Halleluja

The book was created during Zeev Kratka’s stay in Düsseldorf, Germany, as part of an artist exchange program. His experiences there—as a Jew and as a Mizrahi Israeli—provoked reflections on ideology, identity, and racism, which found expression in the book.

The book itself, written in German, was found by the artist случайно. On its cover appears the word Halleluja, alongside the American flag and the eagle—a symbol familiar in both American and German cultures. Kratka blackened the pages, obscuring the original text and creating an abstract, expressive painting, onto which he added images and inscribed words. While the images engage with social, political, and religious power relations, the words are fragments of information that surfaced in his mind from conversations, thoughts, and events; when read sequentially, they form a narrative.