1924 Jewish YIDDISH CHAGALL Judaica RARE ART BOOK Petropolis RUSSIAN AVANT GARDE

Description: DESCRIPTION : Up for auction is an EXCEPTIONAL RARITY , Being the 1924 FIRST YIDDISH EDITION of the Jewish art book "MARC CHAGALL" by Boris Aronson which was published in YIDDISH by PETROPOLIS Berlin. CHAGALL was one of the founders and leading artists of the fascinatic artistic branch of the RUSSIAN - JEWISH AVANT GARDE with artists such as EL LISSITZKY , JOSEPH CHAIKOV ,BORIS ARONSON , NATHAN ALTMAN YISSACHAR BER RYBACK , KULTUR LIGE artists and others like Epshtein Marc, Sarah Shore, Alexander Tyshler , Nison Shifrin, Gersh Inger, Shulim Kotkis, Khaim Mastbaum, Gedali Kipnis, Alexander Labas, Mark Sheikhel, Iosif Elman, Solomon Nikritin, Pauline Khentova, Lev Halperin, Isaak Rabinovich, Robert Falk, David Shterenberg and OTHERS . Very EARLY Chagall pre debout pieces. The YIDDISH edition of PETROPOLIS is EXTREMELY RARE and SOUGHT AFTER , Much more than the other editions of the same book , Not to mention later editions and re-prints. Priced ON LINE up to $900 !!. Original HC. Cloth spine ( torn ) . 10" x 7.5" . 32 text pp in YIDDISH + 21 reproductions on chromo plates . Very good used condition. Tightly bound. Slight foxing of a few pages. Clean illustrated plates. Cover somewhat worn and stained. Cloth spine torn with missing material. ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) Book will be sent inside a rigid sealed protective packaging . PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal & All credit cards. SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $29 .Book will be sent inside a rigid sealed protective packaging . Will be sent around 5-10 days after payment . Marc Zaharovich Chagall (6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1887 – 28 March 1985) was a Russian artist associated with several major artistic styles and one of the most successful artists of the 20th century. He was an early modernist, and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century". According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's preeminent Jewish artist". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra. Before World War I, he traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avante-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922. He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk." "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is". The Yiddish Book Collection of the Russian Avant-Garde contains books published between the years 1912-1928 by many of the movement’s best known artists. The items here represent only a portion of Yale's holdings in Yiddish literature. The Beinecke, in collaboration with the Yale University library Judaica Collection, continues to digitize and make Yiddish books available online. With the Russian Revolution of 1917, prohibitions on Yiddish printing imposed by the Czarist regime were lifted. Thus, the early post-revolutionary period saw a major flourishing of Yiddish books and journals. The new freedoms also enabled the development of a new and radically modern art by the Russian avant-garde. Artists such as Mark Chagall, Joseph Chaikov, Issachar Ber Ryback, El (Eliezer) Lisitzsky and others found in the freewheeling artistic climate of those years an opportunity Jews had never enjoyed before in Russia: an opportunity to express themselves as both Modernists and as Jews. Their art often focused on the small towns of Russia and Ukraine where most of them had originated. Their depiction of that milieu, however, was new and different. Jewish art in the early post-revolutionary years emerged with the creation of a secular, socialist culture and was especially cultivated by the Kultur-Lige, the Jewish social and cultural organizations of the 1920s and 1930s. One of the founders of the first Kultur-Lige in Kiev in 1918 was Joseph Chaikov, a painter and sculptor whose books are represented in the Beinecke’s collection. The Kultur-Lige supported education for children and adults in Jewish literature, the theater and the arts. The organization sponsored art exhibitions and art classes and also published books written by the Yiddish language’s most accomplished authors and poets and illustrated by artists who in time became trail blazers in modernist circles. This brief flowering of Yiddish secular culture in Russia came to an end in the 1920s. As the power of the Soviet state grew under Stalin, official