Raphael Gribetz at his home in Presque Isle, Maine. (Janine Strong/ via JTA)
Raphael Gribetz at work on a crucifix for a local Catholic parish in Presque Isle, Maine. (Courtesy of Gribetz/ via JTA)
Artist Raphael Gribetz has made his home in the northern Maine city of Presque Isle since 1988. (Scott Olson/ vis JTA)
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (JTA) In this speck of a city lives an artist who starts his mornings swathed in a tallit and tefillin, spends most of his days making biblically inspired works of art and whiles away the evenings picking out Schubert sonatas on the piano.
Artist Raphael Gribetz has lived in the northern Maine city of Presque Isle since 1985. (Scott Olson)
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PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (JTA) In this speck of a city lives an artist who starts his mornings swathed in a tallit and tefillin, spends most of his days making biblically inspired works of art and whiles away the evenings picking out Schubert sonatas on the piano.
Raphael Gribetz has lived in Presque Isle since 1985, when he and his late wife moved here from the even more remote Portage Lake (population: 391) so she could pursue a degree in social work.
Presque Isle is hundreds of miles and a world away from the Maine of postcard-perfect lighthouses and craggy shorelines, and it’s an unlikely destination for a yeshiva-educated man born into an Orthodox family of seven children in New York City in 1952. But Gribetz has been defying expectations for much of his life.