Kadish
Yehouda Chaki, 2008, Oil on canvas
The Kaddish is a hymn sung during Jewish services to magnify the name of God. Here, in this layered and ironic painting, Chaki freights the Kaddish with sinister undertones. The cacophony of faces – anguished, proud, smug, confused, self-assured – posed amidst imagery of war and violence reflects the often twisted and complicated ways in which we offer up our praise. The tableau thus doubles as a postmodern Mourner's Kaddish, recited in memory of the dead; unlike in the Hebrew text, however, Chaki makes explicit reference to death, which cannot honestly be excised from either Jewish history or the last century.