culture became hostile to the experimental art that the revolution had at first facilitated and even encouraged. Many artists left for Berlin, Paris and other intellectual centers. Those that remained, like El Lisitzky, ceased creating art with Jewish themes and focused their work on furthering the aims of Communism. Tragically, many of them perished in Stalin’s murderous purges. The Artists Eliezer Lisitzky (1890–1941), better known as El Lisitzky, was a Russian Jewish artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer, and architect. He was one of the most important figures of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop Suprematism with his friend and mentor, Kazimir Malevich. He began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture. In 1921, he became the Russian cultural ambassador in Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus movement. He brought significant innovation and change to the fields of typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim. However, as he grew more involved with creating art work for the Soviet state, he ceased creating art with Jewish themes. Among the best known Yiddish books illustrated by the artist is Sikhes Hulin by the writer and poet Moshe Broderzon and Yingel Tsingle Khvat, a children’s book of poetry by Mani Leyb. Both works have been completely digitized and can be found here. Joseph Chaikov (1888-1979) was a Russian sculptor, graphic artist, teacher, and art critic. Born in Kiev, Chaikov studied in Paris from 1910 to 1913. Returning to Russia in 1914, he became active in Jewish art circles and in 1918 was one of the founders of the Kultur-Lige in Kiev. Though primarily known as a sculptor, in his early career, he also illustrated Yiddish books, many of them children’s books. In 1921 his Yiddish book, Skulptur was published. In it, the artist formulated an avant-garde approach to sculpture and its place in a new Jewish art. It too is in the Beinecke collection. Another of the great artists from this remarkable period in Yiddish cultural history is Issachar Ber Ryback. Together with Lisistzky, he traveled as a young man in the Russian countryside studying Jewish folk life and art. Their findings made a deep impression on both men as artists and as Jews and folk art remained an abiding influence on their work. One of Ryback’s better known works is Shtetl, Mayn Khoyever heym; a gedenknish (Shtetl, My destroyed home; A Remembrance), Berlin, 1922. In this book, also in the Beinecke collection, the artist depicts scenes of Jewish life in his shtetl (village) in Ukraine before it was destroyed in the pogroms which followed the end of World War I. Indeed, Shtetl is an elegy to that world. David Hofstein’s book of poems, Troyer (Tears), illustrated by Mark Chagall also mourns the victims of the pogroms. It was published by the Kultur-Lige in Kiev in 1922. Chagall’s art in this book is stark and minimalist in keeping with the grim subject of the poetry. Chagall was a leading force in the new emerging Yiddish secular art and many of the young modernist artists of the time came to study and paint with him in Vitebsk, his hometown. Lisistzky and Ryback were among them. Chagall, however, parted ways with them when their artistic styles and goals diverged. Chagall moved to Moscow in 1920 where he became involved with the newly created and innovative Moscow Yiddish Theater. Cite as: General Modern Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University David Hofstein (Yiddish: דוד Dovid Hofshteyn, Russian: Давид Гофштейн; 1889, Korostyshiv – August 12, 1952) was a Yiddish poet. He was born in Ukraine, Russian Empire and received a traditional Jewish education; his application to the Kiev University was declined. Hofstein began to write in Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, and Ukrainian. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, which he welcomed, Hofstein wrote only in Yiddish. He was coeditor of the Moscow Yiddish monthly Shtrom, the last organ of free Jewish expression in the Soviet Union. The poems in which he acclaimed the communist regime established him as one of the Kiev triumvirate of Yiddish poets, along with Leib Kvitko and Peretz Markish. Hofstein's elegies for Jewish communities devastated by the White movement pogroms appeared in 1922, with illustrations by Marc Chagall. Both had worked together as teachers at shelter for Jewish boys in suburban Malakhovka, which housed and employed boys orphaned by Ukrainian pogroms.