Photo/ Dan Porges /Getty Images
By Ed Carroll
There’s a fitting coincidence in the latest collaboration between the Cleveland Israel Arts Connection and Mishkan Or Museum: it features an artist known for uniting seemingly disparate themes and emotions.
The exhibit, Memory: Moshe Gershuni, showcases the work of Gershuni, an innovative and sometimes controversial Israeli artist recognized for blending Jewish and Christian imagery, grief, death, the Holocaust, and homoeroticism. Though Gershuni died in 2017, he remains one of Israel’s most important contemporary artists.
The exhibit’s centerpiece is “Kaddish,” a portfolio illustrating the poem of the same name by Jewish-American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, written in memory of his mother. One half of the work is displayed at the Roe Green Gallery at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Building, and the other at the Hartzmark Gallery at Congregation Mishkan Or’s Jack and Lilyan Mandel Building, both in Beachwood.
Gershuni’s gold leaf glows with both sorrow and radiance.
Photo / courtesy of The Jewish Federation of Cleveland
“Kaddish” features 24 screens on gold leaf, presented alongside both Ginsberg’s original text and a Hebrew translation by Israeli poet Natan Zach. In addition to half of the portfolio, each location will display other artworks by Gershuni. The exhibit runs through February 2026.
Katya Oicherman, museum director at Congregation Mishkan Or and co-curator of the exhibit, said Gershuni’s innovative work and uncompromising personality often made him controversial in Israel. She said he began to incorporate conceptual art into his practice, and in doing so, pushed Israeli art—then primarily focused on modernism and nationalist ideas—to embrace an international perspective and “speak the global language.” Beginning in the 1980s, she said, Gershuni primarily painted, creating a body of work that expressed both the beauty and the difficulty of Israeli Jewishness.
“He was able to bring together the experience of war and violence with homoerotic love, existential post-Holocaust grief with profound connection to the Jewish religious texts and prayers,” said Oicherman.
“Instead of trying to create the ‘new Jew,’ an infallible, masculine and victorious ‘Sabra’ [native born Israeli] construct, Gershuni challenged that ideal. He showed how vulnerable and full of inner contradictions this ‘new Jew’ is [and] how deeply he is connected to the diasporic Jewish past and European culture. His art speaks to us about the beauty and the suffering of being an Israeli Jew and reminds us of the responsibility and the price of the Jewish statehood.”
She said that the combination of Gershuni and Ginsberg was “strangely harmonious, as far as harmony is the right word to apply in their case,” and that the idea of interconnectedness was central to Gershuni’s work.
Gershuni’s shimmering gold leaf sits beside Allen Ginsberg’s poem, drawing viewers into a shared landscape of memory, mourning, and love.
Photo / courtesy of The Jewish Federation of Cleveland
“Israeli and Jewish identities are complex and interlinked,” she said. “Israel and diaspora are interlinked. Jewish pasts and presents are interlinked. Israel and the world are interlinked. Art even in its most local expression is always already reaching out, links itself to the global and the universal.”
She said Gershuni was able to portray both bodily love and passion, as well as loss and suffering—emotions she described as inescapable aspects of Israeli life.
“Love and grief cohabit his artistic universe, beauty and passion are always shadowed by death,” she said. “He incorporated citations from Jewish prayers and Biblical verses in his art, including the story of Isaak’s sacrifice. The beautiful son to be sacrificed by his father in the name of loving God. The grave tension and contradiction in this story are very meaningful and contemporary. Replace ‘God’ with ‘state’ and you’ll see fathers sacrificing their sons on the altar on the Jewish statehood. This powerful image and tension have never left the Israeli society but became embedded in the fabric of the Israeli experience.”
Matthew Garson, volunteer director of the Roe Green Gallery and co-curator of the exhibit, said he remembers the first time he saw “Kaddish” in June of 2023.
“I remember my immediate response, along with the other people I was with, on how stunning and powerful the work was,” he said. “I knew right then that I had to find a way to bring this to Cleveland. CIAC had never collaborated with anyone on an actual exhibition, only the programming for exhibitions. I felt this might be the perfect opportunity to branch out and split the show in half. This would expand the possibilities of the community experiencing the work of Moshe Gershuni.”
He said he felt it was appropriate to collaborate with a synagogue because the actual Kaddish is a Jewish prayer.
“I immediately thought of Congregation Mishkan Or because the Federation has a strong connection with them, they were close by and I knew they not only had an art program, but a gallery as well,” he said. “It made perfect sense to collaborate with them. When I approached Katya Oicherman, she didn’t even hesitate. She knew how important Gershuni was in the overall art history of Israel.”
Oicherman said the collaboration is a first for Congregation Mishkan Or, and one the congregation is excited about. She said the organizations joined resources—including people, knowledge and finances—to produce the project. Their combined efforts also made it possible to offer rich, diverse programming and outreach, encouraging visitors who might typically attend one location to explore both. The proximity of the two galleries doesn’t hurt, either.
“We also used our joint knowledge and expertise of the local cultural scene, extending the programming to partner with other cultural organizations locally, including Literary Cleveland, Cleveland Dia de los Muertos and Cleveland Public Theatre, Waterloo Arts, [Case Western Reserve University] Siegal Lifelong Learning, the Maltz Museum, Zygote Press,” she said. “It is an achievement and an inspiration for further collaborations, and we are grateful to all our amazing partners. Together, we are able to show how diverse and vital contemporary Jewish culture is, how relevant and approachable it is for Jews and non-Jews alike.”
Upcoming Related Events
Oicherman
Art Talk: Scandals, Secrets, and Struggles of Moshe GershuniLecture by Katya Oicherman, Ph.D., Presented by Congregation
Mishkan Or
Sunday, January 11, 2026 @ 1:00 pm
Moshe Gershuni was a truly “stiff-necked” individual and artist. From the early 1970s, he expressed ideas that went against the grain of the Israeli political and cultural establishment. When he broke through internationally in the 1980s, his life became especially turbulent and open to public judgment, culminating in his nomination for and disqualification from the Israeli Prize for painting in 2003.
To register, email koicherman@mishkanor.org or call 216-455-1697
Art Talk: Creating The Exhibition
Matthew Garson, Curator | Presented by Cleveland Israel Arts Connection, Jewish Federation
Sunday, January 18, 2026 @ 1:30 pm
Curator Matt Garson shares how a visit to a Jerusalem art gallery in spring 2023 evolved into the first Cleveland Israel Arts Connection exhibition shared between two Cleveland institutions.
For reservations, visit jewishcleveland.org or call 216-593-2900
Garson
Film Screening: The Life and Times of
Allen Ginsberg
A film by Jerry Aronson | Presented by the Maltz Museum
Wednesday, January 21, 2026 @ 7:00 pm – 2929 Richmond Road, Beachwood
This 1993 film chronicles poet Allen Ginsberg’s life, his views on death, and his creative journey. When Aronson showed the film to Ginsberg, he reportedly nodded thoughtfully and said, “So, that’s Allen Ginsberg.” After Ginsberg passed in 1997, Aronson updated the ending.
For information, visit maltzmuseum.org or call 216-593-0595
