At the age of seventeen, Yossi Stern managed to flee to Palestine from his native Hungary. He studied at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, gaining recognition as an artist in the last years of the British Mandate. Mayor Teddy Kolleck called him the “Painter of Jerusalem.” He depicted his beloved city in cartoons, illustrations & paintings, in books and hometown newspapers, including Yediot Ahronot and Davar. He made news himself, when he came out as gay in the mid 1980s. He suffered a second heart attack in 1992 and died one month later.
A business card of artist Yossi Stern, Jerusalem.
Yossi Stern worked with Ismar David on the Hagana newspaper, The Defender, which was issued from December 1948 – April 1949. The two artists collaborated on posters during this time.
Herrmann M. Z. Meyer, 1901–1972, bibliophile, collector, publisher, a founder of the Soncino-Gesellschaft in Berlin, proprietor of Universitas Booksellers in Jerusalem.
Herrmann M.Z. Meyer in front of his store, circa 1946. Signage designed by Ismar David.
Berlin-born Herrmann M.Z. Meyer had already acquired a significant collection of books and graphics by the time he began his law studies at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University (today Humboldt University) in his home city. The twenty-three year old had the idea to create a society of friends of the Hebrew book and founded the Soncino-Gesellschaft with Abraham Horodisch and Moses Marx, both publishers. The first and only Jewish bibliophile society in Germany had over 800 members, including many institutions and 21 women, and published a journal. Its more than 100 published works encompassed a wide variety of literary content, including most ambitiously, a Hebrew Bible with a proprietary typeface. Meyer, its official secretary and behind-the-scenes editor, was considered its soul and driving force.
The political situation forced Meyer, his wife and daughter to leave Germany for France in 1934. An attempt at starting a bookstore in Paris failed and the family moved to Amsterdam. In 1935 they left Holland for Jerusalem, where Meyer opened Universitas Booksellers. A reporter for the Palestine Post described the 10, 000 books “on the floor, on shelves, benches and tables.”1Roundabout by the Postman,The Palestine Post, April 16, 1936, p. 6.
Dr. Meyer has been engaged in book collection for only 15 years, as he is still a young man. “How did you find so many rare gems in such a short space of time?” we asked. “One would expect you to have a long beard.”
“My beard grows inside my face” he responded. “And books have a way of coming from great distances to those who love them.”
Because Dr. Meyer does love them, his books tenaciously refuse to look like articles for sale. Thus his “shop” retains the air of a library. Hours pass like minutes when browsing through the rooms. One comes across the Divine Comedy of Dante printed in Venice in 1757 for the Empress of Russia, Petrowna. The four volumes are bound in parchment gone yellow.2Roundabout by the Postman,Ibid.
Interior of Universitas Booksellers.
Interior of Universitas Booksellers, showing a variety of English language art and literature books.
In 1936, Meyer moved his store to 7 Princess Mary Avenue, now Shlomzion ha-Malka Street. Ismar David designed various graphics for Universitas, as well as outdoor signage for the store in 1936 and for its renovation in 1946. He also designed a personal bookplate for Herrmann Meyer. In 1955 Meyer wrote to David.
Letter from Herrmann M. Z. Meyer, 1955.
21.1.55
Dear Ismar David,
I learned your address by chance and am shameless enough, despite being out of contact for years, to turn to you with a request for advice and support.
In the same airmail post, I’m sending you a few examples of greeting cards I made. I intend to sell something similar for the coming Rosh Ha-Shanah and New Year to American firms, who want to send their clients an acknowledgement like this that seems extraordinary. I can print the name of the firm and desired text directly here in Jerusalem and send them by mail with an Israeli postage stamp, validated with a special postmark. This special mail cancellation mark with contain a greeting in English.
I believe that such a unique, and despite its prominence, very distinguished advertisement would be of interest for many big firms, not just for markedly Jewish companies, but rather also much more for Christian business. The price for an order of 500 is upwards of 80 cents to $1 to per piece. A smaller format, about half of that.
Now, I believe that the canvassing for clients cannot be carried out from here. I don’t think that you are involved with the commercial side of advertising—or am I mistaken?—but otherwise you surely know the addresses from a few big publicity agents who manage the accounts of important firms. Would you be so kind and advise me in this? Your help with this would be very valuable and I thank you most heartily in advance.
Most cordially, Your Meyer P.S. What are the usual fees for a publicity agent?
Helen Rossi Koussevitzky, 1906–1990, Palestine Post editor, founder of various charitable funds, including the Post Toy Drive and Forsake Me Not campaign (to help the elderly).
Helen Rossi in Jerusalem, in charge of public relations for food control for the Mandatory government, circa 1942. Photos of Helen Rossi courtesy of Dan Koussevitzky.
The youngest of three Feinberg sisters in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Helen Rossi—the name that stuck with her for her entire career—studied at New York University and Cornell, before studying drama at Yale. She first visited Palestine in 1929 and returned to stay in 1934. After several years, she began working in the advertising department of the Palestine Post, later becoming an editor. She founded her own firm, R & S Public Relations.
She and Ismar David were friends. In letters to her sister, novelist Zelda Popkin, Rossi called Ismar “a commercial artist, decorator and letterer par excellence — the best in the country”1Letter from Helen Rossi to Zelda Popkin, American Jewish Archives. Ismar helped her with her womens’ supplement for the Palestine Post, Features and Fashions, which appeared for the first time on Wednesday, August 20, 1947 and her work in public relations. She brought about his introduction to Robert Leslie and was instrumental in Ismar getting the job for the Bonds of Israel Exhibition, that brought him to New York in 1952.
Maurice Ascalon, 1913–2003, Israeli designer and sculptor.