[1]:273 Hofstein protested the banning of Hebrew and the persecution of Hebrew writers, arousing the suspicion of the authorities. He therefore emigrated first to Germany and then to Palestine in 1923. In Palestine he wrote both in Hebrew and Yiddish and published in Yiddish the dramatic poem Sha'ul–Der Letster Meylekh fun Yisroel (Saul–The Last King of Israel, 1924) and an expressionistic drama Meshiekhs Tsaytn (Messianic Times, 1925). He returned to Kiev in 1926 only to find himself compelled to write poems adulatory of the Communist Party. In 1939, Hofstein became member of the Communist Party.[2] Hofstein hailed the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948; however, in the same year, when Joseph Stalin withdrew his support for Israel, Hofstein was arrested, together with Kvitko, Markish and other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, first transported to Moscow and then to Siberia. He was executed on the Night of the Murdered Poets (August 12–13, 1952), together with twelve other Yiddish writers and artists. After the death of Stalin, they were posthumously rehabilitated, and Hofstein's selected works reappeared in a Russian translation in 1958. (1889–1952), Yiddish poet. Born in Korostyshev, not far from Kiev, Dovid Hofshteyn was educated at a heder and by private teachers in Russian and Hebrew. His father, a forester, was a maskil; his mother came from the Pedotser-Kholodenko family of klezmer celebrities; and his sister, Shifra Kholodenko (1909–1974), was a noted Soviet Yiddish poet. Hofshteyn began writing poems at age nine, initially mostly in Hebrew, Russian, and Ukrainian, and his cultural experience in these languages influenced his Yiddish poetry. At age 17, Hofshteyn became a private teacher and later studied at Kiev’s Commerce Institute. He welcomed the Bolshevik Revolution, and his Communist sympathies became even stronger after the heroic death of his cousin, Osher Shvartsman, a Red Army volunteer who was later canonized as the founder of Soviet Yiddish poetry. From 1917, when Hofshteyn’s poems began appearing in Kiev’s Yiddish periodicals, he occupied a prominent position in that language’s literary circles, particularly of the Kultur-lige. Although his first book, Bay vegn (At the Road), did not appear until 1919 (its enlarged edition was published in 1924 in Vilna), Hofshteyn soon had a following among aspiring poets. In 1921, Perets Markish wrote about Yiddish literature’s successful “leap forward”—from the sentimental poet Dovid Eynhorn to the modernist Hofshteyn. Marc Chagall illustrated Hofshteyn’s 1922 collection Troyer (Mourning; reprinted in Tel Aviv in 1983), evoking the pogroms of postrevolutionary Ukraine. The Russian poet Sergei Esenin wrote in 1923 that his own American translator into Yiddish, Mani Leyb, promoted “young Jargonists with rather beautiful talents from the period of Hofshteyn till Markish” (Sergei Esenin, Sobranie sochinenii v trekh tomakh [Moscow, 1987], vol. 3, pp. 126–127). In other words, Hofshteyn was perceived as Markish’s forerunner, though in reality both appeared in print at more or less the same time and belonged to very different, if not opposing, poetic trends. Moyshe Litvakov crowned Hofshteyn “the first Yiddish classic,” who together with a few other Kiev poets had found a “shortcut” to modern creativity. While Soviet critics usually hailed Hofshteyn’s poems, they often criticized him for being “too aesthetic” and “too elitist,” which implied belonging to the category of petit bourgeois rather than proletarian writers. From 1920, Hofshteyn lived mainly in Moscow, working as an editor for Jewish Communist authorities and chairing the Sholem Aleichem Theater Group, whose objective was to contrast the Moscow Chamber Yiddish Theater’s avant-gardism with a realist Yiddish stage. With Yitskhok Nusinov and Nokhem Oyslender, he formed a Yiddish publishing house called Lirik in 1921. The next year this enterprise launched an imprint for young writers, Vidervuks (New Growth); then, a literary group associated with this imprint became known by the same name. Hofshteyn, who edited and prefaced the pamphlet-sized poetic collections, was the recognized leader of the group. He was also a central figure in the journal Der shtrom.Hofshteyn was ostracized in 1924 for signing a memorandum to the government backing the teaching of Hebrew. He left the country in despair, spending a short