On Memorial Religious Seeing in Judaism
Idolatry, as discussed in the article, is either “an improper form of worship” or “the improper god being worshiped”. Icon is a medium bridging the past and the present while idol is the object for worship. [1](Plate, 240) In that sense, I can see the three memorials not as memory itself but as medium that remind people of the past memories, though they are somewhat somehow created intentionally to resemble the real objects of the past---like the poet carved on the railcar, the special smell of oil, which might mislead people to believe them to be the real “idol” thus generating the practice of worship.
For the three memorials, these artworks express certain personal or cultural values of artists but whether the interpretation is religious or not can be determined by the viewers through their personal values and whether they see them as icons to reminisce or idols to worship. Thus to make some religious, for one thing, the displayed should be the real object and for another, the viewers t should take it as generator for worship---the religious practice. For example, the three memorials invoke the heavy memory of the past and the call for peace and love from the Judaism. However, if the viewers take the displayed railcar as the real ones used during war time, acknowledge all they see to be part of the history and stand in awe at them---which could be the practice of worship, then the “seeing” becomes religious seeing and the act becomes idolatry.
To answer the last question, art, as I see it, is something of aesthetic and various cultural values which could embody religious value. In Judaism, to worship, or rather say---to be in awe of anything else more than God can be idolatry. That could be part of the contradiction brought by those art forms related to Judaism.
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