Tallit

Tallit: A Faceless Jew: Under A Prayer Shawl

Overview:
The tallit, or prayer shawl, is a sacred garment worn by Jewish men during morning prayers and on the Sabbath and holidays.

It is also used to prepare the mind and heart for prayer, inspiring reverence and connection to the divine. The tallit continues to be a significant part of Jewish life, serving as a reminder of faith, tradition and connection to God.

I first became aware of the tallit as a young teenager visiting the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1960s. As a child of secular Jews, traditional ritual spiritual practice was something completely alien to me. The iconic Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall’s painting entitled “The Praying Jew” literally stunned me and left an indelible mark on my mind.

Here is a link to a web image and brief backstory.

Now fast forward about 60 years:
I am a 75-year-old Jewish artist living in St. Petersburg, Florida. The image of Chagall’s painting continues to haunt and inspire me. I feel the need to use it as a creative seed for work that both embodies Jewish tradition and utilizes the astounding new digital imaging tools that are literally at our fingertips.

My contemporary tallit is simply a piece of specially-prepared cloth for digital printing that features my expressionistic artwork about the Holocaust. Unlike virtually all tallit, it has no knotted fringes.

The knotted fringes on the tallit, called tzitzit, represent a powerful reminder of the Jewish people's commitment to God and His commandments. That is a meaningless concept to a vast majority of largely-assimilated American Jews, so I left them off my shawl.

The human figure wearing my tallit remains faceless so that each Jew, or each Gentile with some empathy for the precariousness of Jewish life, can picture themselves in the art.

My mixed-media collages also incorporate photos of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto wearing tallit during traditional group prayer. These Jews were facing systematic starvation and eventual deportation and extermination by the Nazis.

Here is a link to my extensive art and editorial work on the Jewish experience in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Contact Bob Barancik

email: bobcreates@earthlink.net
cell+text: 215.964.3937