1950 Bezalel ZEEV RABAN Bible ESTHER SCROLL Jewish ART BOOK Holocaust JUDAICA

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1950 Bezalel ZEEV RABAN Bible ESTHER SCROLL Jewish ART BOOK Holocaust JUDAICA:
$175.00

DESCRIPTION : Up forsale isthe ORIGINAL vintage Hebrew -English Biblical book of\"SCROLL OF ESTHER\" , In its JEWISH - ART version which was paintedand illustrated ZEEV RABAN of the BEZALEL school of art in Jerusalem EretzIsrael. It’s the ORIGINAL 1950’s edition by “MIRIAM” publishing house. Pleasedon’t confuse with recent re-prints which are being offered on-line for$250-500 . RABAN has provided ELEVEN colorful IMAGES to accompany the Biblicalstory ESTHER . Raban created this piece only a few years after the HOLOCAUSTand he dedicated it to his mother , A martyr who was murdered by the NAZI inWarsaw Ghetto – A victim of “THE HAMAN of OUR TIME” . One more of RABAN’smasterpieces , Exquisite comlex and very delicate decorated illustrations – Thefull traditional biblical text is written in original calligraphy combinedwithin the ilustrations themselves. The 11 colorful full page illustrations aretipped in the books leaves of very heavy stock . Each such amazingpaintings is tipped in side by side with its ENGLISH translation on theopposite page . Full Biblical text of \"SCROLL of ESTHER \" in Hebrew andin English. Published in the 1950\'s in Israel by “MIRIAM” and “Sinai” Tel Aviv.Original cloth canvasHC with additional tipped in RABAN illustration.Gilt hradings. Size around 9\" x 10\" . Oblong. 24 pponvery heavy stock. plus11tipped in prints.Very goodinner condition . clean. Tightly bound. Cover is somewhat worn and stained. ( Please watch the scan for reliable AS ISimages ) Book willbe sent in a special protective rigid package.

PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal .SHIPPMENT : Shipp worldwide via registered airmailcosts $16 . will be sent inside a protective rigid envelope . Handling within 3-5 days after payment. Estimated Int\'l duration around 14 days. The Book of Esther is one of the books of the Ketuvim (\"Writings\") of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) and of the Historical Books of the Old Testament. The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim. Its full text is read aloud twice during the celebration, in the evening and again the following morning Setting The Biblical Book of Esther is set in the third year of Ahasuerus, a king of Persia. The name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes, both deriving from the Persian Khashayarsha, thus Ahasuerus is usually identified as Xerxes I (486-465 BCE), though Ahasuerus is identified as Artaxerxes in the later Greek version of Esther (as well as by Josephus, the Jewish commentary Esther Rabbah, the Ethiopic translation and the Christian theologian Bar-Hebraeus who identified him more precisely as Artaxerxes II ). The Book of Esther tells a story of palace intrigue and genocide thwarted by a Jewish queen of Persia. Plot summary The book commences with a feast organized by Ahasuerus, initially for his court and dignitaries and afterwards for all inhabitants of Shushan. Ahasuerus orders his wife Vashti to display her beauty before the guests. She refuses. Ahasuerus removes her as queen. Ahasuerus then orders all \"beautiful young girls to be presented to him, so he can choose a new queen to replace Vashti. One of these is Esther, who had no parents and is being fostered by her cousin Mordechai. She finds favor in the king\'s eyes, and is made his new wife. Esther does not reveal that she is Jewish. Shortly afterwards, Mordechai discovers a plot by courtiers Bigthan and Teresh to assassinate Ahasuerus. They are apprehended and executed, and Mordechai\'s service to the king is recorded. Ahasuerus appoints Haman as his prime minister. Mordechai, who sits at the palace gates, falls into Haman\'s disfavor as he refuses to bow down to him. Having found out that Mordechai is Jewish, Haman plans to kill not just Mordechai but all the Jews in the empire. He obtains Ahasuerus\' permission to execute this plan, against payment of ten thousand talents of silver, and he casts lots to choose the date on which to do this - the thirteenth of the month of Adar. When Mordechai finds out about the plans he orders fasting. Mordechai informs Esther what has happened and tells her to intercede with the King. She is afraid to break the law and go to the King uninvited. This entails the death penalty. Mordechai tells her that she must. She requests that all Jews fast and pray for three days together with her, and on the third day she goes to Ahasuerus,who stretches out his sceptre to her which shows that she is not to be punished. She invites him to a feast in the company of Haman. During the feast, she asks them to attend a further feast the next evening. Meanwhile, Haman is again offended by Mordechai and builds a gallows for him. That night, Ahasuerus suffers from insomnia, and when the court\'s records are read to him to help him sleep, he learns of the services rendered by Mordechai in the previous plot against his life. Ahasuerus is told that Mordechai has not received any recognition for saving the king\'s life. Just then, Haman appears, and King Ahasuerus asks Haman what should be done for the man that he wishes to honor. Thinking that the man that the king wishes to honor is him, Haman says that the man should be dressed in the king\'s royal robes and led around on the king\'s royal horse, while a herald calls: \"See how the king honours a man he wishes to reward!\" To his horror, the king instructs Haman to do so to Mordechai. Later that evening, Ahasuerus and Haman attend Esther\'s second banquet, at which she reveals that she is Jewish and that Haman is planning to exterminate her people, including her. Overcome by rage, Ahasuerus leaves the room; meanwhile Haman stays behind and begs Esther for his life, falling upon her in desperation. The king comes back in at this moment and thinks Haman is assaulting the queen; this makes him angrier than before and he orders Haman hanged on the gallows that had been prepared for Mordechai. The previous decree against the Jews cannot be annulled, but the king allows the Jews to defend themselves during attacks. As a result, on 13 Adar, five hundred attackers and Haman\'s ten sons are killed in Shushan. Mordechai assumes a prominent position in Ahasuerus\' court, and institutes an annual commemoration of the delivery of the Jewish people from annihilation.Authorship and date Esther is usually dated to the third or fourth century BCE. Jewish tradition regards it as a redaction by the Great Assembly of an original text written by Mordecai.The Greek additions to Esther (which do not appear in the Jewish/Hebrew; see \"Additions to Esther\" below) are dated to around the late 2nd century or early 1st BCE. Debate over historicityAs early as the eighteenth century, the lack of clear corroboration of any of the details of the story of the Book of Esther with what was known of Persian history from classical sources led some scholars to doubt that the book was historically accurate. It was argued that the form of the story seems closer to that of a romance than a work of history, and that many of the events depicted therein are implausible and unlikely.From the late nineteenth century onwards, several scholars[citation needed] explored the theory that the Book of Esther actually was a myth related to the spring festival of Purim which may have had a mixed West-Semitic/Akkadian/Canaanite origin. According to this interpretation the tale celebrates the triumph of the Babylonian deities Marduk and Ishtar (which seem phonetically similar to the names of the heroes in this book - Esther for Ishtar and Marduk for Mordechai) over the deities of Elam or more likely the renewal of life in the spring and the casting out of the scapegoat of the old year. This interpretation is explored in depth in the works of Theodor Gaster.Traditionalists like Joyce G Baldwin, a principal of Trinity College, Bristol argue that Esther can be seen to derive from real history. For example, some historians occasionally give strong credence to the narrative based upon the traditions of a people.[citation needed] According to this reasoning because the feast of Purim (which is a retelling of the book of Esther) is integral to Jewish history, there is strong reason to believe this story is indeed based upon a true, though obscure, historical event.Also, based on the derivation of \"Ahasuerus\" from \"Xerxes\", identification of Ahasuerus with Xerxes I is common and parallels between Herodotus\' account of Xerxes and the events in Esther have been noted.