2003 – <em>Bayit</em>, Samuel Bak

The story of Samuel Bak (b.1933) encapsulates much of 20th century Jewish history: His first art exhibit was held under the shadow of deportations in the Vilna ghetto when he was 9, and his second was in a displaced-persons camp in Europe after he and his mother survived the war in hiding. Bak is one of the few Israeli artists to employ the language of surrealism. In this work, he depicts the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the first letter of the word for home, bayit, to symbolize the fragility, at times, of what we call home. (Image courtesy of Pucker Gallery)