Born in a remote Russian shtetl in the vicinity of Minsk, the artist Chaim Soutine (1894-1943) spent much of his career in France, where he rubbed elbows with other Jewish artists like Marc Chagall and Amedeo Modigliani. A series of 32 still-lifes he painted of animal carcasses is currently on display at the Jewish Museum in New York. Praising the exhibit, Andrew Shea cautions against making too much of the influence of history and biography on Soutine’s art:

After three inconclusive elections in a year’s time, Israel’s political stalemate seemed to come to an end last week when the leaders of the two largest parties—Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu—agreed to form a governing coalition together with some of the smaller parties. According to the deal, Netanyahu will serve as prime minister for eighteen months, after which he will be succeeded by Gantz. This compromise, paradoxically, has led to the breakup of Gantz’s Blue and White party, as two of its three constituent factions have refused to join the unity government. Their leaders have denounced Gantz for supposedly crumbling before Netanyahu, but Jonathan Tobin argues that he has acted bravely: