Since Yehudah Pen established an art school there in 1897, the Russian (now Belarusian) city of Vitebsk was a center of Jewish art; its most famous native son was Marc Chagall, who studied at Pen’s academy along with the great Soviet Jewish artist El Lissitzky. Chagall left his hometown first for St. Petersburg and then for France in 1897, but returned home in 1914 and, from 1918 to 1922, served as “plenipotentiary for the affairs of art in the province of Vitebsk,” running an art academy that attracted some of Russia’s most important painters. Frances Brent, reviewing an exhibit that was first at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and is now at the Jewish Museum in New York, describes Chagall’s time in the city and its influence on his work:

Last week, Hamas resumed launching explosives attached to balloons and kites into Israel, one of which landed in the southern town of Arad. The IDF responded with airstrikes, and the terrorist group first test-fired a barrage of missile into the Mediterranean and then fired a missile at an Israeli town—provoking further counterstrikes. Why disturb the peace now? Because, writes Yoav Limor, the monthly aid Hamas receives from Qatar is set to expire next month: