In Search of a New Jewish Art: Leonid Pasternak in Jerusalem

In early 1924, Leonid Pasternak received a somewhat strange proposal from the publisher Alexander Kogan. Surprisingly, this story was not censored during the preparation of Pasternak's memoir, which was published in Moscow some thirty years after his death and contained no trace of his connections with Jewish culture.¹ The following passage is sandwiched between portraits of Russian musicians from the early twentieth century:

[. . .] I was approached by an editor from Paris, Alexander Eduardovich Kogan, publisher of the art journal Jar-Ptitsa² and other magnificent monographs on Russian painters and artists. [. . .] He suggested that I should take part in an expedition to Palestine, the aim of which was to publish a series of coloured paintings and drawings which would create an up-to-date image of Palestine, its natural habitat and its inhabitants. The members of the delegation were to draw the pictures on the spot, based on their unmediated visual impressions. [. . .] Although in principle I was not averse to accepting his invitation, I was at the moment busy putting the finishing touches to a commissioned work and wasn't in a position to join the expedition. The idea of travelling alone and meeting up with the expedition only in Palestine didn't appeal to me and, besides, the possibility of sea-sickness, an agonizing one for me, was a further restraint – so I declined.³

But Kogan would not accept Pasternak's negative response, and flooded the sixty-two-year old Russian-Jewish painter with repeated letters and entreaties, promising to fund all of his travel expenses in the most comfortable circumstances. Pasternak related:

When our doctor said that he would accept responsibility for my ailing wife and that I could leave her with an easy and free conscience, either in Berlin or in Munich with my elder daughter, and that I ought on no account to forgo such a rare opportunity, I finally agreed to the trip, and having sent a telegram to Kogan to that effect, I quickly set about preparing myself for the journey.⁴

Who else was a member of that artist's delegation? And what caused a publisher of books on Russian art to organize a delegation to the Land of Israel in particular? Surprisingly, nothing has been written to date about this fascinating journey to Palestine, headed by Kogan and Pasternak in the spring of 1924 (fig. 1). In the present article, I attempt to answer some of the questions raised by this journey and to draw connections between this trip and the role Leonid Pasternak played in the history of the Hebrew book in the twentieth century.

Fig. 1.

Leonid Pasternak in front of Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, June 1924.

Photograph: courtesy of Michael R. Weintraub, Inc., New York

Pasternak, a leading representative of Russian impressionism and one of the greatest painters to come to the fore in Russia in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was born in 1862 to a Jewish family in Odessa, but quickly distanced himself from his roots. He hewed his torturous and winding path to the pinnacle of Russian art on his own, as did Mark Antokolsky and Isaak Levitan before him, contending with the many difficulties he encountered because of his Jewish origins. After being forced by his family to turn to the study of law for a number of years, in 1883 he was accepted to the Academy of Art in Munich.⁵ His studies in Germany had a decisive impact on his work in a later period in Moscow. Moreover, without a doubt his familiarity with German culture eased his move to Berlin in the early 1920s and facilitated his wide range of activities there, which went well beyond the bounds of the Russian artistic community that had gathered in the capital of the Weimar Republic.

In 1888, following a series of personal crises, Pasternak moved to Moscow and began work on his first great opus, Letter from Home (1889), which earned him a reputation among Russian artists.⁶ This impressive painting opened...