Illuminated Haggadah, (14th century)

The Haggadah (Hebrew: הַגָּדָה‎, "telling") is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. Reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the Scriptural commandment to each Jew to "tell your son" of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus in the Torah. ("And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: It is because of that which the LORD did for me when I came forth out of Egypt. " Ex.  13:8)

Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews also apply the term Haggadah to the service itself, as it constitutes the act of "telling your son."

Authorship[link]

According to Jewish tradition, the Haggadah was compiled during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods, although the exact date is unknown. It could not have been written earlier than the time of Rabbi Yehudah bar Elaay (circa 170 CE) who is the last tanna to be quoted therein. According to most Talmudic commentaries Rav and Shmuel argued on the compilation of the Haggadah,^{[note 1]} and hence it had not been completed as of then. Based on a Talmudic statement, it was completed by the time of Rav Nachman (mentioned in Pesachim 116a). There is a dispute, however, to which Rav Nachman, the Talmud was referring: According to some commentators, this was Rav Nachman bar Yaakov^{[note 2]} (circa 280 CE), while others maintain this was Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak (360 CE).^{[note 3]}

However the Malbim,^[1] along with a minority of commentators, believe that Rav and Shmuel were not arguing on its compilation, but rather on its interpretation, and hence was completed before then. According to this explanation; the Haggadah was written during the lifetime of Rav Yehudah haNasi,^{[note 4]} the compiler of the Mishna. The Malbim theorizes that the Haggadah was written by Rav Yehudah haNasi himself.

History[link]

The oldest complete manuscript of the Haggadah dates to the 10th century. It is part of a prayer book compiled by Saadia Gaon. The earliest known Haggadot produced as works in their own right are manuscripts from the 13th and 14th centuries, such as "The Golden Haggadah" (probably Barcelona c. 1320) and the "Sarajevo Haggadah" (late fourteenth century). It is believed that the first printed Haggadot were produced in 1482, in Guadalajara, Spain; however this is mostly conjecture, as there is no printer's colophon. The oldest confirmed printed Haggadah was printed in Soncino, Lombardy in 1486 by the Soncino family.

Although the Jewish printing community was quick to adopt the printing press as a means of producing texts, the general adoption rate of printed Haggadot was slow. By the end of the sixteenth century, only twenty-five editions had been printed. This number increased to thirty-seven during the seventeenth century, and 234 during the eighteenth century. It is not until the nineteenth century, when 1,269 separate editions were produced, that a significant shift is seen toward printed Haggadot as opposed to manuscripts. From 1900–1960 alone, over 1,100 Haggadot were printed.^[2]

While the main portions of the text of the Haggadah have remained mostly the same since their original compilation, there have been some additions after the last part of the text. Some of these additions, such as the cumulative songs "One little goat" ("חד גדיא") and "Who Knows One?" ("אחד מי יודע"), which were added sometime in the fifteenth century, gained such acceptance that they became a standard to print at the back of the Haggadah.

In recent times, attempts have been made to modernize and revitalize the Haggadah, but Orthodox Jews continue to adhere to the traditional texts.^[3]

Illuminated manuscripts[link]

The earliest Ashkenazi illuminated Haggada is known as the "Bird's Head Haggada",^[4] now in the collection of The Israel Museum in Jerusalem.^[5] The Rylands Haggadah (Rylands Hebrew MS. 6) is one of the finest Haggadot in the world. It was written and illuminated in Catalonia in the 14th century and is an example of the cross-fertilisation between Jewish and non-Jewish artists within the medium of manuscript illumination. In spring and summer 2012 it was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in the exhibition 'The Rylands Haggadah: Medieval Jewish Art in Context'.^[6][7]

Published in 1526, the Prague Haggadah is known for its attention to detail in lettering and introducing many of the themes still found in modern texts. Although illustrations had often been a part of the Haggadah, it was not until the Prague Haggadah that they were used extensively in a printed text. The Haggadah features over sixty woodcut illustrations picturing "scenes and symbols of the Passover ritual; [...] biblical and rabbinic elements that actually appear in the Haggadah text; and scenes and figures from biblical or other sources that play no role in the Haggadah itself, but have either past or future redemptive associations".^[8]

See also[link]

• Szyk Hagaddah
• Jewish ceremonial art
• Passover songs

Notes[link]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Scherman, Rabbi Nosson & Zlotowitz, Rabbi Meir, Artscroll youth haggadah: Mesorah Publications (ISBN 0-89906-232-6)
• Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim (1974). Haggadah and History. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. ISBN 0-8276-0046-1. 
• Mishkin, Edwin (2010). A Haggadah For The Nonobservant. Raleigh: lulu. ISBN 978-0-557-28494-8. 

External links[link]

• Yale University Haggadah Exhibit - You Shall Tell Your Children
• Hagadah of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin
• The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Hana Rovina
Hana Rovina in The Dybbuk (1920)
Born	1 April 1893
Died	February 3, 1980(1980-02-03) (aged 87)
Citizenship	Israeli
Occupation	Actress

Sol Hurok and Hana Rovina (1954)

Hanna Rovina (Hebrew: חנה רובינא‎) (born 1 April 1893, Berazino, Minsk district (guberniya); died 3 February 1980, Tel Aviv), written also Hannah, Hana, or Chana Rovina or Robina, Israeli actress, is recognised as the original "First Lady of Hebrew Theatre".^[1]

Biography[link]

Born in Belarus in the Russian Empire, she originally trained as a kindergarten teacher, at a course for Hebrew-speaking kindergarten teachers in Poland.

