Moshe Gershuni (1936–2017) is among the most significant contemporary Israeli artists. His passionate, deeply personal work reflects the complexities of Israeli life and often engages themes of grief and memory. Join the Mishkan Or Museum director for a tour of Kaddish, a magnificent 1997 artist’s book created using screen printing and inspired by the homonymous poem written by American Jewish Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) following the death of his mother.
Kaddish is a Jewish mourning prayer that entered common usage in the Middle Ages. Ginsberg crafted a radical, contemporary version of this prayer, intertwining his autobiographical experience of grief with a reinvented, at times blasphemous, secular Kaddish. Gershuni expressed the emotions Ginsberg’s text evoked in him through his own visual language and motifs.