Sean Raspet • “Texture Map (Normal) (C03),” 2014 • The Critical Resistance Benefit Auction

This poster advertising the 1934 Levant Fair in Tel Aviv, and glass lantern slide showing the Fair at night, both from our collection, convey the modern architecture and the excitement of this international exhibition which aimed to create economic ties between Israel and foreign countries. .

Happy birthday, Ian McDiarmid! We have watched your career with great interest.

George Elgar Hicks - On the seashore (1879)

With Director James Snyder today at the Israel Museum #israelmuseum . A fabulous museum and director #israel #jerusalem #ronagam #agam #greatmuseum #israelbest #jewish #art

Today I bought a siddur for Shabbat and weekdays which we also use in both synagogues I’m going to. I have no clue yet when to recite which prayers at home but I hope I will learn it soon. (Help is warmly welcome!)

Meeting with the Jewish Shepherd Avraham Herzlich in the field with his goat outside Tapuach (at צומת תפוח)

What a Fox. | http://cur.im/1iBu1UU

Fine Art Prints from $25, by Jay Fleck (USA)

The company that makes Legos has landed at the center of a social-media firestorm after Chinese artist Ai Weiwei complained that it refused to supply a bulk order of the toy bricks for his art.

Ai said he wanted to use the bricks for an exhibition on free speech at Australia’s National Gallery of Victoria. The museum attempted to place an order but was told by the company that it “cannot approve the use of Legos for political works."A post on Ai’s Instagram account said:

"As a powerful corporation, Lego is an influential cultural and political actor in the globalized economy with questionable values. Lego’s refusal to sell its product to the artist is an act of censorship and discrimination.”

A free-speech advocate who was imprisoned by the Chinese government, Ai suggested that Lego was acting under pressure from authorities. The privately held Danish company recently announced that a Legoland theme park will open in Shanghai. 

In response, fans of the artist flooded Twitter and Instagram with offers of Legos, and Ai said he was setting up drop-off points for donations. He also posted a picture of Legos that had been left inside a car on a street in Berlin, where he is serving as a visiting professor at the University of the Arts.

Fans Flood Artist Ai Weiwei With Offers Of Legos

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The synagogue in Chodorov, in western Ukraine, was built in 1652 completely of wood and has remarkable, multicolored painting on its walls and ceiling. The artist drew his inspiration from Jewish heritage, Hebraic motives, the Bible and Talmud and from hand-written, illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages. Reconstruction of a section of the ceiling at Tel Aviv Museum of the Diaspora.

More beauties here.

Rosh Hashanah 2015: The Jewish New Year Begins

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is celebrated in 2015 from sundown on Sept. 13 to the evening of Sept. 15. In the Hebrew calendar it falls on 1 and 2 Tishrei 5776.

Here’s what you need to know.