Funky Jewish Art

Someone e-mailed me the other day wanting to know where I found the image that I am using as my profile picture:

The art comes from the mind of Avraham Lowenthal, a well known painter who lives in the holy city of Tzfat; Avrohom draws inspiration from certain Kabbalistic teachings to inform his work, and designs some of his pieces to be mandalas to facilitate meditation. I personally love his usage of vibrant colors and concentric circles in a lot of his paintings. His site can be visited here.

Another artist whose work I really enjoy is Rabbi Yoel Rackovsky, a teacher in Netiv Aryeh, a yeshiva in the Old City in Jerusalem. He specializes in beautifully intricate papercuts - mainly Ketubot - but he also has an array of Eishet Chayil and Shabbos Candle Lighting pieces as well. His site's name is Ituryn, and it's worth it to take a look. An added bonus is that when you buy from him, you're supporting the Torah, because he is involved with the learning and dissemination of Torah on a daily basis.

The last art site I want to feature is Alefs in Wonderland by Josh Baum, a british artist who draws on the beauty of the hebrew letters to inspire his papercuts and other forms of art. Below is a small sampling, but you really need to check out the site to get the real feel of his style...

Enjoy!