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.
Reubeni Foundation, educational and cultural organization, founded in Jerusalem by Polly Reubens Van Leer.
The first project of the Reubeni Foundation was an imaginative newspaper, which described Biblical events as if they were current news. Inspired by an idea of Polly Van Leer’s son, Chronicles was printed in Rehavia and includes many of the typical newpaper rubrics, like Names in the News and Letters to the Editor, all written as if contemporaneous to the events described. “It is devoted to turning a contemporary spotlight on ancient history. Here the age-old tales are retold in lively, modern prose—in a manner that teases the mind and illuminates their significance fo the twentieth-century readers.”1The Suburban List, Thurday, July 11, 1957. Initially printed monthly and available at news stands, the Reubeni Foundation began collecting the issues in volumes in 1954. The Foundation ceased publication of Chronicles in 1973.
Emmy Roth grew up in Hattigen, studied with C.A. Beumers in Düsseldorf and, after her first marriage, settled in Berlin. Between 1923 and 1933, she had a workshop in Charlottenberg and enjoyed considerable acclaim. After the Nazis seized power, she emigrated to France until 1935, when she left for Palestine and settled in Jerusalem. Unable to get sufficient commissions, she returned to Europe in 1937, working in the Netherlands. By late 1939 or early 1940, she was forced again to leave Europe, this time, settling in Tel Aviv. Ill with cancer and unable to work, Emmy Roth committed suicide in 1942.1Sänger, Reinhard W. “Emmy Roth” in FrauenSilber: Paula Straus, Emmy Roth & Co., Badisches Landesmuseum, 2011.
Carmel Winery (יקבי כרמל), the largest producer of wines in Israel.
A postcard for Carmel wines, with Ismar David’s signet.
Baron Edmond de Rothschild was the owner of the world famous Château Lafitte Winery in Bordeaux. In 1882, he sent representatives to Palestine to assess the land’s growing conditions. They returned with favorable reports that the climate was similar to Bordeaux and recommended planting vineyards for the production of wine. By 1890, construction of the first section of a winery in Rishon Lezion was already completed and the first grapes were harvested. In 1896, the winery started to export throughout the world. The new company’s success led to the opening of new branches, initially in Odessa, Hamburg and New York. These were soon followed by other branches located in Berlin, Vienna, and London. Simultaneously, the Carmel Winery began to export wines throughout the Ottoman Empire.
The outbreak of World War I signaled a difficult time for the Jewish settlement and for the wineries. The international wine market fell into a period of disarray meaning that the Near East became a more important market for wine, with Carmel Mizrachi becoming a dominant force in the market. In 1957 James Rothschild, son of the Baron passed ownership of the winery to the Winegrowers Association. The Carmel winery grew and its wines continued to accompany all the important events in the State of Israel.
Ismar David designed the original logo of the Carmel Winery.
A postcard for Carmel wines, with Ismar David’s signet.
The verso of a postcard for Carmel wines, with Ismar David’s signet.
The neighborhood of Rehavia was established in 1921, on land leased from the Greek Orthodox Church by the Palestine Land Development Company and named for Moses’ grandson. The German-Jewish architect Richard Kauffmann was commissioned to design it as a garden neighborhood. Many of the residents were members of the Fifth Aliyah and gave it a European character and an association with German-Jewish culture, language and tradition. The Jewish Agency building and the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael (Jewish National Fund) headquarters are there. Café Hermon was a popular meeting place. Among Ismar David’s friends and associates from the neighborhood were: Gabriella Rosenthal, Alfred Bernheim and Charlotte Stein.
Rosh Rehavia (Head of Rehavia), 8 Keren Kayemet Street, was a building designed by Rafael and Dan Ben-Dor in 1936. Ismar David lived and worked there from possibly the late 1930s until he moved to New York. His studio was in the basement of the west wing. As he was the first tenant in that part of the basement, a wall had to be erected and the space finished. Water and electricity were installed for him. Other commercial neighbors in the basement of 8 KKL included a sports trainer and later a seamstress.1Draft of a letter to Jonathan Tsvi Werbelowsky, February, 1984.
Charlotte Stein, 1901–1987, proprietor of Charlotte Shop, the first and oldest gift store in Jerusalem
A framed photograph of Charlotte Stein in the Charlotte Shop.
Born in Berlin, Charlotte Stein studied arts & crafts there. She had emigrated to Jerusalem after what she described as a moment of political insight and because “I didn’t want to make bourgeois things for bourgeois people anymore,” 1Jerusalem Post Magazine, Friday, November 5, 1971 p.21. opening her shop on Storrs Street in 1931. The first and oldest gift shop in Jerusalem sold Charlotte’s own hand painted silk lampshades and catered to British soldiers, eager to send souvenirs home. Charlotte worked closely with the city’s craftsmen, helping them to adjust their work to modern sensibilities and needs, and cultivated merchants from near and far. She said, “There’s nothing like the fun of never knowing who will come in next and bring you something which you’ve never had in the shop before. You have to swallow hard and not show your enchantment.”2Jerusalem Post, Thursday, December 31, 1981.
The store has weathered over 90 years of social and political storms and today still occupies the same space on Storrs Street, now called Koresh Street. Charlotte’s successor, Noga Eshed, continues to curate a unique collection of art and artifacts: copper craft, Armenian ceramics, Persian fabrics, antique jewelry, Bedouin embroidery, Moroccan and Israeli art.
Photograph by Paul Almasy from an article, Transit Palästina, in an unidentified German language magazine. The original caption ran: “The barbed wire on the sidewalk is already a big concession to traffic, since there are whole areas that are completely cordoned off and can only be accessed with special identity cards, which are difficult to obtain. The Jews call these neighborhoods ‘Bevingrad’ with bitter cynicism, but no wonder, after the experiences with the British.”
Charlotte Stein was on of Ismar David’s oldest friends in Jerusalem. He designed signage and graphics for the store.
The KKL, or Jewish National Fund, a non-profit organization founded in 1901 to support the Jewish settlement in Palestine.
The organization bought and developed the land in Ottoman Palestine, later the British Mandate for Palestine, and subsequently Israel. Since its inception, the JNF says it has planted over 240 million trees, built 180 dams and reservoirs, developed 250,000 acres (1,000 km2) of land and established more than 1,000 parks.
Winning the KKL’s competition for the design of its Golden Book cover at the end of 1931, enabled Ismar David to come to Jerusalem and settle there. He subsequently designed three more Golden Book covers, as well as other graphics and exhibition work. The headquarters of the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael/Jewish National Fund is still in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem, a few minutes walk from where he lived. Decades of massive Golden Books are displayed there.