She began her career on stage at the "Hebrew Stage Theatre" of Nahum Tzemach. She joined the Habima theatre in 1917 just as it was being launched, and participated in its first production, a play by Yevgeny Vakhtangov. She became famous for her role as Leah'le, the young bride who is possessed by a demon in The Dybbuk by S. Ansky.^[2]

Rovina and the other actors of HaBima immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1928. She quickly became a symbol of the emergent Hebrew theatre, and especially of HaBima, which became the flagship of the new national theatre movement. For many years, the icon representing HaBima was a young girl in a white nightdress with two long tresses: Rovina in her role as Leah'le.^[3]

Rovina's room, in Habima Theatre

She filled every role she played with dramatic expression, taking every part very seriously and trying to live the life of the character, as prescribed by the Stanislavski School of acting. Outside the theatre, she was a non-conformist, even having a child out of wedlock with the Hebrew poet Alexander Penn, though this was very unusual for that time. Her lifestyle won her many admirers, even among people that did not frequent the theatre. Her admirers within the theatre included writer Nissim Aloni, who wrote a play, Aunt Liza, especially for her. Of course, Rovina played the lead.^[4]

Rovina had a very stern attitude regarding the theatre, and made high demands of her audience. She frequently stopped a play in the middle when she felt that the audience wasn't behaving appropriately. In one famous instance, she stopped the play Hannah Senesh right in the middle of a moving scene, when she was visiting her daughter in prison before her execution. Turning to a group of school children in the audience, she shouted at them to stop munching sunflower seeds.

Rovina was awarded the Israel Prize for theatre in 1956.^[5] She remained active on stage until her death, in 1980.^[6]

In 2005, she was voted the 162nd-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.^[7]

References[link]

See also[link]

• List of Israel Prize recipients
• Rovina

Yehoram Gaon
Background information
Born	(1939-12-28) December 28, 1939 (age 72) Jerusalem, Israel
Genres	Pop, Israeli music
Years active	1957–present
Labels	Hed Arzi Music

Yehoram Gaon (Hebrew: יהורם גאון) (informally, Yoram Gaon) (born December 28, 1939) is a Jewish Israeli singer, actor, director, producer, TV and radio host, and public figure. He has also written and edited books on Israeli culture.^[1]

The son of Sephardic Jewish parents—a Macedonian father and Turkish mother, both immigrants to Israel—he became an early inspiration of "solidarity and pride" for the Sephardic community.^[2]

Personal life[link]

Early life[link]

Gaon was born in the Beit Hakerem section of Jerusalem in 1939.^[1] His father, Moshe-David Gaon, a well-known historian, was born in Sarajevo in 1889, and immigrated to British mandate Palestine,^[3] where members of his family had lived for five generations.^[4] He was a school master and Hebrew teacher in areas that included Jerusalem, Buenos Aires, and Izmir, Turkey.^[3] He was also a poet and a scholar of Ladino.^[4] In Turkey, he met and married Sara Hakim,^{[citation needed]} returning with her to Jerusalem.

Yehoram enlisted in the IDF in 1957.^{[citation needed]} In the military, he joined the Nahal entertainment troupe, beginning a career in the performing arts that would eventually bring him fame as both a singer and actor.^[5]

Family[link]

Gaon has two children from his former marriage to Orna Goldfarb: Moshe-David (named after his father) and Hila.^{[citation needed]} His three brothers include Yigal, Kalila Armon, and the late businessman and industrialist Benjamin "Benny" Gaon, who died in 2008 at the age of 73.^[4]

Professional career[link]

Singer[link]

After performing in the Nahal Brigade entertainment troupe during his army time, Gaon joined the "Yarkon Bridge Trio" (Hebrew: שלישיית גשר הירקון‎),^[6] performing with two other performers who also became stars in Israeli popular culture: Arik Einstein and the late Beni Amdursky.^{[citation needed]}.

He was in the original singing group "HaTarnegolim" ("The Chickens"), founded in 1960 by Naomi Polani.^[7][8][9]

Gaon's growing reputation soon attracted the attention of leading Israeli composers and song writers.^{[citation needed]} He became well known for his rendition of Naomi Shemer's Od Lo Ahavti Dai (lit. I have not Loved Enough Yet).^[10] He performed at the Nobel Prize ceremony of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat in Oslo, in 1994.^[1] In 2009, Gaon recorded the song "Shir Ha’avoda Vehamlacha" for the organization Pioneers For A Cure, with the proceeds benefiting The Israel Cancer Association (ICA).^[11]

Actor[link]

Gaon appeared with the Israel Cameri Theatre in productions that included "Chips with Everything", "Vitzek," and "Kinneret Kinneret," by the National Laureate, Nathan Alterman.^[12] He left Israel in the early 1960s to study acting at the famous Herbert Berghof Studio in New York, under well-known acting teacher Uta Hagen, later graduating with honors from the RCA Institute for TV Production.^[12]

He returned to Israel to play the starring role in the 1966 stage production of the original Israeli musical comedy Kazablan, which became an immediate hit, and ran for more than 600 performances.^[12] The musical's huge success made this "young Jerusalem-born singer...not only...an overnight singing star, but also a figure of solidarity and pride for people of Sephardic origin, many of whom were entering a theatre for the first time."^[2] Gaon later reprised his role in the 1974 film version.^[13]

Other notable film performances of his included that of Yonatan Netanyahu in the Israeli film Mivtza Yonatan (English: Operation Thunderbolt) (1977), as well as other film roles in Siege, Every Bastard a King, The Eagles Attack at Dawn, Joker, The Lover, and No-Way Street.^[12] He starred in the autobiographical feature, Ani Yerushalmi (lit. I am a Jerusalemite) (1971).^[14]

TV and radio[link]

He starred in several other TV series, including Krovim Krovim (1983), an Israeli sitcom. He hosted his own TV show called Shishi BeGaon ("Friday with Gaon") on Israeli Channel One. The show was extremely popular, with a successful run for a number of years. He later hosted a weekend talk show on commercial Channel 2. Since 1997, he has been hosting a radio show on Reshet Bet called as "Gaon on the radio" (גאון ברדיו), in which he talks about the current weekly events and expresses his personal views on the various current weekly events.^[15]