[citation needed] Others have argued for different identifications, particularly noting traditions referring to Ahasuerus as \"Artaxerxes\" in Greek. In 1923, Dr. Jacob Hoschander wrote The Book of Esther in the Light of History, in which he posited that the events of the book occurred during the reign of Artaxerxes II Mnemon, in the context of a struggle between adherents of the still more-or-less monotheistic Zoroastrianism and those who wanted to bring back the Magian worship of Mithra and Anahita.A strong argument against the historicity of Esther is that the text says that \"Mordecai...had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried with King Jeconiah of Judah...\"(Esther 2:5-6). Jeconiah ruled Judah circa 598 BCE (he ruled for 3 months according to the Book of 2 Kings), but Xerxes I of Persia ruled from 486-465 BCE. So if the story were indeed historical, Mordecai would have had to be well over 100 years of age during the events related in the story. Identifying Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes I or Artaxerxes II would only make the historicity of the story more improbable as both of these kings ruled after Xerxes I. Some Christian readers have also tried to see the story as a Christian allegory, in the same vein as the Song of Solomon. The various major readings are considered separately in the sections that follow: Esther and Babylonian mythology The History of Religions school of thought, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, argued against the historicity of the Bible by drawing comparisons between Biblical narratives and pagan myths. The fact that the events of the Book of Esther give rise to the spring festival of Purim was a reason for scholars arguing that the story emerged from a Babylonian seasonal myth. As the 19th/early 20th century scholars did not have the benefit of the Ugaritic texts, they sought an origin in Akkadian tradition rather than the more local West Semitic cultures. In particular, these scholars drew comparisons and parallels between individuals in the Book of Esther and various real and conjectured Babylonian and Elamite gods and goddesses: The name Esther was thought to derive from the similarly sounding Ishtar, the chief Babylonian goddess. Her original Hebrew name Hadassah was compared with Akkadian hadashatu said to be a title of Ishtar meaning \"bride\". The custom of preparing homentashn at Purim is reminiscent of a description of Ishtar in Jeremiah 7:18, when it was customary \"to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven.\" The name Mordechai was thought to derive from the Babylonian god Marduk. Marduk is a cousin of Ishtar in Chaldean mythology, as was Mordechai a cousin of Esther. The name Vashti was thought to derive from an Elamite goddess named Mashti. The Persian word \'Vashti\' is of uncertain meaning, but may mean \'beautiful\', so in this theory the author would be using a play on words between the Elamite and Persian. The name Haman was thought to derive from an Elamite demon named Homayun or Humayun or an Elamite god named Uman or Human (or other variations) or alternatively a Babylonian demon. The festival of Purim was thought to derive from various real and conjectured Babylonian or Elamite festivals, including an alleged Elamite or Babylonian festival marking the victory of Ishtar and Marduk over Uman and Mashti, similar to the triumph of Esther and Mordechai over their rivals Haman and Vashti. Other suggestions were that the Babylonian New Year festival (Sumerian Zagmuk, Akkadian Akitu, called Sacaea by Berosus) honouring Marduk - it was suggested that purim (\"lots\") originally referred to a belief that the gods chose one\'s fate for the year by lots; the Persian festival of Farvardigan; or the Greek festival of Pithoigia (\"wine flask opening\"), and it was noted that Hebrew for wine press is purah resembling purim. Some criticisms of the \'Babylonian Mythology\' theory: Ishtar was well known to the Jews who officially opposed her worship. Her name in Hebrew scriptures is Ashtoreth which is phonetically unrelated to Esther despite the superficial similarity when transliterated into English (consonantal root עשתר vs אסתר). Although the vowelization of the Hebrew name is thought to be a deliberate mispronunciation reflecting the vowels of the word bosheth denoting a shameful thing, the consonants accurately reflect the original name. \"Esther\" is most commonly understood to be related to the Persian word for star (cognate with English star) and the Median word for myrtle. (See Esther for a discussion of the meaning of the name.) The Akkadian hadashatu was not a standard title of Ishtar. It occurs once in a description of Ishtar as a \"new bride\" and its meaning is \"new\" not \"bride\". It is a cognate of Hebrew hadash (with a guttural h) and is phonetically unrelated to \"Hadassah\" (consonantal root חדש vs הדס). The Hamantaschen custom originated amongst Jews of Eastern Europe in relatively recent times. In Hebrew they are called \"the ears of Haman.