Moshe Ziffer, 1902–1989, sculptor.
The son of a self-taught master builder, Moshe Ziffer was born in Przemyśl in Galicia. He began to learn Hebrew at the age of six, imbibed a spirit of Zionism at home and was a member of the Socialist-Zionist youth group, Hashomer Hatzair. He had the benefits of a secular education that would have prepared him for university studies,1Ballas, Gila, Moshe Ziffer The Man and the Artist, Research and Publications Archive, The David and Yolanda Katz Faculty of the Arts, Tel Aviv University. but instead trained with HeHalutz (The Pioneer), as a carpenter,2Wikipedia entry for Moshe Ziffer. and joined the great wave of migration to Palestine in 1919. In the old new land, he took part in a number of large scale projects which included planting 5,000 eucalyptus trees in Qastina and building the Haifa-Gedda Road. When an accident with a contentious donkey landed him bedridden in a hospital for an extended time, he came across Dmitry Merzhkovsky’s vivid novel about Leonardo da Vinci. The young laborer had hardly read 20 pages before he knew he must become a sculptor.3The Sculpture Garden of Moshe Ziffer, Maariv, October 7, 1977, p. 23. He became fascinated with “the fantastic shapes of olive tree roots” and began imitating them in wood carvings of his own. 4 Peczenik, Hermann, Der Bildhauer Moscheh Ziffer, Menorah: jüdisches Familenblatt für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Literature, vol. 6, 1928, issue 11-12, November 1928, p. 647. In October 1924, he was given a small stipend to seek further treatment in Vienna. He took the opportunity to visit his family and apply for a place in the class of Eugen Gustav Steinhof, director of the Universität für angewandte Kunst. Steinhof recalled:
Herr Ziffer kam zu mir mit einer geschnitzten Baumwurzel in der Hand und mit der Absicht, in meine Bildhauerklasse einzutreten. Er sagte mir ferner, daß er Gärtner gewesen wäre. Die ruhige Tiefe seiner blauen Augen, die feine Linie seines Mundes sowie der Ernst und die Ruhe seiner Rede bewogen mich, ihn als Schüler aufzunehmen und nicht seine geschnitzte Baumwurzel. Wer kann den Wert einer menschlichen Seele in ihrer Tiefe ermessen, wenn Reinheit und Scheu sie verhüllt?5Under the rubric Kleine Chronik, Neue Freie Presse Abendblatt. Vienna: November 2, 1928, p. 1.
Mr. Ziffer came to me with a carved tree root in his hand and with the intention of entering my sculpture class. Further, he told me that he had been a gardener. The quiet depths of his blue eyes, the delicate line of his mouth, as well as the seriousness and stillness of his discourse, and not his carved tree root, moved me to take him as a student. Who can measure the depth of a human soul, if purity and reserve veils them?
Through the sponsorship and encouragement of Steinhof and of Chief Rabbi of Vienna Peretz Hayut, Ziffer remained in Austria’s capital for almost three years. In 1928, the Holbein Gallery exhibited 23 of his works in an array of media: marble, stone, alabaster and terracotta. Despite the success of the exhibition, or perhaps because of it—the reviewer in Der Tag found fault with his work, but also pronounced him “on a good path”6Kollektivaustellung M. Ziffer, Der Tag October 20, 1928, p. 7. ; the Neue Freie Presse predicted a bright future if he would acquire technical more technical prowess7Under the rubric Ibid. Neue Freie Presse Abendblatt. —Ziffer left to further his studies in Berlin with Edwin Scharff. Albert Einstein befriended Ziffer in 1929 and thereafter supported Ziffer’s Berlin studies financially. In April 1933, Ziffer was forced to abandon the sculptures he had made in Berlin, as well as a promised exhibition at the Gurlitt Gallery, and returned to Palestine to devote himself to his work and to teaching. In 1937, he traveled to Paris, where his work was critically well-received and he became friendly with many in the artistic community, returning to Jerusalem in 1939. Subsequently, he divided his time between Tel Aviv and Safed.8Wikipedia entry for Moshe Ziffer.
Ziffer enjoyed considerable success in his adopted homeland. In 1935, he and the painter Moshe Mokdi won a competition to design the gravestone for Chaim Nahman Bialik. Ziffer’s larger-than-life sculpture, The Pioneer, stood in the Hall of Transformation in the Palestine Pavilion (in front of a photographic mural with lettering probably designed by Ismar David) at the 1939 World’s Fair. Ziffer’s many monumental public works dot Israel today (Weizmann Institute, the Hebrew University, the Haifa Technion, Kibbutz Hulda, Netanya, Kibbutz Netzarim, Ain Gedi), culminating in the decades-long development of his garden in Safed, by which time his work had turned fully to abstraction.