Image Details

Richard Nowitz

Intricately cut and delicately illuminated with color, a golden Jerusalem displays the artistry of master paper-cutter Yehudit Shadur. In the visionary city, the heavenly temple is depicted with a few lines enclosing empty space, creating an immaterial structure that contrasts with the solid forms of the towers, gates, lions, gazelles and trees that surround it.

Three verses from Isaiah garland the paper-cut. Across the top, “Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad with her, all you who love her” (66:10); supporting the entrance into the city walls, “You shall call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise” (60:18); and uncurling across the bottom of the paper-cut, “Behold I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like a flowing stream” (66:12). Crowning the city above the tablets of the law, the keter malhut, the crown of kingship, symbolizes Jerusalem’s status as the capital of Zion.