Born in eastern Hungary, Maurice Ascalon left his ultra-religious Chasidic Jewish roots in favour of his artistic expression. At 15 years old he went to study art in Brussels and later Milan, settling in Tel Aviv in 1934. In 1939, Ascalon designed and created the enormous 14-foot-tall (4.3 m) hammered repoussé copper relief sculpture of three figures, “The Scholar, The Laborer, and The Toiler of the Soil”, which adorned the façade of the Jewish Palestine Pavilion of the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Maurice Ascalon working on the “The Scholar, The Laborer, and The Toiler of the Soil,” in Tel Aviv and Flushing, New York, and on a relief map of the Twelve Tribes.Zoltan Kluger Collection in the Israel State Archive
He founded an Israeli decorative arts manufacturing company, Pal-Bell, which produced bronze and brass decorative art and functional items. During Israel’s War for Independence in 1948, Maurice designed munitions for the Israeli Army and, at the request of the Israeli government, retrofitted his factory to produce munitions for the war effort. In 1956 Maurice immigrated to the United States, where he created silver objects of Jewish ceremonial art.
Maurice Ascalon’s son, David, recalls, as a child, meeting Ismar David. He reports that David and Maurice Ascalon were friends and collaborators, although the nature of the collaboration is not currently certain.
Lud Cigarette Factory (בית חרושת לסיגריות לוד בע”מ), Israeli factory that was founded in 1950 by the Histadrut
Lud manufactured cigarette brands, including Consul in 1950, Knesseth, Gila, Sharon, Etzion, Eilat in 1951, Noblesse in 1953, Negev, Lud in 1955, Knesset 6, Maksim, Silon in 1956, Lux, Record, Dolphin in 1957, Capri, Paz, Everest in 1961, A.L.F in 1964, Ben-hur in 1965, Mirage in 1967, and Mustang in 1970. By 1971 it suffered economic difficulties and was sold to Dubek Ltd., the Israeli cigarette manufacturing company that had been established in 1935.
Born in Germany, Alfred Bernheim studied photography in Weimar and applied art in Pforzheim. In 1933 he opened a studio in Berlin. Following the rise of the Nazi party to power in 1934, he immigrated to Jerusalem. He set up a photography lab in his home and was commissioned by various institutions, such as the Bezalel Academy and the Hebrew University. Most of Bernheim’s work focused on creating portraits and architectural photographs. He also engaged in commercial photography in the style of the “new photography”.
Jewish Agency for Israel, a non-profit organization, established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization.
Although its mandate is strengthening the bond between Jews worldwide and Israel, it is best known for fostering the immigration to Israel and for helping Jews and their families from the Jewish diaspora make the transition. The Jewish Agency has helped three million immigrants to Israel since 1948 and many before that as well. It arranged the passage and relocation of Rosa Freund David from Shanghai to Palestine in 1947.
The Jewish Museum in New York City, first Jewish museum in the United States as well as the old existing Jewish museum in the world.
The Jewish Museum, as we know it today, opened in 1947 in what had been the family home of Felix M. Warburg on Fifth Avenue in New York. His widow Frieda Schiff Warburg had donated the building to the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1944 for the purpose of establishing a museum for its collection of art and cultural artifacts. The Jewish Museum became the first Jewish museum in the country and is today the oldest Jewish museum in the world. Its first director and curator, Stephen S. Kayser, worked closely with architect Percival Goodman to transform the mansion into a museum. Under Dr. Kayser’s leadership, the museum championed not only modern Jewish ceremonial objects—the Tobe Pascher Workshop, headed by silversmith Ludwig Wolpert, was established at the museum in 1956—it began to foster contemporary painting and sculpture as well.1Lubow, Arthur, How New York’s Jewish Museum Anticipated the Avant-Garde, New York Times Magazine, July 7, 2020
Ismar David made an announcement for a small solo exhibition of his work at the Jewish Museum in 1953 and was part of other exhibitions there in 1954, 1956/57, and 1958.
Founded in 1918 in Jerusalem, 30 years before the establishment of the State of Israel. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world’s largest Jewish studies library, the National Library of Israel, is located on its Edmond J. Safra Givat Ram campus. The first Board of Governors included Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber, and Chaim Weizmann. Four of Israel’s prime ministers are alumni of the Hebrew University. As of 2018, 15 Nobel Prize winners, 2 Fields Medalists and 3 Turing Award winners have been affiliated with the University.
Villu Toots, 1916–1993, calligrapher, book designer.
Villu Toots, 1963.
Villu Toots spent his formative years is Tartu, now Estonia. After high school, he worked for local cinema companies, creating posters, ads and other graphics and attended the Pallas Art School. In 1945, he moved to Talinn, where he was an art director in two publishing houses and later a designer for Essti Naine (Estonian Woman) magazine. In 1965 he established his own school of calligraphy, Kirjakunsti Kool.
In February of 1980, Toots wrote to Ismar David, saying he had learned of Our Calligraphic Heritage and wanted to obtain a copy. Since Toots could neither send money abroad nor buy foreign books in Estonia, he proposed a book exchange. If David would send OCH, Toots would send his own Lettering Art in Estonia 1940–1970. It was the first of two book exchanges and many holiday cards. A draft of a note from the mid-80s reads:
Dear brother calligrapher, Once before you took the initiative to suggest that we should be aware of each other’s work. Since then, each of your mailings has brought stimulation and delight to me and my friends. The book that recently arrived is outstanding in its richness of ideas, textures, and in the way it brings out the personality of the man behind it. The least I can do is to respond by sending you a copy of a book that may convey some of my ideas related to calligraphy and graphic design in the service of the Book. With my best wishes for many more productive years, sincerely, I.D.
