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How ‘Had Gadya’ inspired famed Catholic painter Frank Stella, a leader of the Minimalist art movement
(New York Jewish Week) — “Had Gadya,” the playful song about a destructive chain of events starting with one little goat, may be best-known for rousing sleepy children at the end of a long Passover seder.
But it is also the basis for a series by Frank Stella, the 87-year-old Catholic American artist credited with catalyzing the Minimalist movement of the 1960s. His 12 vibrant, abstract “Had Gadya” prints, completed between 1982 and 1984, are now on display at the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York City.
The works were loaned by collector Elissa Oshinsky for a tour of the Los Angeles, Cincinnati and New York campuses of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). The Heller Museum at HUC-JIR celebrated its exhibition opening on Sept. 7 and will host it until Feb. 29.
“Had Gadya” is one of the earliest children’s songs in recorded history, dating back to a 14th-century prayer book from Provence. It appeared in a manuscript attached to the Prague Haggadah of 1526, then in print for the first time in the Prague Haggadah of 1590.
Each of Stella’s prints follows a stanza of the song, which details series of disasters in the style of a cumulative nursery rhyme. A father buys a little goat, which is eaten by a cat. The cat is bitten by a dog, the dog beaten by a stick, the stick burned by a fire, the fire quenched by water, the water drunk by an ox, the ox slaughtered by a butcher, the butcher killed by the Angel of Death — who is finally slain by “the Holy One, Blessed be He.”
In Stella’s abstract rendition of “Had Gadya,” this narrative is driven by dynamic, repeated shapes and colors, said Jean Bloch Rosensaft, the director of the Heller Museum.
“The repetition of different forms, from piece to piece, creates a kind of continuity, telling that lyrical story of successive acts of victimization that are ultimately resolved by God to bring peace and order to the world,” Rosensaft told the New York Jewish Week.
Stella, 87, who was not available for an interview, took inspiration from a 1919 series of “Had Gadya” illustrations by the Russian-Jewish avant-garde artist El Lissitzky. The museum exhibit shows Lissitzky’s lithographs, full of Yiddish typography and shtetl settings, next to Stella’s versions.
From left: Frank Stella, “Had Gadya: Back Cover,” 1984 and “Had Gadya: Then came a dog and bit the cat,” 1984. Collection of Elissa Oshinsky. (©2023 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York)
In Lissitzky’s original works, the story of “Had Gadya” — and God’s intervention in the final act — was a metaphor for Jewish victory after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Then, under the new Soviet regime, Jews briefly found freedom from persecution, a triumphant moment that elevated Jewish artists such as Lissitzky and his contemporary, Marc Chagall. Unfortunately, that window of opportunity had closed by 1932, as Stalin waged war on avant-garde and Jewish art. Lissitzky’s “Had Gadya” was among the first works to be destroyed by Stalin’s government and only a few copies survive.
Stella first saw Lissitzky’s illustrations while visiting the Tel Aviv Museum in 1981. Marc Scheps, then-director of the museum, recalled in a 1986 exhibition catalog that the artist stood in front of Lisskitzky’s pieces and said, “maybe I’ll do something about these.” The famously terse artist was known for heralding Minimalism with his remark,“what you see is what you see.”
Although Stella is a Catholic Italian-American who grew up in Massachusetts, European Jewish themes are prominent in his work. As a breakthrough artist in his early 20s, he gave his 1958-59 black pinstripe paintings the titles “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Sets You Free,” the slogan on the entrance gate to Auschwitz); “Reichstag” (the German parliament building that burned in 1933 as the Nazis consolidated their dictatorship), and “Die Fahne Hoch” (“The Flag High,” the first words of the Nazi Party anthem).
In 1960, his painting “The Final Solution” depicted an equilateral cruciform — a Catholic symbol of martyrdom, as well as a shape that Stella called a “truncated swastika.” Later, during a lengthy hospitalization in the 1970s, he produced thousands of drawings and 130 mixed-media paintings inspired by photographs of Polish wooden synagogues that were built in the 17th-19th centuries and destroyed in the Holocaust. He titled the paintings after the burned synagogues’ lost communities, saying that he wanted to commemorate “the obliteration of a culture.”
Stella was a child when the United States went to war with the Nazis, an enemy whose visual impact stayed with him. His artistic eye developed during trips to the movies, which frequently showed newsreels of Nazi rallies and marching soldiers. In the 1976 catalog for “Frank Stella: The Black Paintings,” his exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, he said that the painting “Die Fahne Hoch” — which comprises black bands of paint crossing narrow, bare spaces of canvas — reminded him of a waving flag.
“The thing that stuck in my mind was the Nazi newsreels — that big draped swastika — the big hanging flag — has pretty much those dimensions,” he said of the proportions of his canvas, which was 10’1” by 6’1”.
A detail of the “Chad Gadya,” with illustrations by “LOLA” from the 1928 Hebrew Publishing Company “Haggadah.” (Wikipedia)
Another deep influence on the artist was his circle in New York during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, according to art historian Carol Salus. Stella was close to many Jewish friends, art critics, dealers and museum directors. Perhaps most formatively, he was married to the Jewish art critic Barbara Rose between 1961 and 1969. During that time, Rose traveled to Berlin to confront her anxieties tied to the Holocaust. Mark Godfrey, the author of “Abstraction and the Holocaust,” reported her saying, “The thing I was most afraid of was Nazis, so I went to live with them.”
Rosensaft, herself the child of Holocaust survivors, said she believed that Stella absorbed from his surroundings “a kind of Jewish soul.”
The words of “Had Gadya” have prompted various interpretations among rabbis, scholars and ethnomusicologists. Some say the little goat represents the Jewish people and each successive attack represents a world power that exiled the Jews, such as Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and the Crusaders. Others say the song is about God’s triumph over all, even the Angel of Death.
For Rosensaft, the “Had Gadya” exhibition mirrors a world of proliferating tragedies while offering hope and redemption in God’s final victory over death. Four decades after Stella completed the series, she believes it will resonate with museum visitors who feel caught in a continuous onslaught of suffering — whether their afflictions come from environmental disasters, endemic racism, refugee crises or fall-out from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What I am so taken with in Stella’s ‘Had Gadya’ is ultimately his message that hope and goodness prevail — that there is hope, there is the possibility of a brighter, better future,” she said.
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The post How ‘Had Gadya’ inspired famed Catholic painter Frank Stella, a leader of the Minimalist art movement appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.