Hi guys, as some of you may know I am a practicing and proud Canadian Jew. I went to hebrew school for 10 years and speak the language fluently. I am not completely observant, although I do keep kosher and I can admit I'm not the best jew out there...but I did spend this summer in Israel.

So being me, I was bored so I typed in the words yiddish, then hebrew, then jewish into the search for DevArt.

For yiddish is was some gag yiddish slang used all around the world even in non-jewish communities (e.g. shmutz, oi vey, putz, kvetch etc.) For hebrew is was scrolls and magen davids presented in various beautiful ways.

For Judaism...an overwhelming majority were photos of cemeteries. This, to me, is a little disturbing. The jewish people have been known throughout the centuries for their art. When I visited Israel there were so many beautiful sculptures, paintings, stained glass EVERYTHING! It was incredible and gorgeous. There were also so many themes and subjects!

There is so much more to us than the holocaust, we have over 5 thousand years of history before that! There is more to us than deaths. I don't mean to disrespect anyone, that was an awful tragedy that affected the whole world; my own family included. But why is it that the word 'Jew' must be immediately linked to 'death'?

From now on I'm going to start making more jewish art, I'm going to make hamsahs and menorahs, kabbalah paintings and charms. I'm going to help in bringing back the memory of the original themes of jewish art: family and belief.

Help support Jewish art. Help to bring it back to it's roots!