand years ago,” said Chagall.⁠
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Though he was asked to make one or two panels, Chagall donated 12 stained glass-windows, representing the twelve tribes, to Hadassah. The “Jerusalem Windows” were dedicated to the synagogue in 1962 as part of Hadassah’s Golden Anniversary Celebration. ⁠
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Writing to Miriam Freund, Hadassah’s national president at the time, former president John F. Kennedy called the intricate images “extraordinary:”⁠
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“The inspiration of an ancient and noble history and the inspiration of modern artistic genius are combined in these windows,” Kennedy wrote.⁠
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#onthisday in 1985 (March 28) Marc Chagall, born Moishe Zakharovitch Chagalov in Belarus, died at the age of 97. ⁠
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[Image of Chagall via Galeries Bartoux; “Jerusalem Windows” lithographs via Artsy.net; stained glass windows via Wikimedia Commons] ...

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