time in Berlin before moving to Palestine. Struggling to make ends meet in Tel Aviv, he published poems and articles in Hebrew periodicals. In 1926, he regretted his actions and returned to Kiev, where he had left two sons by his first wife. With Itsik Fefer and a few other writers, he then studied under the supervision of Oyslender at the Kiev-based Chair (the precursor of the Institute) of Jewish Proletarian Culture at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Fefer characterized Hofshteyn as a “talented poet and worthless politician.” Yet the Hofshteyn–Fefer duo worked rather harmoniously, leading the Yiddish literary circles of Ukraine. Hofshteyn was targeted by proletarian critics of Leyb Kvitko for supporting the latter in 1929. Buzi Olevsky (1908–1941), a Soviet Yiddish poet and scholar (his graduate research concentrated on Hofshteyn’s oeuvre), wrote in the November 1933 issue of the journal Natsional’naia literatura that Hofshteyn was “the last distinguished mouthpiece of ideas of the [Jewish] nationalist petit bourgeois intelligentsia.” Nonetheless, in 1934, after the formation of the Soviet Writers Union, Hofshteyn represented Yiddish literature on the board of the Ukrainian Writers Union. That same year, he wrote that the muse no longer inspired him, and that his poetic mission changed: “Sense and detect / that everything in my country / is being led and drawn to life and rising / only by great love / and great judgment” (“A rege” [A Moment], published in Almanakh fun yidishe sovetishe shrayber [Kiev, 1934], pp. 70–71). Hofshteyn survived the devastating purges of the 1930s. Moreover, he was decorated by the state in 1939, becoming a member of the Communist Party the following year. On the eve of World War II, he defined himself as “a Jew of a new style” and was “proud / to belong / to the nation that does not become tired / and that builds / and believes / that in order to be immortal / one does not have to be already dead” (Dovid Hofshteyn, Geklibene verk [Moscow, 1948], p. 105). An activist of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee from 1942, he was the first of its leaders to be imprisoned for “anti-Soviet activities” in September 1948. Shortly before his arrest, he sent a telegram to Golda Meir about the need to revive Hebrew in the USSR. He was executed on 12 August 1952. The poet’s widow, Feyge, established the Dovid Hofshteyn Prize for Yiddish Literature in Tel Aviv in 1987. Time had little impact on Hofshteyn’s style. His aesthetic orientation toward Russian and European classics remained unchanged throughout his career. As his poetry matured, the metaphoric resonance of his verse became deeper and his imagery more elaborate, but his poetry always retained clarity of form and content. Hofshteyn successfully adjusted his neoclassical poetics to the formal requirements of socialist realism with minimal compromise in quality. By avoiding topical references, he offered little ammunition to his proletarian critics; his historical optimism and universalistic outlook guarded him from accusations of decadence and nationalism. Hofshteyn’s poetry remains a lasting cultural legacy of Soviet Yiddish literature.The Night of the Murdered Poets (Russian: Дело Еврейского антифашистского комитета, Delo Yevreyskogo antifashistskogo komiteta "Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee case"; Yiddish: הרוגי מלכות Harugey malkus funem Ratnfarband, "Soviet Union Martyrs") was an execution of thirteen Soviet Jews in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, Soviet Union on August 12, 1952.[1] The arrests were first made in September 1948 and June 1949. All defendants were falsely accused of espionage and treason as well as many other crimes. After their arrests, they were tortured, beaten, and isolated for three years before being formally charged. There were five Yiddish writers among these defendants, all of whom were a part of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.Jewish Anti-Fascist CommitteeMain article: Jewish Anti-Fascist CommitteeThe threat of an attack on Soviet Russia by Nazi Germany catalyzed the start of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee[2] (JAC), a committee reaching out to Jews worldwide to support the Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany. Solomon Mikhoels, a Yiddish actor and director, headed the Committee. Other members of the committee were prominent Yiddish literary