\" The name Mordechai is indeed most commonly connected with that of the god Marduk. It is considered equivalent to Marduka or Marduku, well attested in the Persepolis texts as a genuine name of the period. The Talmud relates that his full name was Mordecai Bilshan (Megillah 15a). This has been understood as the Babylonian Marduk-bel-shunu (\"Marduk is their lord\"). Similar accounts of Jews in exile being assigned names relating to Babylonian gods is seen in the Book of Daniel. Babylonian gods and goddesses are indeed organized into families making many including Marduk and Ishtar some form of cousins but this is never a point explicitly stated in Babylonian texts. An Elamite goddess named Mashti is purely conjectural and unattested in sources, whereas \"Vashti\" can be understood as a genuine Persian name meaning \"beautiful\". Elamite theophoric elements such as Khuban, Khumban or Khumma are known but are pronounced with an initial guttural consonant and not as Uman or Human or Haman, and are phonetically unrelated to the Persian name Hamayun, Homayun or Humayun, meaning \"magnificent\". The Babylonian demon is named Humbaba or Huwawa which is also pronounced with an initial guttural consonant kh and unrelated to Haman. The 19th century Bible critic Jensen associated it with the Elamite god Humban, a view dismissed by later scholars. An Elamite or Babylonian festival marking a victory of Ishtar and Marduk over alleged Uman and Mashti is purely conjectural and unattested in sources. The Babylonian New Year occurs at a very different date from Purim (in the month of Nisan not Adar). A decision of fate by lots by the gods is not attested in any sources. Farvardigan was a five day commemoration of the dead bearing no resemblance to Purim. Pithoigia also occurs at a different time to Purim and although Purim is celebrated with wine drinking this is not its focus; moreover the plural of the Hebrew for wine press is puroth not purim Nonetheless, there are some similarities between some Babylonian myths and the story of Esther. As for Haman, several etymologies have been proposed for this name. It may be related to the Persian name Omanes, recorded by Greek historians or with the Persian name Vohuman meaning \"good thoughts\". It may be derived from the Persian word Hamayun meaning \"illustrious\" or \"magnificent\", or from Homayun, or Humayun, or from the sacred drink Haoma. Historical reading Those arguing in favour of an historical reading of Esther, most commonly identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes II (ruled 405 - 359 B.C.) although in the past it was often assumed that he was Xerxes I (ruled 486 - 465 B.C.). The Hebrew Ahasuerus is most likely derived from Persian Khshayarsha, the origin of the Greek Xerxes. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Xerxes sought his harem after being defeated in the Greco-Persian Wars. He makes no reference to individual members of the harem with the exception of a domineering Queen consort Amestris, a daughter of one of his generals, Otanes. (Ctesias however refers to a father-in-law and general of Xerxes named Onaphas). Amestris has often been identified with Vashti in the past. The identification is problematic however - Amestris remained a powerful figure well into the reign of her son, Artaxerxes I while Vashti is portrayed as dismissed in the early part of Xerxes\'s reign. (Alternative attempts have been made to identify her with Esther, although Esther is an orphan whose father was a Jew named Abihail.) The name Marduka or Marduku (considered equivalent to Mordecai) has been found as the name of officials in the Persian court in thirty texts from the period of Xerxes I and his father Darius, and may refer to up to four individuals with the possibility that one of these is the Biblical Mordecai. The Septuagint version of Esther however translates the name Ahasuerus as Artaxerxes - a Greek name derived from the Persian: Artakhshatra. Josephus too relates that this was the name by