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A Jewish Expressionist artist’s life, preserved in a brownstone
NEW YORK — Even inside a five-story brownstone crowded with paintings, sculptures and books, no single work can fully contain the spirit of Ukrainian-born artist Ben-Zion. Still, one painting comes close: a portrait of the healer and rabbi known as Baal Shem Tov, seated calmly beneath a tree. Rendered in ochre, gray and green, the canvas draws on Jewish mysticism and the natural world, themes that pulse through Ben-Zion’s life and work.
Perfectly preserved from the years Ben-Zion lived there, from 1965 until his death in 1987, the Ben-Zion House, located in Chelsea in Manhattan, is anything but a mausoleum. Instead, it feels like a living sanctuary — one that not only celebrates the Jewish artist’s life and work, but continues to inspire the writers, poets, architects, musicians and painters who pass through its rooms.
“Through the years many artists have been in the space and have expressed their awe and inspiration,” said Tabita Shalem, the house’s curator and manager while leading a tour on a drizzly Thursday in April. “The way Ben-Zion lived was intimately connected to the work he created, and artists and creatives feel that when they are in the home and studio.”.
Shalem worked closely with Ben-Zion during the last decade of his life, helping to organize exhibitions and maintain the vast collection. She continued those efforts with his widow, Lillian Ben-Zion, until her death in 2012. Through Shalem’s stories, the house emerges not simply as an archive, but as an extension of the artist himself.
As one of “The Ten,” a cohort of artists who rejected realism in favor of experimental, expressionist work, Ben-Zion stood alongside Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and others who helped shape American Expressionism. Yet while many of his contemporaries became internationally renowned, Ben-Zion’s name lingers at the edge of obscurity — even as his work hangs in institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1948, the Jewish Museum opened in Manhattan with an exhibition devoted to Ben-Zion’s work and later mounted two more shows, including a 1959 retrospective. But as Abstract Expressionism rose to dominance, interest in his work faded.
“He wasn’t interested in abstract art,” Shalem said. “He wasn’t a joiner.”
Still, his wife and friends held firmly to their belief in the value of Ben-Zion’s work, a conviction reflected in the preservation of the house itself. Funded by a private estate, the home allows artists and visitors to continue engaging with the work of this important, though largely forgotten, Jewish artist. His legacy is also kept alive through guided tours, often organized in partnership with community groups.
Born in 1897 in Staryi Kostiantyniv, Ben-Zion grew up in an observant Jewish home. His father, Hirsh Weinman, was a cantor who, in 1909, accepted a position at the largest synagogue in Galicia. For a time, Ben-Zion considered becoming a rabbi himself.
That changed at 16, when he read about the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza for challenging rabbinic authority and questioning Jewish doctrine.
“His brain was on fire,” Shalem said. “He never went to shul again.”
Yet Ben-Zion never abandoned Judaism. After his father’s sudden death in 1920, his mother moved the family to Boston. Among the belongings he carried with him was a handwritten Purim megillah he had calligraphed at age 14.
“His Jewish identity was always a part of him. The way I think of Ben-Zion is that he was deeply rooted in Judaism, but like the branches of the trees he painted, he was free and always reaching,” Shalem said.
Feeling out of place in Boston society, Ben-Zion moved less than a year later to the Bronx, where he immersed himself in poetry, prose, painting and sculpture. The move marked the beginning of a fiercely independent artistic life, one equally nourished by Jewish tradition, philosophy and the natural world.
That reverence for nature reveals itself throughout the brownstone, from monumental canvases of golden wheat beneath cerulean skies to delicate pen-and-ink drawings of thistles and poppies. Walking through the house, lit almost entirely by natural light, it becomes clear that Ben-Zion was as much a collector as a creator.
A bowl of prehistoric tools sits atop one table. Nearby, miniature statues of prophets and Buddhas line a curio cabinet. Conglomerates gathered from rivers and streams are interspersed on shelves. And in another corner, his paint-scarred palette rises from a wooden table like a small mountain streaked with copper and turquoise. Behind a leafy plant, a Ten Commandments tablet features smooth pebbles instead of words.