figures, actors, and doctors who wanted to help influence Jewish support for the Soviet Union through their writing and also using radio broadcasts from Russia to different countries. In 1943, Mikhoels and the vice chairman of the Anti-Fascist Committee, Itzik Fefer, traveled to the U.S. and England to help raise money.As Nazi Germany secured its stronghold in Soviet Russia, Jewish culture and identity was destroyed in the Holocaust. The last influence left in Russia were the Yiddish figures in the JAC, and soon the initial purpose for the committee was changed. The committee felt it had a duty to change priorities, and focus on the rebuilding of Jewish communities, farms, culture and identity. Not everyone agreed with the direction things were headed in and many thought the JAC was "intervening in matters in which it should not interfere."[3]At the onset of the Cold War, the newly created state of Israel was allied with the West. With antisemitism already extant in the Soviet Union, the rise of the Zionist state exacerbated official antipathy to any outward show of Jewish activism. As a result, official persecution was sanctioned, leading to the Soviet's elimination of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1948 and the launching of a campaign against Zionists and so-called "rootless cosmopolitans," the preferred euphemism for Jews.Interrogation and indictmentThe charges filed against the accused included mentions of "counterrevolutionary crimes" and organized action meant to "topple, undermine, or weaken the Soviet Union."[4] Additionally, the inculpation revealed that the investigation uncovered evidence that the accused had used the JAC as a means for spying and promoting anti-government sentiment. The indictment went on to assert that the accused had been enemies of the government prior to their involvement with the JAC, and that the JAC served as their international network for communicating anti-Soviet views.[4]Overemphasis on exchanges of relatively innocuous information between the JAC leadership and Jews in other countries, particularly American journalists, augmented accusations of espionage.[4] Another piece of evidence supporting the indictment was a letter that the leadership of the JAC wrote as a formal request for Crimea to become the new Jewish homeland.[5]All of the defendants endured incessant interrogations which, for everyone except Itzik Fefer, were coupled with beatings and torture. Eventually, these tactics led to forced, false confessions. One defendant, Joseph Yuzefovich told the court at the trial, "I was ready to confess that I was the pope's own nephew and that I was acting on his direct personal orders" after a beating. Another defendant, Boris Shimeliovich, said he had counted over two thousand blows to his buttocks and heels, but he was the only member of the accused who refused to confess to any crimes.[6]Defendants Peretz Markish[7] (1895–1952), Yiddish poet, co-founder the School of Writers, a Yiddish literary school in Soviet Russia David Hofstein (1889–1952), Yiddish poet Itzik Feffer (1900–1952), Yiddish poet, informer for the Ministry of Internal Affairs Leib Kvitko (1890–1952), Yiddish poet and children's writer David Bergelson (1884–1952), distinguished novelist Solomon Lozovsky (1878–1952), Director of Soviet Information Bureau, Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs, vigorously denounced accusations against himself and others Boris Shimeliovich (1892–1952), Medical Director of the Botkin Clinical Hospital, Moscow Benjamin Zuskin (1899–1952), assistant to and successor of Solomon Mikhoels as director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater Joseph Yuzefovich (1890–1952), researcher at the Institute of History, Soviet Academy of Sciences, trade union leader Leon Talmy (1893–1952), translator, journalist, former member of the Communist Party USA Ilya Vatenberg (1887–1952), translator and editor of Eynikeyt, newspaper of the JAC; Labor Zionist leader in Austria and U.S. before returning to the USSR in 1933 Chaika Vatenburg-Ostrovskaya (1901–1952), wife of Ilya Vatenburg, translator at JAC. Emilia Teumin (1905–1952), deputy editor of the Diplomatic Dictionary; editor, International Division, Soviet Information Bureau Solomon Bregman (1895–1953), Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs. Fell into a coma after denouncing the trial and died in prison five months after the executions. Lina Stern (or Shtern) (1875–1968), the first female academician in the USSR and is best known for her pioneering work on blood–brain barrier. She was the only survivor out of the fifteen defendants. Some who were either directly or indirectly connected to the JAC at the time were also arrested in the years surrounding the trial. Although Solomon Mikhoels was not arrested, his death was ordered by Stalin in 1948. Der Nister, another Yiddish writer, was arrested in 1949, and died in a labor camp in 1950. Literary critic Yitzhak Nusinov died in prison and journalists Shmuel Persov and Miriam Zheleznova were shot – all in 1950.