which he was known to the Greeks and the Midrashic text, Esther Rabba also makes the identification. Bar-Hebraeus identified Ahasuerus explicitly as Artaxerxes II. This is not to say that the names are equivalent: Hebrew has a form of the name Artaxerxes distinct from Ahasuerus and a direct Greek rendering of Ahasuerus is used by Josephus as well as in Septuagint occurrences of the name outside the Book of Esther. Rather the Hebrew name Ahasuerus accords with an inscription of the time that notes that Artaxerxes II was named also Arshu, understood as a shortening of Achshiyarshu the Babylonian rendering of the Persian Khshayarsha (Xerxes) through which the Hebrew Achashverosh (Ahasuerus) is derived. [5]. Ctesias related that Artaxerxes II was also called Arsicas which is understood as a similar shortening with the Persian suffix -ke that is applied to shortened names. Deinon related that Artaxerxes II was also called Oarses which is also understood to be derived from Khshayarsha. Another view attempts to identify him instead with Artaxerxes I (ruled 465 - 424 B.C.) - the latter had a Babylonian concubine, Kosmartydene, who was the mother of his son Darius II (ruled 424 - 405 B.C.). Jewish tradition relates that Esther was the mother of a King Darius and so some try to identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes I and Esther with Kosmartydene. Based on the view that the Ahasuerus of the Book of Tobit is identical with that of the Book of Esther, some have also identified him as Nebuchadnezzar\'s ally Cyaxares (ruled 625 - 585 B.C.). In certain manuscripts of Tobit the former is called Achiachar which like the Greek: Cyaxares is thought to be derived from Persian: Akhuwakhshatra. Depending on the interpretation of Esther 2:5-6, Mordecai or his great-grandfather Kish was carried away from Jerusalem with Jeconiah by Nebuchadnezzar, in 597 B.C.. The view that it was Mordecai would be consistent with the identification of Ahasuerus with Cyaxares. Identifications with other Persian monarchs have also been suggested. Jacob Hoschander has argued that evidence of the historicity of Haman and his father Hamedatha is seen in Omanus and Anadatus mentioned by Strabo as being honoured with Anahita in the city of Zela. Hoschander argues that these were not deities as Strabo supposed but garbled forms of \"Haman\" and \"Hamedatha\" who were being worshipped as martyrs. The names are indeed unattested in Persian texts as gods. [5] (Attempts have been made to connect both \"Omanus\" and \"Haman\" with the Zoroastrian term Vohu Mana, however this denotes the principle of \"Good Thoughts\" and is not the name of a deity.) Whenever the book was written and whatever the historicity of the events recounted in it, clearly by the time it was written the term \"Yehudim\" (יהודים - Jews) already gained a meaning quite close to what it means up to the present - i.e. an ethnic-religious group, scattered in many countries, organised in autonomous communities and the target of intense hatred by fanatic groups. Allegorical reading There are many classical Jewish readings of allegories into the book of Esther, mostly from Hasidic sources. They say that the literal meaning is true, however there is hidden behind this historical account many allegories. Some Christian readers consider this story to contain an allegory, representing the interaction between the church as \'bride\' and God. This reading is related to the allegorical reading of the Song of Solomon and to the theme of the Bride of God, which in Jewish tradition manifests as the Shekinah. Relation to the rest of the Bible Esther is the only book of the Tanakh that is not represented among the Dead Sea scrolls. It has often been compared to the first half of the Book of Daniel and to the deuterocanonical Books of Tobit and Judith for its subject matter. The story is also the first time that the word Jew (יְהוּדִי) was used. Before this, Jews were referred to as Hebrews or Israelites. Moreover, whatever the historical validity of the specific events depicted, the book clearly reflects a situation in which Jews were an ethnic-religious minority - scattered in many countries, organised in self-contained, self-governing communities and subjected to intensive and sometimes violent hatred by some members of the surrounding society. Clearly, whenever the book was actually composed, a phenomenon which can already be identified as a kind of