This month’s Oculus feature was created by Saul Rosenstreich, founding member and leader of the shul’s Judaism and Art group.

            Artist’s statement: This poster is about antisemitism, but it began as a purely creative exercise to rework one of my unfinished paintings. The shapes and colors that spontaneously emerged suggested a horrific monster, which I later tweaked into an image that resembled the Greek mythical Cerberus, the dog/snake animal that guarded the Underworld. It was a frightful image that seemed to embody wanton, vicious cruelty — like that associated with antisemitism, the history I recently had been reviewing.

The connection triggered a flood of emotions — anger, dismay, helplessness, and a desire to do something, anything. Fortuitously, I was working at my easel. My first thought was to do a poster because I could use words as well as images. In a pique of anger, I added images and graphics dictated by feelings, not reasoning or planning.

As the piece took shape, my anger dissipated, and I could reflect on what this poster had accomplished. On a personal level, it provided me with a new experience of artmaking. As for antisemitism, it is probably only another scream into the wind. But it just might be the first of many screams, some of which might be heard.