Taliatha Palmer and Dr. Mark Magleby, Visual Arts

Marc Chagall was an artist keenly aware of his own historicity. He was familiar with contemporary artistic philosophies and movements as well of those of the past. Raised as an Orthodox Jew, Chagall had a firm understanding and passion for the history of Judaism and was fully cognizant of the role that he as an influential Jewish artist played in the story of his people. With this understanding of history, Chagall, upon accepting the commission in 1959 to do a series of stained glass windows for the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, conceptualized the work as a tribute to the past. In part, the windows were a tribute to a particular work of art, a synagogue wall painting produced in Dura Europos (modern Syria) in the 3rd century. In comparing the composition, symbolism, and subject matter used in the Durene work to those used in Chagall=s studies for the windows, the influence of the one on the other is apparent. Understanding why Chagall chose to reference the wall painting has, therefore, been the focus of my research.

As part of my original proposal, I assumed two challenges facing Chagall in his commission: the integration of a Christian medium in Jewish surroundings, and the rendering of the twelve tribes within the confines of Jewish law that there be no figural representation in a synagogue. My assumption was that Chagall referenced the Durene work to make his own seem more eastern, and more traditionally Jewish. It was on this premise that I began my formal research, conducted from January to April in Israel. Through my study, however, I discovered that my assumption was incorrect. The period in which the synagogue wall painting was produced was not the proudest moment in Jewish history and was by no means traditional, making my original thesis unlikely. Dura Europos was a community in the diaspora that was under Roman rule and heavy Persian influence. Many Jewish traditions were compromised and Hellenized. Dura was figuratively as far from Jerusalem as Chagall had been, living in France.

Though the Durene Jews were unorthodox, the writings of contemporary historians such as Abba Eban and Jacob Neusner suggest that the modern Jewish view on these people is not one of condemnation but of sympathy. The Durene Jews had to adapt in order to prosper in their surroundings, just as many Jews living in Europe, the United States and elsewhere have adapted since. Dura is a symbol of the conditions for Jews living in the diaspora for the last twenty centuries.

With this alternate view of the Jews at Dura Europos, and with extensive supporting research, I formulated a new thesis. Since April, I have produced a draft of my conclusions. Currently, I am working with my faculty mentor, Mark Magelby, preparing the paper to be submitted for publication. The following is the introduction and thesis that I developed through my research:

“The story of the Jewish people is characterized by a series of exiles and homecomings. A pervasive feature of the Jewish culture, the longing for a homecoming inspired the rise of Zionism and the establishment of the state of Israel. For decades prior to the 1948 UN mandate, and for decades since, the spirit of Zionism has been a perfervid force, welcoming its centuries of exiles into a land where they are sovereign. It was amid this fervor that in 1959 Marc Chagall was commissioned to create the stained-glass windows for the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center synagogue in Jerusalem. As his first major artistic work produced for the state of Israel, this commission gave Chagall an opportunity to contribute his own ideas of exile and homecoming to the infant nation. The subject of the windows was to be the twelve tribes of Israel, a subject infrequently depicted in art. In creating the windows, however, Chagall was able to reference an earlier source, a synagogue wall painting of Jacob blessing his sons, unearthed twenty-five years earlier in the third century Roman/Persian city of Dura Europos. The synagogue had been built and adorned by Jews who had been forced by political and economic hardship to leave their Judean home, and settle in Babylonia. In integrating some of the painting’s non-figural compositional elements Chagall symbolically welcomed home to Jerusalem the Jews of Dura Europos and the diaspora.”