ReViews: Jewish Art vs. the Rabbis

Lee Levine’s imposing new volume takes the reader on a 2,000-year journey from Palestine to the Diaspora, tracing the visual cultures of Israelites to Judahites to Jews from the 13th century B.C.E. to the seventh century C.E. In almost 600 pages, Levine tackles issues as wide ranging as the role of art in the construction of Jewish identity, liturgy and ritual, aniconism, messianism, mysticism, to its polemical role in the face of neighbors, Canaanite and, later, Christian. Throughout, Levine works carefully and conservatively, giving voice to multiple perspectives and, for the most part, leaves it to the reader to […]