The Chassidic Artist's Tale

Chenoch Lieberman was born April 12, 1900 in Polotsk, Russia. His parents, Menachem Mendel Futerfas and Mariashe Bodana, came from a long line of Chassidim. As with so many other Eastern European Jewish families, harsh circumstances soon forced the family, with three children, to move, first to Dvinsk, now part of Latvia, and then to Kharkov in the Ukraine.

Menachem Mendel's artistic impulse — he sketched and played the violin — was transmitted to his son Chenoch at an early age. But Chenoch was soon orphaned; his father died when Chenoch was only seven years old. Nevertheless, his father's love of music would appear repeatedly in the paintings of the later, mature artist.

Young Chenoch was a compulsive sketcher and every surface was fair game for his drawings. He later recalled: "I would draw and sketch on books and discourses. I felt a 'soul-need' to draw. I was caught up, mainly, in drawing portraits and landscapes." The walls of his house were soon turned into murals, and even the young boy's prayer books were not safe from the lad's busy pen.

At the age of twelve, Chenoch was sent to the Yeshiva in Lubavitch in White Russia, where he studied at the home of Rabbi Shmuel Gronem Esterman, a noted thinker and teacher in the community.

At about this age, Chenoch’s artistic yearnings began to flower. Young Chenoch was attracted to the outside world which beckoned with increasing intensity. He developed a taste for culture: concerts, operas, fashion and the fashionable life. Lieberman longed to paint everything he saw around him. But he was a Chassidic boy, and Chassidim were expected to disregard the world of secular style.

The conflict was deep and seemingly fundamental. For Chenoch, the dilemma appeared irreconcilable: either he remain a Chassidic Jew or renounce his tradition and enter the “outside” world. The notion that his Chassidism would encompass his artistic temperament did not seem possible. Several times Chenoch tried to run away from the town of Lubavitch, only to be retrieved by his mother.

But these were turbulent times in Russia and individual dramas were soon eclipsed by the massive upheavals of history. Between 1910 and 1920, Russia was shaken by two revolutions, bled by a brutal World War and anguished by famine and disease. The next years were especially difficult for Jews.

The uprooting of families became a regular occurrence, and in 1916 Chenoch and his family relocated again, this time to Moscow.

The leadership of Lubavitch was also endangered. Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber Schneersohn, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was forced to flee the approaching German Army. He moved eastward to resettle in Rostov-on-the-Don.

By 1920, Chenoch was studying art in Moscow and learning the business skills he would need for his family's textile business. Chenoch soon started a family of his own: in 1925 he married Bryna Friedman, and four years later he was the father of two daughters.

But the transformation of Russia into the communist Soviet Union would render his business preparation useless. Stalin’s murderous secret police roamed the country and Jewish life became especially precarious. Jewish institutions, rites and rituals were forced underground.

Yet, during this very period, the next Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, planted seeds of Torah and Judaism that would sprout a vigorous form of Yiddishkeit generations later. Far below the surface desolation, the Rebbe dispersed teachers and rabbis throughout the Soviet Union and they established Jewish schools wherever they settled.

Chenoch Lieberman supported his young family by working with uncle in the oil business, but his passion lay elsewhere. He hungered to paint; it was only in front of the canvas that he felt fulfilled. “What am I to do?” he implored. “I can’t help it if G‑d gave me a talent.”

A turning point occurred in 1927. Lieberman had been bedridden for several months with an ulcer when he was visited by Innocento Zhukov. Zhukov, a well-known sculptor and disciple of the great Rodin, had seen Lieberman's work and wanted to submit one of his paintings to a national art competition. He had his eye on a small Lieberman painting depicting ice skaters on a rink.

Lieberman's painting won first prize and a six-year scholarship for Lieberman to the acclaimed Moscow Academy of Art. Perhaps more importantly, this was the first confirmation for Lieberman that he was a serious artist. He devoted himself to his studies with renewed enthusiasm, surging through his course requirements at the Academy in half the usual time.

The final requisite for his diploma necessitated spending time in the field, and Lieberman decided to travel to Birobidjan, Siberia, 6,000 miles east of Moscow. A year earlier, in 1928, under Stalin's edict, the remote area had become the official "new homeland" for Soviet Jews who would now have their own territory — as did such other ethnic groups in the Soviet Union as the Armenians, the Uzbeks, the Azarbaijanis and the Kazakhs.

Bordered on the South by Mongolia and on the North by the Burreya and Khingh mountains, the wilderness of Birobidjan presented its own unique, pristine beauty. It was in this harsh but colorful environment that Chenoch, not yet thirty, began the chronicle of his people, the Jews of Eastern Europe.

Artist at the Table by Checnoch Lieberman. Color pencil, 1972.

The colors of Birobidjan came alive in Chenoch’s painterly hand. Men and women danced off the canvas with a bold dignity — from Chassidim studying Torah to Siberian workers happily sitting still as Lieberman drew their portraits.

The Jews of Birobidjan were an isolated and persecuted lot. In his later works, Chenoch Lieberman would movingly recapture these difficult times.

After being in Birobidjan a year, Lieberman returned to Moscow and spent the 1930’s employed by the government as a commercial artist. His assignments often included depictions of dedicated workers and posters proclaiming the virtues of communism. He gained a measure of fame and exhibited in museums, including the prestigious Tretiakov. But tragic times lay ahead.

In 1939, when he was nearly forty years old, Lieberman was forced to leave his family and join the Red Army's defense against the advancing Nazis. Twice he was wounded in combat, the second time in 1943, in the decisive battle of Stalingrad.

Chenoch Lieberman came home to horror. His entire family - his wife and his daughters, Bluma and Leah - had gone to live with his in-laws in the town of Brayan. There, unprotected from the German onslaught, they had been rounded up by the Nazis, forced to dig their own graves and murdered.