One of the tour’s highlights comes on the garden level, where visitors descend through a trapdoor and down a steep staircase into the cellar. During Ben-Zion’s lifetime, the stone-lined basement served primarily as storage for art materials. After his death, Lillian and Shalem transformed it into a gallery-like space filled with sculptures, tools and unfinished ideas.
Rows of scissors and metal implements hang against whitewashed walls. Four masks carved from tree bark rest on a wooden table nearby.
“He saw art in everything,” said Amy Levine-Kennedy, director of the Westchester Jewish Center Koslowe Gallery, which organized the private tour.
Against one wall stands an iron sculpture of a circus, while nearby the 1972 work “Apocalypse (or Devastation)” rises from the floor, reflecting Ben-Zion’s recurring fascination with destruction, memory and survival.
According to Shalem, a friend of Lillian’s who had been stationed in the South Pacific during World War II shipped crates of discarded munitions to Ben-Zion after learning of the artist’s love for forged iron. Ben-Zion transformed the remnants of war into sculpture.
Though Ben-Zion studied briefly at an art school in Vienna during World War I, he was otherwise self-taught. A voracious reader, he consumed history, poetry, philosophy, Hebrew and Yiddish literature, and art history. Today the brownstone contains hundreds of books on art, history, spirituality, archaeology, and literature. “France in the Middle Ages” and “History of the Jewish Khazans” compete for shelf space with “Van Gogh in Arles” and “Jews and Arabs.”
Beyond making art and mentoring younger artists, Ben-Zion also taught through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. At Cooper Union, where he taught from the 1930s up until the 1960s, he encouraged students to treat art not as decoration, but as a way of giving form to inner vision.
That vision lingers in the final work he created in the house. Resting on an easel on the second floor, the painting depicts a Jewish man wrapped in tefillin, his head tilted downward toward the prayer book in his hands. In broad strokes of orange, white, black, and blue, Ben-Zion distilled the themes that shaped his life: Jewish identity, learning, ritual and spiritual searching.
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The Netherlands will return to Eurovision after boycott over Israel
(JTA) — The Netherlands will return to the Eurovision Song Contest, overriding a broadcaster that withdrew over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The Dutch organization that oversees public broadcasting, the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep, said on Wednesday that it will take over the country’s entry to Eurovision after Avrotros, the broadcaster that usually takes part in Eurovision for the Netherlands, pulled out of the 2027 event in Burgas, Bulgaria.
Avrotros said last month that it withdrew because the event “can no longer be considered neutral,” citing Israel’s inclusion amid “the severe humanitarian suffering in Gaza and the ongoing restrictions on press freedom.”
Avrotros dropped out of the most recent contest in May 2026, and the Netherlands did not participate after the NPO ruled out identifying another broadcaster. Spain, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia also boycotted this year’s Eurovision. Israel’s participation in the world’s largest music contest has become a source of intense controversy, sparking mass protests. The contest drew 35 million fewer viewers this year.
For the next Eurovision, NPO is assigning the broadcaster NOS to provide coverage of the event and an “independent team of experts” to select the Dutch act.
“We understand that participation in the Eurovision Song Contest evokes mixed feelings in the Netherlands,” said Jet de Ranitz, the chairman of the NPO’s executive board. “We have explicitly asked the [European Broadcasting Union] to once again make the unifying character of the festival an important part of the event, in recognition of a time of geopolitical unrest, war, and polarization.”
The NPO added that the EBU, which owns the contest, has “taken significant steps regarding the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest.” The EBU introduced changes in August that included barring countries involved in armed conflict from hosting the competition. It also made adjustments to the voting process after accusations of politically motivated voting.
Avrotros said the new rules were not sufficient to ensure that Eurovision remains “independent and neutral.”
Martin Green, the director of Eurovision, said in a statement that the contest was “delighted to welcome the Netherlands back” in 2027.
Ireland is set to boycott Eurovision again in 2027 after RTÉ, the national broadcaster, said last week that its position “remains unchanged.”