[8] Trial The trial began on May 8, 1952 and lasted until the sentencing on July 18. The structure of the trial was peculiar due to the fact that there were no prosecutors or defense attorneys, simply three military judges. This was in accordance with Soviet law at the time, but is characterized by historians today as "nothing less than terror masquerading as law."[8] While some defendants admitted their guilt, others plead partially guilty and some maintained their innocence. Since the trial was not public, the defendants made expressive and often lengthy statements professing their innocence. The defendants also had the opportunity to cross-examine each other, furthering the trial's intense atmosphere. During the trial, defendants answered some questions from judges which were wholly unrelated to the trial and resulted merely from personal curiosities. For example, the judges often asked the defendants about kosher meat and synagogue services.[8] With extensive statements, arguments, and inconsistencies between the defendants, the trial lasted much longer than the government had desired. On June 26, experts were called to give testimony about the issues of treason, but they ultimately acknowledged that "their judgment was incomplete and insufficient."[9] It became clear that some pieces of evidence had been tremendously exaggerated. For example, a statement by Leon Talmy that a particular Russian village was "not as pretty" as a certain Korean village was used as evidence of his nationalist tendencies.[9] Alexander Cheptsov, the lead judge of the trial, confronted with such a great number of discrepancies and contradictions, twice made attempts to appeal to the Soviet leadership to reopen the investigation, and was denied both times.[10] Even after sentencing the defendants, Cheptsov attempted to lengthen the process by declining to immediately execute the defendants. Sentence The sentence stated that the defendants would receive "the severest measure of punishment for the crimes committed by them jointly: execution by firing squad, with all of their property to be confiscated."[11] The court also stripped the men of their medals and made petitions to remove military commendations such as the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. On August 12, 1952, thirteen of the defendants (excluding Lina Stern and Solomon Bregman) were executed. After the execution of the defendants, the trial and its results were kept secret. There was not a single reference to the trial or the execution in Soviet newspapers. Defendants' families were charged with "being relatives of traitors to the motherland" and exiled in December of 1952. They did not learn about the fates of their family members until November 1955, when the case was reopened.[10] The defendant Lina Stern was sentenced to three and a half years in a correctional labor camp and five years of exile, but after Stalin's death she was able to return to her home and continue her studies. During the trial, she was determined to be "no less guilty" than the other defendants but was considered important to the state because of her research; she therefore received a lesser sentence than the others. Officials counted her time spent in prison before the sentencing towards her labor camp term, so she went into exile immediately after the sentencing.[12] During his imprisonment, Solomon Bregman collapsed and was placed in the prison infirmary. He remained unconscious until his death on January 23, 1953.[13] Reactions and results Stalin continued his oppression of Jews with the Doctors' Plot, which began to gain publicity just as his health began to deteriorate. Weeks after Stalin's death, on March 5, 1953, the new Soviet leadership renounced the Doctors' Plot, which led to questions about the similar situation with the JAC defendants.