Ars Judaica

Abstract

A watershed yields a branching – of physical terrain, historical events, or spiritual and aesthetic concepts. Such an idea is particularly relevant to the city of Jerusalem. The exhibit Jerusalem between Heaven and Earth encompassed multiple divergences that begin with the geological topography of Jerusalem. That topography, which consists of an outcropping of land from the Judean plain, surrounded by valleys on three sides, offers a symbolic statement of how the spiritual foundations of Jerusalem branch out in three Abrahamic directions and how multiple ramifications, both legalistic and mystical, have flowed in diverse streams and have yielded watersheds of aesthetic and political questions, both historical and contemporary.