Gaon moderated the Israel Broadcasting Authority documentary series for the Jubilee Year, entitled, T’kuma. In 1998 he resigned from the show, explaining in his letter of resignation that he believed that the series displayed "overly biased pro-Arab views."^[16] "Gaon told the producers of the Channel 1 TV series that he could not tolerate one of the episodes, during which Arab terrorists, responsible for killing many Israelis in the 1970s, were seen to be glorified on the show."^[16]

Author and editor[link]

"In The Middle Of The Road" is a book written by Gaon that includes poems, family stories and photos.^[1] He edited s "Spices from Spain", a collection of Ladino quotes (with Hebrew translations) passed down to him by his father, a well-known historian. He also published a second edition of "Eastern Jews in Israel," an encyclopedic work originally published by his father. ^[1] The complete work includes biographical information on almost 3000 rabbis, scholars and others in Spain, France, Italy, the Ottoman Empire including the Balkans, and the Middle East and North Africa who visited or immigrated to Israel, sometimes moving there to ensure hey could die in the Holy Land.^[3]

Activist and civic leader[link]

In 1993 he was elected to the Jerusalem Municipal Council, with the portfolio for Cultural Affairs and Special Education Needs,^[5] serving until 2002.^[1] He is the Honorary Consul of Chile in Israel. He also serves as the president of the Arkadash association of the Turkish immigrants in Israel.^{[citation needed]} He has also served as the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.^[16]

He is active in civic affairs, serving as a member of organizations that include the Committee for the Advancement of Ladino, Yad Ben-Zvi Fund for Diaspora Research, Adopt a Soldier Fund, The Association for Soldiers Welfare, The Association for Autistic Children, The Fund for Music Therapy and The Academy For the Hebrew Language.^[1] He is an advocate for peace who has spoken out on some issues, saying it is impossible to freeze growth in settlements, but on the other hand, "I do not approve of angering the entire world. We’re not living alone [on this planet], and we depend on other countries as well.”^[6]

Philanthropist[link]

Among Gaon's many contributions to Israel's cultural resources include the Moshe David Gaon Center for Ladino Studies at Ben Gurion University, which he and his brother Benny founded in memory of their father.^[17] In December 2010, he donated books to launch the "Sarah Hakim Gaon Library" for Arkadash, in memory of his mother.^[18]

Awards[link]

In 2004, Gaon was awarded the Israel Prize, for Hebrew song.^[19][20]

In 2005, he was voted the 27th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.^[21]

See also[link]

• List of Israel Prize recipients

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website (Hebrew)
• Official website (English)
• YouTube video, singing "Kol HaKavod" (Hebrew) from film, Kazablan.
• YouTube audio, singing "Kol HaKavod" (English) from film, Kazablan.
• YouTube audio, singing "Od lo ahavti dai" (Hebrew).

Arthur Szyk (June 16, 1894 – September 13, 1951) was a graphic artist, book illustrator, stage designer and caricaturist. Arthur Szyk was born into a Jewish family in Łódź, in the part of Poland which was under Russian rule in the 19th century. He always regarded himself both as a Pole and a Jew. From 1921, he lived and created his works mainly in France and Poland, and in 1937 he moved to the United Kingdom. In 1940 he settled permanently in the United States, where he was granted American citizenship in 1948.

Arthur Szyk became a renowned graphic artist and book illustrator as early as the interwar period – his works were exhibited and published not only in Poland, but also in France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and the United States. However, he gained real popularity through his war caricatures, in which, after the outbreak of World War II, he depicted the leaders of the Axis powers – mainly Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Emperor Hirohito. After the war, he also devoted himself to political issues, this time supporting the creation of Israel.

Szyk's work is characterized in its material content by social and political commitment, and in its formal aspect by its rejection of modernism and drawing on the traditions of medieval and renaissance painting, especially illuminated manuscripts from those periods. Unlike most caricaturists, Szyk always showed great attention to the colouristic effects and details in his works.

Today, Szyk is a well-known and often exhibited artist only in his last home country – the United States. In Europe, since the late 1990s exhibitions of his art has been mounted in the Polish cities of Kraków, Warsaw, and Łódź as well as in Berlin, Germany. The recent publication of a Polish-language edition Szyk's biography and public broadcasts of the documentary film "Arthur Szyk - Illuminator" (Marta TV & Film, Telewizja Polska (Łódź), 2005) also have improved Szyk's stature in his mother country, Poland.

Background and youth[link]

Old Funeral House in the Jewish Cemetery in Łódź

Arthur Szyk^[1] (pronounced "Shick") was born into a Jewish family, as a son of Solomon Szyk and his wife Eugenia, in Łódź, in Russian-occupied Poland, on June 16, 1894. The family of the future artist belonged to the upper class. Solomon Szyk was a textile factory director, an occupation that, eventually, tragically determined his fate: in June 1905, during the so-called Łódź insurrection, he lost his eyesight after one of his workers threw acid in his face.

Little Arthur showed artistic talent as a child; when he was six years old, he reportedly drew sketches of the Boxer Rebellion in China.^[2] Even though his family was culturally assimilated and did not practice Orthodox Judaism, Arthur also liked drawing biblical scenes from the Hebrew Bible. These interests and talents prompted his father, upon the advice of Szyk's teachers, to send Szyk to Paris to study at Académie Julian, a studio school popular among French and foreign students. In Paris, Szyk was exposed to all modern trends in art; however, he decided to follow his own way, which hewed closely to tradition. He was especially attracted by the medieval art of illuminating manuscripts, which greatly influenced his later works.

When studying in Paris, Szyk remained closely involved with the social and civic life of Łódź. During the years 1912-1914 the teenage artist produced numerous drawings and caricatures on contemporary political themes that were published in the Łódź satirical magazine Śmiech.

