From today’s WSJ:

Throughout his life, even when he briefly held a position as Soviet commissar for art in Vitebsk after the Revolution, Chagall was drawn to what we might call a "pre-Christian" Jesus, a Jewish Jesus who would not have understood himself as in any way existing beyond the boundaries of the normative Judaism of his time. In his letters and interviews, Chagall lamented the schism that detached Jesus from the Jewish family, and he was deeply attached to "Christ as a poet and a prophetic figure." He painted crucifixion scenes throughout his long life. A uniform interpretation of these works, however, remains unattainable.

After Kristallnacht–Nov. 9, 1938–the night on which Jewish businesses throughout Germany were looted, synagogues burned and Jews attacked, Chagall (who was living in France) produced his own "Guernica" with a painting titled "White Crucifixion" (1938). It shows the martyred Jesus wearing a prayer shawl around his waist, representing Jewish suffering under Nazi persecution. As news of the destruction of the Jews reached the U.S., where Chagall had fled in 1941, he executed a dozen more crucifixion scenes.