[10] Upon the discovery that much of the testimony from the trial was the result of torture and coercion, the proceedings were reexamined. On November 22, 1955, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR determined that there was "no substance to the charges" against the defendants and closed the case.[1] Many of the surviving members of the JAC emigrated to Israel in the 1970s. A memorial for the JAC victims was dedicated in Jerusalem in 1977 on the 25th anniversary of the Night of the Murdered Poets.[14] *** The Yiddish Book Collection of the Russian Avant-Garde contains books published between the years 1912-1928 by many of the movement’s best known artists. The items here represent only a portion of Yale's holdings in Yiddish literature. The Beinecke, in collaboration with the Yale University library Judaica Collection, continues to digitize and make Yiddish books available online. With the Russian Revolution of 1917, prohibitions on Yiddish printing imposed by the Czarist regime were lifted. Thus, the early post-revolutionary period saw a major flourishing of Yiddish books and journals. The new freedoms also enabled the development of a new and radically modern art by the Russian avant-garde. Artists such as Mark Chagall, Joseph Chaikov, Issachar Ber Ryback, El (Eliezer) Lisitzsky and others found in the freewheeling artistic climate of those years an opportunity Jews had never enjoyed before in Russia: an opportunity to express themselves as both Modernists and as Jews. Their art often focused on the small towns of Russia and Ukraine where most of them had originated. Their depiction of that milieu, however, was new and different. Jewish art in the early post-revolutionary years emerged with the creation of a secular, socialist culture and was especially cultivated by the Kultur-Lige, the Jewish social and cultural organizations of the 1920s and 1930s. One of the founders of the first Kultur-Lige in Kiev in 1918 was Joseph Chaikov, a painter and sculptor whose books are represented in the Beinecke’s collection. The Kultur-Lige supported education for children and adults in Jewish literature, the theater and the arts. The organization sponsored art exhibitions and art classes and also published books written by the Yiddish language’s most accomplished authors and poets and illustrated by artists who in time became trail blazers in modernist circles. This brief flowering of Yiddish secular culture in Russia came to an end in the 1920s. As the power of the Soviet state grew under Stalin, official culture became hostile to the experimental art that the revolution had at first facilitated and even encouraged. Many artists left for Berlin, Paris and other intellectual centers. Those that remained, like El Lisitzky, ceased creating art with Jewish themes and focused their work on furthering the aims of Communism. Tragically, many of them perished in Stalin’s murderous purges. The Artists Eliezer Lisitzky (1890–1941), better known as El Lisitzky, was a Russian Jewish artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer, and architect. He was one of the most important figures of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop Suprematism with his friend and mentor, Kazimir Malevich. He began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture. In 1921, he became the Russian cultural ambassador in Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus movement. He brought significant innovation and change to the fields of typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim. However, as he grew more involved with creating art work for the Soviet state, he ceased creating art with Jewish themes. Among the best known Yiddish books illustrated by the artist is Sikhes Hulin by the writer and poet Moshe Broderzon and Yingel Tsingle Khvat, a children’s book of poetry by Mani Leyb. Both works have been completely digitized and can be found here. Joseph Chaikov (1888-1979) was a Russian sculptor, graphic artist, teacher, and art critic. Born in Kiev, Chaikov studied in Paris from 1910 to 1913. Returning to Russia in 1914, he became active in Jewish art circles and in 1918 was one of the founders of the Kultur-Lige in Kiev. Though primarily known as a sculptor, in his early career, he also illustrated Yiddish books, many of them children’s books. In 1921 his Yiddish book, Skulptur was published. In it, the artist formulated an avant-garde approach to sculpture and its place in a new Jewish art. It too