After four years spent in France, Szyk returned to Polish lands in 1913 and continued his studies in Teodor Axentowicz's class at Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, which was under Austrian rule at that time. He not only attended lectures and classes, but he also actively participated in Kraków's cultural life. He did not forget about his home city Łódź either – he designed the stage sets and costumes for the Łódź-based Bi Ba Bo cabaret. The political and national engagement of the artist also deepened during that time – Szyk regarded himself as a Polish patriot but he was also proud of being Jewish and he often opposed anti-Semitism in his works. At the beginning of 1914, Szyk and a group and other Polish-Jewish artists and writers set off on a journey to Palestine, which was organized by the Jewish Cultural Society Hazamir (Hebrew: nightingale). There he could observe the efforts of Jewish settlers who were working for the benefit of the future Jewish state.^[3]

The visit was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. Szyk, who was a Russian subject, had to leave Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman Empire at that time, and go back to his home country in August 1914. He was conscripted into the Russian army and fought at the battle of Łódź in November/December 1914, but at the beginning of 1915 he managed to escape from the army and spent the rest of the war in his home city. He also used the time spent in the czarist army to draw Russian soldiers and published these drawings as postcards in the same year (1915).^[4]

On September 14, 1916, Arthur Szyk married Julia Liekerman. Their son George was born in the following year, and their daughter Alexandra in 1922.

Between the wars[link]

In reborn Poland[link]

After Poland had regained independence in 1918, Szyk fully developed his artistic activity, combining it with political engagement. In 1919, influenced by the events of the German Revolution of 1918–19, he published, together with poet Julian Tuwim, the first political book which was illustrated by him: Rewolucja w Niemczech (Revolution in Germany), which was a satire on the Germans, who need the Kaiser's and the military's consent even to start a revolution.^[5] In the same year, Szyk had to take part in warfare again – during the Polish–Soviet War (1919–1920), in which he served as a cavalry officer, but first of all as the artistic director of the propaganda department of the Polish army in Łódź.^[6][7]

Szyk in France[link]

In 1921 Arthur Szyk and his family moved to Paris where they were staying till 1937. The stay in Paris is marked by a breakthrough in the formal aspect of Szyk's works. While the illustrations of the previous books on which Szyk had worked previously were ordinary drawings in pen and ink (Szyk had illustrated six books before 1925, including three published in the Yiddish language), the illustrations of the books which were published in Paris are already in full colour, with a fully developed style so characteristic of the artist's future works. The first book which was illustrated in this way was the Book of Esther (Le livre d'Esther, 1925), followed by Gustave Flaubert's dialogue The Temptation of Saint Anthony (La tentation de Saint Antoine, 1926), Pierre Benoît's novel Jacob's Well (Le puits e Jacob, 1927) and other books. Those illustrations, which are characterized by a rich diversity of colours and detailed presentation, deliberately referred to the medieval and renaissance traditions of illumination of manuscripts, often with interspersed contemporary elements, such as Szyk's self-portrait, who showed himself as one of the characters in the book. The only exception is illustrations to the two volume collection of anecdotes about Jews Le juif qui rit (1926/27), in which the artist returned to simple black and white graphics (paradoxically, the book, one of the best known of his works, met with criticism as repeating anti-Semitic stereotypes).

The artist's reputation was also enhanced by exhibitions which were organized by Galeries Auguste Decour (the art gallery first exhibited Szyk's works in 1922). Szyk’s drawings were bought for example by the then Minister of Education and Fine Arts Anatole de Monzie and the New York businessman Harry Glemby.^[8]

After Szyk had moved to Paris, he not only lived in France but also traveled a lot (mainly for artistic reasons). In 1922 he spent seven weeks in Morocco, which was a French protectorate then, where he drew the portrait of the pasha of Marrakech – as a goodwill ambassador he received the Ordre des Palmes Académiques from the French government for this work. In 1931 he was invited to the seat of the League of Nations in Geneva where he was asked to illustrate the statute of the League. The artist made some of the pages of the statute but did not complete that work as a result of his disappointment with the policies of the organization in the 1930s.^[9]

[edit] Statute of Kalisz. Washington and his Times

During his stay in France, Szyk did not break contact with Poland. He often visited his home country, illustrated books and exhibited his works there. During the second half of the 1920s, he mainly illustrated the Statute of Kalisz, a charter of liberties which were granted to the Jews by Boleslaw the Pious, the Duke of Kalisz, in 1264. In the years 1926-1928, he created a rich graphic setting of the 45 page long Statute, showing the contribution of the Jews to Polish society, including their participation in Poland's pro-independence struggle, for example during the January Uprising of 1863 or in the Polish Legions in World War I commanded by Józef Piłsudski, to whom Szyk also dedicated his work. The Statute of Kalisz was published in book form in Munich in 1932, but it gained popularity even earlier. Postcards with reproductions of Szyk's illustrations were published in Kraków around 1927, it was shown at exhibitions in Warsaw, Łódź and Kalisz in 1929, and a "Traveling Exhibition of Artur Szyk's Works" was even held in 1932/33, displaying the Statute at exhibitions in 14 Polish towns and cities. In recognition for his work, Arthur Szyk was decorated with the Gold Cross of Merit by the Polish government.^[10][11]

Another great historical series created by Szyk was Washington and his Times, which he began in Paris in 1930. The series, which included 38 watercolours, depicted the events of the American Revolutionary War and was a tribute to the first president of the United States and the American nation in general. The series was presented at an exhibition at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. in 1934. It brought another decoration to Szyk – this time the George Washington Bicentennial Medal from the American government.^[12][13]

[edit] The Haggadah. Moving to London. New York 1939 World's Fair

Page of the Haggadah. Manuscript from the 14th century

Szyk's drawings and paintings became even more politically engaged when Hitler took power in Germany in 1933. Szyk started drawing Führer's caricatures as early as 1933; probably, the first work of the artist directed against the leader→ of the Third Reich was a drawing of Hitler, made in pencil, in which he was shown as a new pharaoh.^[14] These drawings anticipated another great series of Szyk's drawings – Haggadah, which is considered to be his magnum opus.