antisemitism was in existence - whether or not Haman is an actual historical character. Additions to Esther An additional six chapters appear interspersed in Esther in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, which then was noted by Jerome in compiling the Latin Vulgate; additionally, the Greek text contains many small changes in the meaning of the main text. The extra chapters include several prayers to God, perhaps because it was felt that the above-mentioned lack of mention of God was inappropriate in a holy book. Jerome recognized them as additions not present in the Hebrew Text and placed them at the end of his Latin translation as chapters 10:4-16:24. However, some modern Catholic English Bibles restore the Septuagint order, such as Esther in the NAB. By the time Esther was written, the foreign power visible on the horizon as a future threat to Judah was the Macedonians of Alexander the Great, who defeated the Persian empire about 150 years after the time of the story of Esther; the Septuagint version noticeably calls Haman a Macedonian where the Hebrew text describes him as an Agagite. The canonicity of these Greek additions has been a subject of scholarly disagreement practically since their first appearance in the Septuagint –- Martin Luther, being perhaps the most vocal Reformation-era critic of the work, considered even the original Hebrew version to be of very doubtful value.[citation needed] Luther\'s complaints against the book carried past the point of scholarly critique and may reflect Luther\'s antisemitism, which is disputed, such as in the biography of Luther by Derek Wilson, which points out that Luther\'s anger at the Jews was not at their race but at their theology. The Council of Trent, the summation of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation, declared the entire book, both Hebrew text and Greek additions, to be canonical. While modern Roman Catholic scholars openly recognize the Greek additions as clearly being additions to the text, the Book of Esther is used twice in commonly used sections of the Catholic Lectionary. In both cases, the text used is not only taken from a Greek addition, the readings also are the prayer of Mordecai, and nothing of Esther\'s own words is ever used. The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint version of Esther, as it does for all of the Old Testament. The additions are specifically listed in the Thirty-Nine Articles, Article VI, of the Church of England[6]: \"The rest of the Book of Esther\". Some scholars suggest that Additions to Esther is the work of an Egyptian Jew, writing around 170 BCE, who sought to give the book a more religious tone, and to suggest that the Jews were saved from destruction because of their piety.Esther Rabbah includes all of Additions to Esther save the \"letter texts\". It is these \"letter texts\" that contain the ahistorical assertions that Haman was a Greek. Ze’ev Raban (1890-1970) was a leading painter, decorative artist, and industrial designer of the Bezalel school style, and was one of the founders of the Israeli art world.Life Raban was born Wolf Rawicki in Łódź, Congress Poland, and began his studies there. He continued his studies in sculpture and architectural ornamentation at a number of European art academies. These included the School of Applied Art in Munich at the height of the Jugendstil movement, the neo-classical studio of Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and the Royal Academy of Art, Brussels, then a center of Art Nouveau, under symbolist and idealist artists Victor Rosseau and Constant Montald. Under the influence of Boris Schatz, the founder of the Bezalel Academy, Raban moved to the land of Israel in 1912 during the wave of immigration known as the Second Aliyah. He joined the faculty of the Bezalel school, and soon took on a central role there as a teacher of repoussé, painting, and sculpture. He also directed the academy\'s Graphics Press and the Industrial Art Studio. By 1914, most of the works produced in the school\'s workshops were of his design. He continued teaching until 1929.[2] In 1921, he participated in the historic art exhibition at the Tower of David, the first exhibit of Hebrew artists in Palestine, which became the first of a yearly series of such exhibits. Works Raban is regarded as a leading member of the Bezalel school art style, in which artists portrayed both Biblical and Zionist themes in a style influenced by the European jugendstil (similar to Art Nouveau) and by traditional Persian and Syrian styles. Exemplars of this style are Rabban\'s illustrated editions of the of Book of Ruth, Song of Songs, Book of Job, Book of Esther, and the Passover Hagadah.