RTÉ cited “the appalling and ongoing loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk,” adding that it was “deeply concerned by the continued denial of independent access to international journalists to the territory.”
Spain could also stay out of Eurovision next year. José Pablo López, the president of Spanish broadcaster RTVE, announced at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that he supported a continued boycott, saying it was “painful that Israel continues to participate.”
Meanwhile, Belgium confirmed its participation despite calls for a boycott by its public media unions.
“Participation is in no way an endorsement or normalization of what is happening in Gaza and the rest of the world,” said Frederik Delaplace, the CEO of the Flemish broadcaster VRT. “We do note, however, that the EBU is no longer shying away from these difficult societal and geopolitical issues.”
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Police label shooting in Belleville, Ontario, a hate-motivated attack against the Jewish community
(JTA) — TORONTO – The shooter who opened fire on a Belleville, Ontario, synagogue Sunday evening committed an anti-Jewish hate-motivated offense, according to the city’s police chief.
“This was a deliberate attack directed at members of the Jewish community during one of the holiest observances of the year,” Belleville police chief Murray Rodd said at a press conference on Thursday, adding that the shooter had combustible materials, including gasoline, in his truck.
He said the threat posed to Jewish communities required increased alertness on the part of Canadian law enforcement. Police stationed outside the Sons of Jacob synagogue had engaged in a shootout with the assailant, Sean Ward, that prevented him from entering the building as members of the congregation were about to begin Yom Kippur services.
Rodd noted that the force had a long-time relationship with the Jewish community that involved “our proactive pre-positioning of on-duty staff” to ensure the safety of Jewish worshippers. “One of the messages to my colleagues around the province and the country is: It is clearly time that we all be proactive.”
Rodd said the efforts of Constables Jeff Smith and Michael McCurdy prevented the attacker from using the explosive materials he had with him, as well as a “significant” amount of ammunition.
Smith, who was stationed outside of Sons of Jacob to provide security, remains in critical condition but is making progress, according to Rodd. Ward later died of his wounds from the exchange with police.
“[The shooter] had the means, the mechanism, and the motive to perpetrate a greater act. The only thing that stopped entry into the synagogue to execute the intent were the two officers,” said Rodd. “He was equipped with other weapons and the means to carry on a gun battle for a long period of time.”
The CBC reported that police obtained a video of the attack in Belleville, a town over 100 miles east of Toronto on the north shore of Lake Ontario. On the video, Ward is heard shouting. Police report he is saying, “You are going to die for the Jews.”
Rodd confirmed that before Ward targeted the Sons of Jacob, he scoped out the synagogue grounds. “We know that there was a reconnaissance in the presence of our officer, but nothing that would have alarmed him or would have triggered him to be on the defensive,” Rodd said.
Ward was a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Rodd noted.
“He was shot multiple times in multiple places,” Rodd said. “He has everything extending from fractures to wounds, and is still bearing shrapnel.”
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US Senate Democrats seek sanctions on those facilitating controversial West Bank settlement project
(JTA) — A slate of U.S. Senate Democrats, led by staunch Israel supporter Chris Coons, is seeking to sanction individuals and businesses linked to a controversial settlement expansion in the West Bank.
The massive E1 project, which would add 3,401 housing units east of Jerusalem, would effectively bisect the West Bank, inhibiting the prospects for a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank. It would also further separate the West Bank from East Jerusalem, which Palestinians seek as the capital of a future state. Israel recently issued new construction tenders for the project, following the government’s approval of the plans last summer.
Coons, of Delaware, introduced legislation this week that would target “any foreign person” deemed “responsible for or complicit in” the construction or financing of, or investment in, the planned E1 settlement, as well as the leaders of any entity that has engaged in such activities.
“As Palestinian civilians face a campaign of devastation and fear from violent extremist settlers, the United States must send a strong message that this behavior is unacceptable,” Coons said in a statement.
Israel, he added, must demonstrate “that it remains committed to freedom, security, prosperity, and self-determination for all Israelis and Palestinians.”