The Haggadah is a very important and popular story in Jewish culture and religion about the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt, which is read every year during the Passover Seder.^[15] Szyk illustrated it in 48 drawings in the years 1932-1938, and the development of the political situation in Germany at that time made him introduce some contemporary elements to it. These referred to, in particular, the parable of the four sons, in which the "wicked son" was portrayed as a man wearing German clothes, with a Hitler-like moustache. The expression of the series was even stronger in its original version: the drawings showed snakes with swastikas, there were also heads of Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels.

In 1937, Arthur Szyk went to London to supervise the publication of Haggadah. However, the artist had to agree to many compromises during that work which lasted three years, including painting over of all swastikas. It is not clear whether he did it as a result of the pressure by his publisher or the British politicians who pursued the policy of appeasement in relation to Germany. Finally, Haggadah was published in London in 1940; the artist dedicated it to King George VI. The work was widely acclaimed by critics; according to The Times, it was "worthy to be placed among the most beautiful of books that the hand of man has ever produced".^[16][17]

The last big presentation of Szyk's works before the outbreak of the war was the presentation of his paintings at the 1939 New York World's Fair, which was opened in April 1939. Szyk's twenty paintings, which were exhibited in the Polish Pavilion, depicted the contribution of the Poles to the history of the United States, and different connections between both countries.^[18]

Szyk in World War II[link]

Reaction to the outbreak of the war[link]

The outbreak of World War II found Szyk in Britain where he not only supervised the publication of Haggadah but also kept on with creating and exhibiting his works. The artist reacted to the war immediately. In January 1940, the exhibition of his 72 caricatures entitled War and "Kultur" in Poland was opened at the Fine Art Society in London. The exhibition was appraised by critics very positively. As the reviewer of The Times wrote:

There are three leading motives in the exhibition: the brutality of the Germans – and the more primitive savagery of the Russians, the heroism of the Poles, and the suffering of the Jews. The cumulative effect of the exhibition is immensely powerful because nothing in it appears to be a hasty judgment, but part of the unrelenting pursuit of an evil so firmly grasped that it can be dwelt upon with artistic satisfaction.^[19]

Szyk drew more and more caricatures directed at the Axis powers and their leaders, his popularity was also growing. In 1940, the American publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons offered the artist to publish a collection of his drawings. Szyk agreed, and the result was the album The New Order, published in 1941, after the artist had arrived in America, but before the United States joined the war.

The feature which distinguished Szyk from other caricaturists who were active during World War II was that he concentrated on the presentation of the enemy in his works and seldom depicted the leaders or soldiers of the Allies. This was a characteristic feature of Szyk's work till the end of the war.^[20]

Moving to the United States. War caricatures[link]

Eleanor Roosevelt presented with a work by Arthur Szyk in 1956

At the beginning of July 1940, Arthur Szyk left Britain to North America, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, on assignment to popularize the struggle of the British and Polish nations with Nazism in the New World. His first destination on the North American continent was Canada, where he was welcomed enthusiastically by the media: they wrote about his engagement in the fight with Nazi Germany, and the Halifax-based Morning Herald even reported about the alleged bounty Hitler had put on Szyk.^[21] In December 1940 Szyk and his wife and daughter went to New York City where he lived till 1945. His son, George, had enlisted in the Free French Forces commanded by General Charles de Gaulle.^[22]

Soon after his arrival in the US, Szyk was inspired by Roosevelt's 1941 "Four Freedoms" State of the Union speech to illustrate the Four Freedoms, preceding Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms by two years; these were used as poster stamps during the war, and later illustrated a Four Freedoms Award which was presented to Harry Truman, George Marshall, and Herbert H. Lehman.

Szyk became an immensely popular artist in his new home country during the Second World War, especially after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the US into the war. His caricatures of the leaders of the Axis powers (Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito) and drawings appeared practically everywhere: in newspapers, magazines (including Time, Esquire, and Collier's), on posters, postcards and stamps, in secular, religious and military publications, on public and military buildings. He also produced advertisements for Coca Cola and US Steel, and exhibited in the galleries of M. Knodler & Co., Andre Seligmann, Inc., Messrs. Wildenstein & Co., the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Brooklyn Museum, the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and the White House. More than 25 exhibitions were staged altogether in the United States during the war years. At the end of the war, in 1945, his drawing Two down and One to go was used in a propaganda film calling American soldiers to the final crackdown on Japan. According to the Esquire magazine, the posters with Szyk's drawings enjoyed even bigger popularity with American soldiers than pin-up girls put on the walls of American military bases.^[23] Szyk's works, however, were also praised by critics. Thomas Craven wrote on the dust jacket of The New Order as early as 1941 that Szyk:

…makes not only cartoons but beautifully composed pictures which suggest, in their curiously decorative quality, the inspired illuminations of the early religious manuscripts. His designs are as compact as a bomb, extraordinarily lucid in statement, firm and incisive in line, and deadly in their characterizations. (…) These are remarkable documents.^[24]

Szyk's drawings were very important for the American war propaganda. In recognition for his services in the fight against Nazism, Fascism and the Japanese aggression, Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President F. D. Roosevelt, said of him: "This is a personal war of Szyk against Hitler, and I do not think that Mr. Szyk will lose this war!"^[25] She also dubbed him "one man army", which became Szyk's famous nickname. Szyk himself often called himself "soldier in art". Other famous quotations by him are: "Art is not my aim, it is my means",^[26] and "I am but a Jew praying in art."

