Rabbi Norman Lamm, Chancellor, Yeshiva University:
“The author of this volume is doubly blessed - a brilliant and talented artist and a writer who manages, in few words, to illuminate the painting and offer his own ideas, often striking in their originality. The reader should not expect a history of the Holocaust or an attempt to evoke tears. There are others who have done so with varying degrees of success. But this work is more; it is one which masterfully engages your eyes and brains at the same time. The reader will learn something of the history of the Holocaust, and there will be enough to tug at his or her heartstrings. But Lebovic’s stunning achievement is a triumph of synthesis, blending art and intellect - and, in addition, with appropriate citations from the vast literature of Judaism, from the Bible to the Talmud to Hasidism, often accompanied by his own original interpretations.”
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Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust scholar, American Jewish University:
"Stan Lebovic's, Black is a Color, is a truly original contribution to Jewish Art and post-Holocaust Jewish thought. His artistic works are a compelling and inviting confrontation with the Event of the Shoah and its implications for our religious life. The confrontation is powerful and open, probing and bold. His commentary is intriguing. Like most good theology after the Shoah, he asks more questions than he answers and invites the viewer and the reader to probe more deeply, ask more profoundly, and engage more completely. The ultimate question: how can one believe in a loving, personal God after the murder on European Jews? This is a brave work that confronts the problem, It offers insights that satisfy for a time but should embolden and deepen."
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Rabbi Berel Wein, Director Destiny Foundation
"Black is a Color is certainly an excellent example of artistic and literary talent. It presents the Holocaust in a unique and graphic fashion and gives the reader a deeper sense of that singular time and event of evil run amok. It portrays the quest for faith after all of the horrors of the Holocaust by its survivors and their descendants. It is deeply personal but it conveys broad and important ideas that can touch every human being trying to make sense of the completely irrational behavior that evil unloosed can engender. How to deal with God and self after such a tragedy is the question that troubles all thinking religious people. This book can help one grapple with that existential issue."
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Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, Executive Vice President, Emeritus, Orthodox Union
"This book offers a highly unusual but very important and different perspective on the Holocaust, it's survivors, and their children. It does so in a highly unusual but brilliantly creative modality - an amalgam of art and poetry. It is a powerful and original work - worthy of publication !!"
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Mrs. Ruth Lichtenstein, President and editor Hamodia
"Jarringly beautiful and profoundly moving, Stan Lebovic fuses multiple mediums - text, photography, and remarkable artistry - to create an eloquent visual masterpiece. Mr. Lebovic's work heightens the viewer's and reader's consciousness of the unique spirit that pervaded the Jewish experience of the Holocaust."
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Rabbi David Fohrman, Resident scholar, Hoffberger Foundation
"In Black is a Color, Stan Lebovic, son of a Holocaust survivor, offers us a window into his personal quest to wrestle with the darkness that engulfed his father's world. His chosen medium is art -- and the works that he has created are, by turns, wrenching and profound; intimate and provocative; unnerving, revelatory, and, ultimately, redemptive. To see the Holocaust through Stan's eyes is to look at this cataclysmic event in a deeply personal way, and to wrestle -- vicariously, along with him -- with the really big questions: How one can relate to the God who allowed all this to happen; how one can integrate great suffering into one's life; how one can confront great fear and horror, and -- rather than turn away from it -- truly make black a color to be painted with in the palette of one's life."
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Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, Director of Interfaith Affairs, Simon Wiesenthal Center
"Art is powerful. Midrash is powerful. Successfully merging the two is overpowering. I was bowled over by this work. The haunting images are evocative and spellbinding in their own right, combining the darkest motifs of the Holocaust with imagery of the fullness of Jewish life. Together with the accompanying text, they are not only a profound response to the Holocaust, but a series of theological statements. I immediately thought of Marc Chagall's works of crucifixion-in-a-talit, and recognized this work as a far more traditional declaration of what an artist - himself the son of a survivor - came to understand and wishes to teach."
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Mr. Albert Dov Friedberg, Philanthropist
"It's terrifying, but full of hope, harsh but at the same time sweet. The vivid colors highlight Evil and bring it shockingly close to us, in contrast to the generally dreary pictures of that time and place. In short, you have created an extraordinary experience. The artist's comments, framed as an inner dialogue, convincingly convey an ongoing struggle and fascination with the subject matter." |
