For many immigrants, they had heard about Lady Liberty before they arrived. Emma Lazarus wrote her famous poem "The Collosus" in 1883. It was added to the Statue of Liberty in 1903. The first Yiddish translation I could find was done in 1938 (and you can now read both side by side).
As I worked on this painting I thought about my great-grandmother traveling alone with three children under four, leaving for America from a port far from home. What was that journey like? What would she miss? Did she know that soda water would pay the bills in America? That she would raise her children in a Jewish farming community funded by one of the richest men in the world?
36" x 36" acrylic painting on wood canvas.
$36 will be donated to the Yiddish Book Center