Szyk generally felt good in his adopted home country, saying:

At last, I have found the home I have always searched for. Here I can speak of what my soul feels. There is no other place on earth that one the freedom, liberty and justice that America does.^[27]

Criticism of the Allies in Szyk's works[link]

Even though Szyk was a fierce opponent of Nazism throughout the war, this does not mean that he avoided themes in drawings which presented the Allies in a less favourable light. In relation to the United Kingdom, that was mainly criticism of the Middle East policy of the country, especially of imposing limits on Jewish emigration to Palestine. Despite the fact that the British government had provided for the creation of a Jewish state in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in May 1939, the House of Commons passed the so-called White Paper, which limited the number of Jewish immigrants to the Holy Land to 10,000 yearly, which had tragic consequences to the fate of the Jews in Hitler-occupied Europe.^[28]

Szyk also criticized the passivity of American-Jewish organizations towards the tragedy of their European fellows.^[29] He supported the work of Hillel Kook, also known as Peter Bergson, member of the Zionist organization Irgun, who fought a campaign in American society whose aim was to draw attention to the fate of the European Jews. Szyk illustrated for example full-page advertisements of his groups which were published in The New York Times. The artist also perceived racial tensions in the United States and the fact that the black population did not have the same rights as the whites. In one of his drawings, there are two American soldiers – one black and one white – escorting German prisoners of war. When the white one asks the black: "And what would you do with Hitler?", the black one answers: "I would have made him a Negro and dropped him somewhere in the U.S.A."^[30]

Szyk's attitude to his mother country, Poland, was very interesting and full of contradictions. Even though he regarded himself both as Jewish and Polish and showed the suffering of the Poles (not only those of Jewish descent) in the occupied Polish territories in his drawings, even though he benefited from financial support of the Polish government-in-exile (at least at the beginning of the war), he also presented that government in a negative light, especially at the end of World War II. In a well-known drawing of 1944, a group of debating Polish politicians are shown as opponents of Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, the "Bolshevik agent" Winston Churchill, and at the same time adherents of Father Charles Coughlin, known for his anti-Semitic views, as well as "(national) democracy"^[31] and "(national) socialism." Around 1943, Szyk, a former participant in the Polish-Soviet war, also completely changed his opinions on the Soviet Union. His admiration for the Soviet Union started to grow after Germany's aggression against the USSR in 1941, and his drawing from 1944 already depicts outright a soldier of the Moscow-supported People's Army of Poland next to a Soviet soldier, both liberating Poland.^[32]

Book illustrations[link]

Even though caricatures dominated Szyk's works during the war, he was still engaged in other areas of art. In 1940, the American publisher George Macy, who saw his illustrations to Haggadah at an exhibition in London, asked him to illustrate Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam|Rubaiyat], a collection of poems of the Iranian poet Omar Khayyám.^[33] In 1943, the artist started work on illustrations for the Book of Job, published in 1946; he also illustrated collections of fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen (Andersen's Fairy Tales, 1945) and Charles Perrault (Mother Goose).^[34]

After the war. Last years of life[link]

In 1945, Arthur Szyk and his family moved from New York City to New Canaan, Connecticut where he lived till the end of his life. The end of the war released him from the duty to fight Nazism through his caricatures, a large collection of drawings from that period was published in book form as Ink and Blood in 1946. The artist returned to book illustrations, working for example on The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and, first of all, books telling Old Testament stories, such as Pathways through the Bible by Mortimer J. Cohen (1946), the The Book of Job (1946), The Book of Ruth (1947), The Ten Commandments (1947), The Story of Joseph and his Brothers (1949). Some of the books illustrated by Szyk were also published posthumously, including The Arabian Nights Entertainments (1954) and The Book of Esther (1974).

He was also commissioned by Canadian entrepreneur and stamp connoisseur, Kasimir Bileski, to illustrate the United Nations Series of stamps.

Artur Szyk was granted American citizenship on May 22, 1948, but he reportedly experienced the happiest day in his life eight days earlier: on May 14, the day of the announcement of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.^[35] Arthur Szyk commemorated that event creating the richly decorated illumination of the Hebrew text of the declaration. Two years later, on July 4, 1950, he also exhibited the richly illuminated text of the United States Declaration of Independence.

The artist continued getting politically engaged in his country, criticizing the McCarthyism policy (the ubiquitous atmosphere of suspicion and searching for sympathizers of communism in American artistic and academic circles) and signs of racism. One of his well-known drawings from 1949 shows two armed members of Ku Klux Klan approaching a tied-up African American. The caption for the drawing is: "Do not forgive them, oh Lord, for they do know what they do." Owing to this criticism, Szyk was also interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, which accused him of being a member of the Joint Ant-Fascist Refugee Committee and six other suspicious organizations. Szyk himself, however, repudiated these accusations of alleged sympathy for communism in a written statement.

Arthur Szyk died of a heart attack in New Canaan on September 13, 1951.^[36] He was eulogized by Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, who said: "Arthur Szyk was a great artist. Endowed by God with a rare sensitivity to beauty and with a rare skill in giving it graphic representation, he used his talents to create a series of works of splendor and magnificence that will live forever in the history of art. But Arthur Szyk was more than a great artist. He was a great man, a champion of justice, a fearless warrior in the cause of every humanitarian endeavor. His art was his tool and he used it brilliantly. It was in his hands a weapon of struggle with which he fought for the causes close to his heart"; and by Judge Simon H. Rifkind, who said: "The Arthur Szyk whom the world knows, the Arthur Szyk of the wondrous color, and of the beautiful design, that Arthur Szyk whom the world mourns today—he is indeed not dead at all. How can he be when the Arthur Szyk who is known to mankind lives and is immortal and will remain immortal as long as the love of truth and beauty prevails among mankind?"^[37]

Legacy[link]