[2] Like other European art nouveau artists of the period such as Alphonse Mucha Raban combined commercial commissions with uncommissioned paintings. Raban designed the decorative elements of such important Jerusalem buildings as the King David Hotel, the Jerusalem YMCA [3], and Bikkur-Cholim Hospital. He also designed a wide range of day-to-day objects, including playing cards (in the spade suit, the King is Ahasuerus, the Queen is Esther, and the joker is Haman), commercial packaging for products such as Hanukkah candles and Jaffa oranges, bank notes, tourism posters, jewelry, and insignia for Zionist institutions. \"Raban easily navigated a wealth of artistic sources and mediums, borrowing and combining ideas from East and West, fine arts and crafts from past and present. His works blended European neoclassicism, Symbolist art and Art Nouveau with oriental forms and techniques to form a distinctive visual lexicon. Versatile and productive, he lent this unique style to most artistic mediums, including the fine arts, illustration, sculpture, repousee, jewellery design, and ceramics.\"[4] Raban also designed a wide range of Jewish objects, including Hanukkah menorahs, temple windows, and Torah arks.[5] Temple Emanuel (Beaumont, Texas) has a notable set of six windows, each 16-feet high]. The windows were commissioned from Raban in 1922 by Rabbi Samuel Rosinger. Each window depicts an event in the life of one of the principal Hebrew prophets, Jeremiah, Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel, Moses, and Isaiah. [6] Raban collaborated with other artists to produce versions of his work as ceramic tiles, a number of which can still be sees on buildings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, including the Bialik House. The 1925 Lederberg house, at the intersection of Rothschild Boulevard and Allenby Street features a series of large ceramic murals designed by Raban. The four murals show a Jewish pioneer sowing and harvesting, a shepherd, and Jerusalem with a verse from Jeremiah 31:4, \"Again I will rebuild thee and thous shalt be rebuilt.\"[7] Notes ^ Israeli painting: from post-Impressionism to post-Zionism, By Ronald Fuhrer, Overlook Press , 1998 , p. 24 ^ a b AATC Artists - Ze\'ev Raban ^ Jerusalem International YMCA - Architecture: the building ^ ^ Spertus | Spertus Museum | Chicago ^ Jewish Stars in Texas: Rabbis And Their Work, By Hollace Ava Weiner, Jimmy Kessler, Texas A&M University Press, 2006, p. 241 ^ Chaim Nachman Bialik Home, in Batia Carmiel, Tiles Adorned City; Bezalel ceramics on Tel Aviv Houses, 1923-1929, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, copyright 1996, book in Hebrew and some English with illustrations Further reading Books Raban Remembered: Jerusalem\'s Forgotten Master, Essays and Catalogue of an Exhibition at the Yeshiva University Museum, December 1982 Ze\'ev Raban, A Hebrew Symbolist, Batsheva Goldman Ida, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2001, 233 pp. Zeev Raban, 1890-1970, By Zeev Raban, Malka Jagendorf, Published by Mayanot Gallery, Jerusalem,1993 Articles Goldfine, Gil. “Zeev Raban and the Bezalel style,” (Jerusalem Post , 2001-14-12) Cohen, Nurit Shilo. The \"Hebrew Style\" of Bezalel, 1906-1929. The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 20. (1994), pp. 140–163 Manor, Dalia. “Biblical Zionism in Bezalel Art,” Israel Studies 6.1 (2001) 55-75 ******* Born and initially trained in Lodz, Poland, Ze\'ev Raban (1890-1970) studied in a variety of academies around Europe - the School of Applied Art in Munich, the Beaux-Arts Academy in Paris, and the Royal Academy of Art in Brussels. In 1911 he met Boris Schatz, the founder of the Bezalel Academy, a Zionist inspired school begun in 1903 to encourage a new Jewish cultural/art/craft tradition in the Jewish homeland. In the latter half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries a number of centers were established in order to develop \"new\" decorative arts. Among the more famous were the firms of William Morris and Christopher Dresser in England, the Faberge\'s in Russia, the Wiener Werkstette in Austria, and the Tiffany Studios in the United