Devastated, Lieberman didn't know where to turn. His own life now in mortal danger, he, along with many others of the Lubavitcher community, sought refuge in Samarkand, the ancient city in Soviet Asia.

Immediately after the war, the Soviet Union issued a prohibition against any Soviet nationals leaving the country. As a means to escape this prison, Chenoch dropped his family name, Futerfas, and adopted the more Polish sounding name, Lieberman. This name would help allow him to "return" to Poland, posing as a displaced Pole.

Together with his mother, sisters, younger brother Mendel and Mendel's wife, Chenoch Lieberman made his way to the border. Though the rest of the party made it safely across, Mendel was caught and imprisoned by Stalin's secret police for helping Russians escape the country. He spent the next fifteen years in Soviet work camps.

Poland was a temporary and unpleasant stop for the family; the trek continued westward. Chenoch made his way to Paris and became part of its growing Lubavitcher community, while his family went on to England. The spiritual leader of Lubavitch, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneerson, had settled in New York, and Chenoch Lieberman, his life shattered, sought the Rebbe's counsel about the one thing which still had meaning for him: reconciling his art with his religion. The Rebbe understood precisely Lieberman's needs and potential: Lieberman was an artist, and must recreate the world as he saw it. The artist is driven to imbue the world with his own unique sensitivity and perspective - this was Chenoch Lieberman's calling. The Rebbe explained that for the true Chassid, all aspects of life must be brought together in a larger harmony. The means of serving and understanding G‑d are varied, and they include the way of the artist. Any conflict Lieberman felt between his artistic inclinations and his Chassidic way of life was thus resolved, and he became consumed by painting. Lieberman reached down into his own deep spiritual resources and turned to his work with a renewed vision and enthusiasm. Paris was the ideal city to nourish his artistic inspiration, and Lieberman's painting flourished.

Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn. Detail from "Histalkus" by Chenoch Lieberman. Oil on Canvas, 1950's,

While Lieberman was in London, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneerson, passed away. In his mourning, Lieberman sketched "The Histalkus" (The Passing), one of his most powerful pencil drawings. The picture portrays a desolate wilderness with bare, twisted trees, and, as far as the eye can see, black-hatted Chassidim sitting on the ground, their hands held to their heads in grief. In the sky looms the face of the previous Rebbe, and behind him, the shadowy faces of deceased spiritual leaders welcoming the new soul into heaven.

But the burden of history and personal tragedies continued to weigh heavily on Lieberman. He questioned again whether painting was a proper vocation for him, but once again he turned to his spiritual guide, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

The new Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, son in-law of Joseph Isaac Schneerson, also urged Lieberman not to abandon his talent, but to use it in the service of G‑d and humanity. In a letter to Lieberman, Rabbi Schneerson captured the essential calling of the artist. Click here to read the letter

Lieberman did not remain in London for long. He soon moved to the United States and the growing Chassidic community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, centered around the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Chenoch Lieberman derived great comfort from the religious understanding that Chassidism provided. Now living in physical proximity to the Rebbe, he flourished even more. Here he was, an artist occupying an honored position behind the Rebbe at prayers, celebrations and lectures. Chenoch soon became an important figure in the life of Lubavitch Brooklyn.

"Let me tell you a story," Chenoch recalled, explaining his unusual career. "One day, many years ago, I came to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

"The Rebbe" by Checnoch Lieberman. Oil on canvas, 1960's

"How is your art coming along?" he asked. "I want to hold an exhibition," I answered.

"Yes, yes, of course," said the Rebbe. "You should. Each person on this earth is allotted a task. You have a talent... use it. Use it to encourage Jews to return to their Judaism. True, in the old days, painting was not considered an acceptable way to achieve this aim. Today it is. It is your way." And so it was.

Painting with a renewed intensity, Lieberman exhibited in galleries and Chassidic communities around the world, from New York to Australia.

Lieberman's Chassidic life became increasingly intertwined with his artistic life. He once asked his nephew: "Do you want to know what an artist is? I'll tell you. You know I sit behind the Rebbe at the "farbrengen" (Chassidic gatherings centering on scholarly talks by the Rebbe, punctuated by heartfelt communal singing). By the time the Rebbe has begun his second talk, I have entirely forgotten what he just spoke about in the first talk. But I remember a pattern of light and shade underneath the Rebbe's chair for forty years."

Lieberman painted in his Brooklyn studio, but relished the return to nature afforded him by peaceful summer sojourns to a Catskill Mountain bungalow community and his occasional trips to the Miami Beach waterfront.

As the years progressed, Lieberman’s visage became increasingly rabbinical. His once fiery red beard became white and flowing. It struck some as incredibly incongruous that the bearded man in the talis (prayer shawl) was indeed an artist. But the traditional look of the artist meant less to Lieberman than the look of the traditional Jew.

Lieberman lived in Crown Heights for a quarter of a century. He was called Uncle Hendel by children in the community and Maitre Hendel by the art students he taught and influenced deeply.

Michoel Muchnik, who was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design during the 1970’s, spoke of Lieberman as his main attraction to the Crown Heights Lubavitch community: “More than anything else, it was Lieberman’s paintings that made me feel the spirit of Lubavitch, of Chassidism. Seeing his paintings made me see the Jewish spirit.”

Chenoch Lieberman fused his Chassidism and painting into a continuous intense life activity. His attachment to Lubavitch permeated his life. An unrelenting joie de vivre sustained and anchored a life beset with terrible personal tragedy and dislocation and Lieberman continued sketching even from his deathbed, sending some very personal, poignant pieces as a present to his Rebbe. After a prolonged stomach ailment, he passed away on March 15, 1976.