Exhibition of Szyk's works in the Holocaust Museum Houston

The immense popularity Szyk enjoyed in the United States in his lifetime gradually flagged after his death. From the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, the artist's works were seldom exhibited in American museums. This changed in 1991 when The Arthur Szyk Society was set up in Orange County, California. The founder of the Society was George Gooche, who discovered Szyk's unknown works and staged the exhibition "Arthur Szyk – Illuminator" in Los Angeles. In 1997, the seat of the Society was transferred to Burlingame, California, and a new Board of Trustees was elected, headed by rabbi, curator and antiquarian Irvin Ungar. The Society's work resulted in staging many exhibitions of Szyk's works in American cities in the 1990s, the Society also holds lectures and publishes books on the artist. Szyk's recent exhibitions include: "A One-Man Army: The Art of Arthur Szyk" at the Holocaust Museum Houston (October 20, 2008 – February 8, 2009); "The Art and Politics of Arthur Szyk" at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. (April 10 – October 14, 2002); "Arthur Szyk: Artist for Freedom" at the Library of Congress (December 9, 1999 – May 6, 2000); and "Justice Illuminated: The Art of Arthur Szyk" at the Spertus Museum in Chicago (August 16, 1998 – February 28, 1999). "Justice Illuminated: The Art of Arthur Szyk" is also a traveling exhibition of The Arthur Szyk Society.^[38]

Recent major publications about the art of Arthur Szyk include: a new edition of The Szyk Haggadah and its Companion Volume Freedom Illuminated: Understanding The Szyk Haggadah; and Justice Illuminated: The Art of Arthur Szyk, produced in conjunction with the 1998-99 Spertus Museum exhibition.

In Europe, Arthur Szyk practically sank into oblivion after World War II. This is true even for his mother country Poland, where Szyk's drawings were exhibited only once after the war. That was in 2005 when the traveling exhibition "Justice Illuminated: The Art of Arthur Szyk" was brought from The Arthur Szyk Society in the United States and presented at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, the Izrael Poznański Palace in Łódź and the Judaica Foundation - Center For Jewish Culture in Kraków. The biggest exhibition of Szyk's art on the European Continent after the war was staged at the German Historical Museum in Berlin from August 2008 to January 2009;^[39] later, in 2009, it was also shown at the German Museum of Caricature and Drawings, Wilhelm Busch in Hanover.

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Joseph Ansell, Artur Szyk : Artist, Jew, Pole, Oxford, Portland, Or. : Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004, ISBN 1-874774-94-3.
• Irvin Ungar, Justice Illuminated : the Art of Arthur Szyk, Chicago : Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, 1998.
• Arthur Szyk : Drawing against National Socialism and Terror, Berlin : Deutsches Historisches Museum, 2008, ISBN 978-3-86102-151-3.
• Samuel Loeb Shneiderman, Arthur Szyk, Tel-Aviv : I. L. Peretz Publishing House, 1980 (in Hebrew).

External links[link]

• The Arthur Szyk Society
• Justice Illuminated – The Art of Arthur Szyk Traveling exhibition of The Arthur Szyk Society
• Arthur Szyk – Illuminator, Activist, Master
• Arthur Szyk – Drawing against National Socialism and Terror Exhibition at the German Historical Museum, Berlin
• The Art and Politics of Arthur Szyk Exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
• Arthur Szyk's drawings in American Art Archives

Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer at the Brooklyn Book Festival, September 2007
Born	Washington, D.C.
Occupation	novelist, short story writer
Nationality	United States
Influences Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth, Joseph Cornell, Kurt Vonnegut, Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino, J. D. Salinger,[1] Homer, Bruno Schulz

Jonathan Safran Foer is an American author best known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). In 2009, he published a work of nonfiction titled Eating Animals.^[2]

Early life[link]

Jonathan Safran Foer was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Albert Foer, a lawyer and President of the American Antitrust Institute, and Esther Safran Foer, a child of Holocaust survivors who was born in Poland and is now the Director of the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.^[3] Foer is the middle son in this tight-knit Jewish family; his older brother, Franklin, is the former editor of The New Republic and his younger brother Joshua is a freelance journalist. Foer was a "flamboyant" and sensitive child who, at the age of 8, was injured in a classroom chemical accident that resulted in "something like a nervous breakdown drawn out over about three years," during which "he wanted nothing, except to be outside his own skin."^[3]

Foer attended Georgetown Day School and Princeton University. In 1995, while a freshman at Princeton, Safran Foer took an introductory writing course with author Joyce Carol Oates,^[4] who took an interest in his writing, telling him that he had "that most important of writerly qualities, energy."^[5] Foer later recalled that "she was the first person to ever make me think I should try to write in any sort of serious way. And my life really changed after that."^[5] Oates served as the advisor to Safran Foer's senior thesis, an examination of the life of his maternal grandfather, the Holocaust survivor Louis Safran. For his thesis, Foer received Princeton's Senior Creative Writing Thesis Prize.

After graduating from Princeton, Foer attended briefly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine before dropping out to pursue his writing career.^[6]

Career[link]

Foer graduated from Princeton in 1999 with a degree in philosophy,^[3] and traveled to Ukraine to expand his thesis. In 2001, he edited the anthology A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by the Work of Joseph Cornell, to which he contributed the short story, "If the Aging Magician Should Begin to Believe." His Princeton thesis grew into a novel, Everything Is Illuminated, which was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2002. The book earned him a National Jewish Book Award and a Guardian First Book Award.^[7] Foer shared the PEN/Robert Bingham Award with fellow authors Will Heinrich and Monique Truong in 2004. In 2005, Liev Schreiber wrote and directed a film adaptation of the novel, which starred Elijah Wood.