States. These and similar workshops, frequently based on a political or sociological ideology, profoundly influenced the arts, crafts, architecture and industrial design of the societies within which they functioned. Schatz\'s goal for the Bezalel Academy and Workshops, in which Raban participated starting in 1912, was to establish a Jewish arts and crafts tradition that combined the best of European and indigenous Middle-Eastern cultures. Raban soon became a major influence at the Bezalel. He played a central role at the Academy teaching repoussי work, painting, and sculpture and then directing the Graphics Press and the Industrial Art Studio of the Bezalel Academy. By 1914 the majority of works produced in the Bezalel workshops were designed by Raban. Raban was also an influential industrial designer in Palestine and later Israel. He designed posters, consumer goods packaging (the most reproduced of which must have been the \"classic\" 44 Chanukah candle box), and architectural elements for many of the important buildings of Palestine such as the YMCA building, the King David Hotel, the Bezalel building, and the Bikur-Cholim Hospital. He also designed many of the ceramic tiles that still decorate Tel-Aviv buildings. But arguably his most important contributions were the illustrations he made for the various books he published - the Song of Songs, the Book of Ruth, the Book of Esther, the Book of Job, and the Passover Haggadah. These illustrations represent the pinnacle of the \"Bezalel Style\" - a fusion of ‘oriental\' art and Jugendstil. However, with the emergence of \"modernism\", the influence of the Bezalel Academy, as well of the many other design schools of that period waned. Recently, the work that came from these design movements as well as the designs of Raban have garnered new attention, and Bezalel pieces are now sought after. ******** The Bezalel school was an art movement in Palestine in the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods. Named for the Bezalel Art School, predecessor of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, it has been described as \"a fusion of ‘oriental\' art and Jugendstil.\" [1] The Bezalel school artists blended \"varied strands of surroundings, tradition and innovation,\" in paintings and craft objects that invokes \"biblical themes, Islamic design and European traditions,\" in their effort to \"carve out a distinctive style of Jewish\" art for the new nation they intended to build in the ancient Jewish homeland. [2] The works of art created by the group contributed significantly to the creation of a distinctive Israeli national culture. [3] The Academy was led by Boris Schatz, who left his position as head of the Royal Academy of Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria, to make aliyah 1906 and set up an academy for Jewish arts. All of the members of the school were Zionist immigrants from Europe and the Middle East, with all the psychological and social upheaval that this implies. [4] The school developed a distinctive style, in which artists portrayed both Biblical and Zionist subjects in a style influenced by the European jugendstil ( or art nouveau) movement, by symbolism, and by traditional Persian and Syrian artistry.[5] Like the British Arts and Crafts Movement, Wiener Werkstätte in Vienna, William Morris firm in England, and Tiffany glass Studios in New York, the Bezalel School produced decorative art objects in a wide range of media: silver, leather, wood, brass and fabric. While the artists and designers were European-trained, the craftsmen who executed the works were often members of the Yemenite community, which has a long tradition of craftsanship in precious metals, and began to make aliyah about 1880. Yemenite immigrants with their colorful traditional costumes were also frequent subjects of Bezalel School artists. Leading members of the school were Boris Schatz, E.M. Lilien,Ya\'akov Stark, Meir Gur-Aryeh, Ze\'ev Raban, Jacob Eisenberg, Jacob Steinhardt, Shmuel Ben David, and Hermann Struck. The artists produced not only paintings and etchings, but objects that might be sold as Judiaca or souvenirs. In 1915, the New York Times praised the “Exquisite examples of filigree work, copper inlay, carving in ivory and in wood,” in a touring exhibit.[6] In the metalwork Moorish patterns predominated, and the damascene work, in particular, showed both artistic feeling and skill in execution [7]