Global leaders have slammed the prospective development, as have many U.S. lawmakers. Yet even amid the increased criticism of the Israeli government, the bill is unlikely to advance in a Congress with Republican majorities in both chambers.
Coons thus far has garnered support from 18 of the Senate’s 44 other Democrats, including three co-authors: Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Ruben Gallego of Arizona. Wyden is Jewish and a longtime Israel supporter.
“For decades, American presidents from both parties have warned successive Israeli governments that construction in E1 threatened the viability of a Palestinian state and was unacceptable to the United States,” Coons said.
As unlikely as it is that the bill will pass, its introduction is symbolic of the chasm that has grown in recent years between Israel and the Democratic Party. The legislation is led by Coons, who has a solid pro-Israel record. Previous sanctions backed by Democrats, including by former President Joe Biden, have generally targeted settler violence and offensive weapons, while this bill centers on what Israel’s government would regard as a conventional building project.
Warren, Wyden and Gallego all voted in favor of a failed resolution authored by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, which sought to stop the sale of military bulldozers to Israel. Coons, who voted against the measure, was one of just seven Democrats to do so.
While Warren’s position on Israel has fluctuated in recent years, she has consistently maintained that Israel has a right to defend itself and has voted against measures to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. But she has been a sharp critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and suggested conditioning military aid to Israel on compliance with U.S. and international humanitarian law.
Regarding the E1 settlement sanctions bill, Warren said the U.S. “must use all diplomatic and economic tools available to counter rapid settlement expansion and extremist settler violence.” These “spiraling trends” risk undermining “the prospect of lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians,” she added.
The bill would sanction “foreign persons that have facilitated Israeli settlement construction in the E1 area,” including those who have submitted tender bids, offered guarantees to such bids, signed development or lease agreements, provided construction-related services or financed related infrastructure.
The sanctions would “block and prohibit all transactions in property and interests in property” of such a person in the U.S., with exceptions made for those providing humanitarian assistance or conducting intelligence activities in the area.
“The E1 settlement project is a move towards de facto annexation of the West Bank,” Warren stated. “Those who choose to facilitate settlement construction should understand that they risk losing access to the U.S. financial system.”
Wyden, who has a similar record of backing Israel while criticizing Netanyahu, slammed the prime minister’s “disgraceful policy of expanding West Bank settlements,” noting that such activity “crosses a clear red line and makes Palestinian statehood and lasting peace even more difficult.”
He, too, urged the U.S. to “stand up against Netanyahu’s campaign of violence and aggression against Palestinian civilians” by sanctioning those who “are complicit in this unlawful action.”
The fourth co-author, Gallego, in recent months has shifted his stance from pro-Israel centrist to a fierce and outspoken opponent of the country’s current military operations.
“Proposed Israeli construction of new settlement homes in the E1 area would cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank and threaten a viable Palestinian state,” he said.
Describing the project as “a step in the wrong direction,” he noted that “for decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have pushed for a two-state solution.”
Coons, Warren, Wyden and Gallego are not alone in hammering the advancement of the E1 project. Their bill followed collective action taken by the United Kingdom, France and Canada earlier this month, when the countries decided to ban goods from West Bank settlements and Jewish areas of East Jerusalem.
At the same time, the U.K. and 11 other nations released a joint statement announcing “their intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements which are illegal under international law.”
At the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham warned that the E1 settlement’s construction would “threaten to put a viable Palestinian state beyond reach.”
“We want to see the suffering and death finally come to an end,” Burnham added. “We want to see Israeli and Palestinian people living side by side in peace and security.”
Back in Washington, joining the four co-authors of the bill were 15 other senators who signed on as cosponsors, most of whom are likewise long-time allies of Israel but sharp critics of the Netanyahu government.
The co-sponsors include Michael Bennet of Colorado, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Andy Kim of New Jersey, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Patty Murray of Washington, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Adam Schiff of California, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Peter Welch of Vermont.
The liberal pro-Israel group J Street welcomed the legislation, with its president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, declaring “the end of the era in which right-wing Israeli governments could ignore U.S. demands to halt settlement expansion.”
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