Foer's second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, was published in 2005. In the novel, Foer used 9/11 as a backdrop for the story of 9-year-old Oskar Schell, who learns how to deal with the death of his father in the World Trade Center. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close used many nontraditional writing techniques known as visual writing. It follows multiple but interconnected storylines, is peppered with photographs of doorknobs and other such oddities, and ends with a 14-page flipbook. Foer's use of these techniques resulted in both glowing praise^[8] and excoriation^[9] from critics. Despite diverse criticism, the novel sold briskly and was translated into several languages. In addition, Warner Bros. and Paramount turned the novel into a film, produced by Scott Rudin,^[10] directed by Stephen Daldry ( Billy Elliot, The Reader ).^[11]

In 2005, Foer wrote the libretto for an opera titled Seven Attempted Escapes From Silence, which premiered at the Berlin State Opera on September 14, 2005.^[12]

Foer in New York to discuss his book Eating Animals.

Foer has been an occasional vegetarian (some years vegetarian, some years omnivore, occasionally vegan) since the age of 10,^[13] and in 2006 he recorded the narration for the documentary This is Kosher..., a harsh exposé of the kosher certification process that advocates vegetarianism. In his childhood, teen, and college years of vegetarianism, he called himself vegetarian but still often ate animals. Foer writes he is now a vegetarian. He does not mention being vegan in his writings. Foer published his first book of non-fiction, Eating Animals, on November 2, 2009.^[14] Foer said that he had long been "uncertain about how I felt [about eating meat]" and that the birth of his first child inspired "an urgency because I would have to make decisions on his behalf."^[13] The book intersperses a personal narrative with a more "broad argument" about vegetarianism.^[13]

In spring 2008, Foer taught writing for the first time as a visiting professor of fiction at Yale University.^[15] He is currently a professor in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University^[16] and published his third novel, Tree of Codes, in November 2010. In March 2012, The New American Haggadah, edited by him and translated by Nathan Englander, was released to mixed reviews.

Personal life[link]

In June 2004, Foer married writer Nicole Krauss. They live in Park Slope in Brooklyn, New York, and have two children.^[13] Foer is the brother of Franklin Foer, former editor of The New Republic, and writer Joshua Foer.

Awards[link]

In 2000, Foer was awarded the Zoetrope: All-Story Fiction Prize, in 2003 he won the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and in 2007 he was included in Granta's Best of Young American Novelists 2.^[17] In Spring 2007, Foer stayed at the American Academy in Berlin as a Holtzbrinck Fellow.^[18]

Criticism[link]

In spite of his success, Foer is viewed by some as a polarizing figure in modern literature, due to his frequent use of modernist literary devices. Harry Siegel of the New York Press, titled an article on Foer "Extremely Cloying and Incredibly False," highlighting the flaws in his style: "Foer is supposed to be our new Philip Roth, though his fortune-cookie syllogisms and pointless illustrations and typographical tricks don't at all match up to or much resemble Roth even at his most inane."^[19]

Works[link]

Novels[link]

• Everything Is Illuminated (2002)
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
• Tree of Codes (2010)

Non-fiction books[link]

• Eating Animals (2009)

Short stories[link]

• "The Very Rigid Search" (excerpted from Everything Is Illuminated) (The New Yorker, June 18, 2001)
• "If the Aging Magician Should Begin to Believe" (included in A Convergence of Birds)
• "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease" (The New Yorker, June 10, 2002)
• "The Sixth Borough" (became part of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; also featured in the collection "Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creature from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out."^[20])
• "Cravings"
• "About the Typefaces Not Used in This Edition" (The Guardian, December 2, 2002)
• "Room After Room" (included in Granta's Best of Young American Novelists 2,"Granta 97" published in 2007)
• "Rhoda" (published in The Book of Other People, 2008)
• "Here We Aren't, So Quickly" (The New Yorker, June 14 & 21, 2010)
• "Too Near Real" (published in ' '[(New Jersey Noir)]' ' 2011

Other[link]

• "Imagining Giovanni's Gift", Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. 20 (Spring 2000)
• "The Proximity of Brad to Bradford: A Brief Introduction to the Lifework of Bradford Morrow", Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. 20 (Spring 2000)
• A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by the Work of Joseph Cornell (2001), Editor and contributor
• Sock Monkeys: 200 Out of 1,863 (2002), Contributor: "Il Fait Plus Froid Ailleurs"
• Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge (2003), Contributor: "The Very Rigid Search"
• The Future Dictionary of America (2004), Co-editor, with Dave Eggers, Nicole Krauss, and Eli Horowitz
• The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud (2004), Introduction.
• Masters of American Comics edited by John Carlin (2005), Contributor: "Breakdownable"
• The Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning (2005), collects "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease" and an excerpt from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
• "A Beginner's Guide to Hanukkah", The New York Times (December 22, 2005) Op-ed piece
• Joe, photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto, designed by Takaaki Matsumoto (2006) Text by Foer
• "My Life as a Dog", The New York Times (November 27, 2006) Op-ed piece
• The Diary of Petr Ginz, edited by Chava Pressburger (2007), Contributor: "What We Say We Are"
• The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories, by Bruno Schultz (Penguin Classics Edition 2008), Forward
• "La Vie on Pose", Vogue December 2008
• Ron Arad: No Discipline (MoMA 2009), Contributor: "You Look Up Escape Artist"

References[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (February 2012)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jonathan Safran Foer

• Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals Site for Foer's new book
• Authortrek page on Foer; includes numerous links to articles, interview and information.
• Who is Augustine? Exploratory site for Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Everything Is Illuminated' (Novel)
• Jonathan Safran Foer 'Bookweb' on literary website The Ledge, with suggestions for further reading.
• "Who in the world is JSF?" - interview with the St. Petersburg Times of Tampa Bay, Florida.
• Author interview in Guernica Magazine (Guernicamag.com)
• "Something happened" - Guardian Unlimited article
• "Author Podcast Interview" - interview with Paula Shackleton BookBuffet.com
• "The Foer questions: Literary wunderkind turns 35"