Inside the treasures of the Marc Chagall windows in Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital

Many synagogues have beautiful stained windows but the synagogue windows at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem are bonafide works of art by acclaimed Jewish artist, Marc Chagall. 

It might seem odd to have such glorious art in a hospital, but as then president of Hadassah, Miriam Freud-Rosenthal understood, beauty heals. She asked the artist to work on the windows knowing they would be a great asset to the medical center. He was more than honored and ended up donating his work as a gift.

The trouble with treasures is that they need to be carefully kept, and these precious windows are no exception. Due to the danger from missiles during the recent Iran attack, the Chagall windows have been boarded up for protection until recently. Now the boards have come down allowing the light to flood back in, and the windows are back on display, in all their glory.

ALL ISRAEL NEWS correspondent, Kayla Sprague, went to see them for herself.

“These breathtaking stained glass masterpieces aren’t just remarkable for their beauty and biblical symbolism,” Sprague reported, pointing out that this wasn’t the first war in which they had to be boarded up. "These windows behind me carry a legacy that’s both deeply spiritual and historically resilient.” 

There are twelve windows, one for each tribe of Israel, depicting the blessings that Jacob gave his twelve sons, based on passages from the Bible in Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33. The colors are bright and bold, and the symbolism deeply biblical and significant, as guide Shira Esther explains.

Marc Chagall was born in 1887 in Vitebsk, Belarus (then part of the Russian empire), but traveled to France and other European countries throughout his career. The early twentieth century was a tumultuous time, with wars and revolutions impacting Russia, Europe, and the world. As he was developing as an artist, so-called “avante garde” art movements, the term itself being military, sought to revolutionize the old styles of artistic representation, moving away from the realism of the 400 year long renaissance era and toward a more emotional expression.

A contemporary of Picasso and Modigliani, Chagall’s style was free and fluid, over time adopting more and more biblical symbolism.

Chagall encountered emerging artistic movements such as Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Impressionism, Dadaism, Abstractionism and Surrealism, the influence of which can be seen in his work. The bold, bright colors that characterize the windows are testimony to the influence of Fauvism, which favored the use of simplified shapes and strong colors.

Perhaps even more the ebbs and flows of artistic movements, the increasingly acclaimed Chagall was influenced by the Bible and matters of faith. While living in France, he became friends with Father Couturier, a Dominican priest and art consultant who commissioned Chagall to create a large ceramic mural Notre-Dame de toute Grâce Church in Assy along with stained-glass windows for the baptistry – his first venture in creating windows.

Chagall came to Tel Aviv in 1931, at the invitation of the city’s Mayor, who wanted to establish a Jewish Art Museum. Following his first visit to the Land, he started on 40 gouache paintings to illustrate the Bible, works now on display at the Musée National Marc Chagall in France. He also leaned into Christian themes of the crucifixion to represent Jewish alienation, scapegoating and suffering. All in all, the Bible became a great source of artistic inspiration throughout his career.

Naturally then, when he was asked to create stained-glass windows for the Hadassah medical center in Ein Kerem, he was more than happy to help, saying, “I waited my entire life to give to the Jewish people” according to Esther. She told ALL ISRAEL NEWS that in the process of making windows he said he “felt his forefathers with him.” Featuring recognizably Jewish motifs such as the shofar, the Star of David, sheep, candles, and gleaming colors, the windows tell the story of the tribes of Israel.

The window representing the tribe of Levi displays the ten commandments bathed in yellow to represent the purity of the holiness required for priests. The window for Asher depicts a dove with an olive branch, representing peace and happiness. The whole collection, according to Chagall, represents a “message of biblical love, friendship, and peace among all peoples.”

The finished works were dedicated on Feb. 6,1962, during Hadassah’s Golden Anniversary. Before installation they were first exhibited first in the Louvre in Paris, and then at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for a time, drawing over 175 ,000 visitors including U.S. President John F. Kennedy. He praised them as extraordinary.

Though the windows have been through the wars and even suffered damage in 1967, the repairs also contribute to the message of resilience, hope, and healing. Perfect for a hospital, wouldn’t you say?

Guided tours of the windows at Hadassah Medical Center are available upon request from Sunday to Thursday, 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. in English, Hebrew, French, and German, with audio guides also in Dutch and Spanish.