David Sperber

David Sperber is an art historian and frequent commentator on Israeli art. His works have appeared in both academic journals and the popular press, and include a series of monographs on Jewish Israeli art published by the Leiber Center for Jewish Art at Bar-Ilan University.

Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov

Arts and Culture

Appropriation or Reconciliation? Islamic Elements in the Art of Israeli Religious Women

By David Sperber

Women religious artists have sought to reclaim a common, local, cultural space (artistic, religious and concrete ) whereby religion and culture constitute a common ground for connection, and not only a platform for dispute and conflict.

Arts and Culture

Feminist Art in Traditional and Religious Judaism

By David Sperber

Jewish feminist art by women active in the traditional religious world is still a marginal phenomenon in the general art world and in the Israeli art field in particular. This article, together with the first major exhibit in a museum to exhibit such work, “Matronita: Jewish Feminist Art” (The Museum of Art Ein Harod) invites a reflection on the complexities of the feminist Jewish religious experience. David Sperber, one of the curators of the exhibition (with Dvora Liss), here reviews the artistic horizons of this fascinating dialogue.

Arts and Culture

Lipstick on a Torah Scroll: A Review of the Zimmun Show

By David Sperber and Translated from the Hebrew by Sara Friedman

Israeli critic Sperber’s review illuminates the Jewish turn away from modernism towards a re-imagining of Judaica. He focuses on artists Dov Abramson, Ken Goldman and Arik Weiss.