is in the Beinecke collection. Another of the great artists from this remarkable period in Yiddish cultural history is Issachar Ber Ryback. Together with Lisistzky, he traveled as a young man in the Russian countryside studying Jewish folk life and art. Their findings made a deep impression on both men as artists and as Jews and folk art remained an abiding influence on their work. One of Ryback’s better known works is Shtetl, Mayn Khoyever heym; a gedenknish (Shtetl, My destroyed home; A Remembrance), Berlin, 1922. In this book, also in the Beinecke collection, the artist depicts scenes of Jewish life in his shtetl (village) in Ukraine before it was destroyed in the pogroms which followed the end of World War I. Indeed, Shtetl is an elegy to that world. David Hofstein’s book of poems, Troyer (Tears), illustrated by Mark Chagall also mourns the victims of the pogroms. It was published by the Kultur-Lige in Kiev in 1922. Chagall’s art in this book is stark and minimalist in keeping with the grim subject of the poetry. Chagall was a leading force in the new emerging Yiddish secular art and many of the young modernist artists of the time came to study and paint with him in Vitebsk, his hometown. Lisistzky and Ryback were among them. Chagall, however, parted ways with them when their artistic styles and goals diverged. Chagall moved to Moscow in 1920 where he became involved with the newly created and innovative Moscow Yiddish Theater. Cite as: General Modern Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University KULTUR LIGE : the Kultur Lige was at the heart of the Jewish cultural renaissance in Kiev, providing education and culture to the Jewish population. It had its own press, which published teaching material, literary and historical studies, literary journals, and children's books such as Troyer. The artists involved included Lissitzky, Ryback, Chagall, and Tchaikov, to name only a few. The exhibition "Kultur-Lige: Artistic Avant-Garde of 1910-s - 1920s" occured on December 20, 2007 - January 25, 2008 in the National Museum of Art of Ukraine. It was dedicated to the activity of artistic section of enlightenment organization Kultur-Lige (Cultural-League), which was active on the territory of Ukraine in the first half of 20-s – beginning of 30-s of XX century. In the exposition works of Mark Chagall, Alexander Tyshler, Mark Epstein, Elieser Lisitski, Josef Chaikov, Abraham Manevich, Issakhar-Ber Rybak, Boris Aronson, Nathan Altman, Solomon Nikritin and Sarah Shor were represented. 1910- 1920 is the period of Jewish life transformation. New Jewish culture was formed through dramatic events. Studying and trying to understand a phenomenon of Jewish life and Jewish culture development in Kyiv and Ukraine and also “Kultur-Lige” activities in the context of the epoch are of a crucial importance. It is necessary for understanding of Jewish history and culture of entire Eastern Europe ****** BOREKH (BORIS) ARONSON BOREKH (BORIS) ARONSON (October 31, 1898-November 16, 1980) Born in Nyezhin (Nizhyn), Ukraine, where his father, R. Shloyme, was the rabbi. At age ten he moved with his parents to Kiev. He received both a Jewish and a general education. In 1916 he was a student at the Kiev Art School. In 1919-1920 he was a manager of the art studio at the Culture League in Kiev. He studied in Moscow. He decorated A. Vayter’s drama “Far tog” (Dawn) for the Moscow Jewish art theater. In 1923 he was in Berlin to participate in the major art show there. From 1924 he was living in the United States. He belonged to the modernist group of Jewish painters, and he published articles in Oyfgang (Arise) (put out by “Kultur lige” [Culture league], 1919), Bikher-velt (Book world) (1922), and Tealit (Theater and literature), among others. He published in Russian a major work entitled Sovremennaia evreiskaia grafika (Contemporary Jewish graphics) (Berlin: Petropolis, 1923), 104 pp., and a monograph, Mark shagal (Marc Chagall), translated from the Russian original by Sholem Ben-Borekh (pen name of Yitskhok Kharlash) (Berlin: Petropolis, 1924), 31 pp. He also published in French: Boris Aronson et l’art du théâtre (Boris Aronson et the art of the theater) [Paris, 1928], reproductions of his stage scenery with an introduction by Waldemar-George (16 pp. in journal format, 32 images). He lived in New York and worked as well as a stage designer for the English theater..

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