Be-Gerush Kafrisin (Exile in Cyprus) [SCARCE ALBUM OF 26 LINOCUTS, UNIQUELY BOUND COPY, INSCRIBED TO RABBI LEON JUDAH MAGNES] [WITH] Shurot, Issue #50
Cyprus: n.p., [1947]. Limited first edition. Hardcover. 1/120. Elephant folio. 19x14.5". Unpaginated. 29 single-sided printed leaves, with tissue guards. Tan buckram with vertical yellow cloth strip at center, gilt lettering and ruling on leather label on spine. Original linocut illustrated cover bound in. The work is an extremely scarce album containing a total of 26 plates of b/w linocut prints created by postwar Holocaust refugees, who were detained in British internment camps in Cyprus. Printed in a limited run of 120 copies on a specially constructed printing press. In this bound copy, each plate is accompanied by a protective tissue guard.
The camps, which were operated from 1946-1949, were set up to house Jews attempting to immigrate to Palestine in violation of the British immigration policies set forth in the White Paper of 1939. Throughout their existence a total over 50,000 people are estimated to have lived at in the camps. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was able to provide $2 million in material support to the refugees in the camps, including food, clothing, medical care, and religious materials as well as education, vocational training programs and art classes.
Among these educational programs was the Rutenberg Seminar, named after the Russian-Jewish engineer, businessman and political activist Pinhas Rutenberg. Like its sister institution in Palestine, the Cyprus seminar taught courses in Hebrew, civics, Jewish religious topics, philosophy, history and art. The art program was taught by a number of Israeli artists including Naftali Bezem, a graduate of the Bezalel School of Art and Zeev Ben-Zvi. This album serves as an enduring documentation of that program.
The top of front free endpaper has a dated inscription (1947) to the famous and prominent American Reform Rabbi Judah Leon Magnes (1877-1948), from Baruch Rubinstein, one of the teachers in the program: "To Dr. Y.L. Magnes... on behalf of the instructors of the Seminar". Below is an addition inscription from Rubinstein, discussing the book's production". The following two pages contain a linocut rendering of quote from Pinhas Rutenberg, and an additional poetic introduction, using imagery found in the linocut images themselves. The 26 linocut images that follow each measure approx. 7 3/4x 11", and contain evocative and powerful depictions of daily life in the camps, in a slightly abstracted manner. The artwork details the activities and emotional states of the refugees including boredom, confinement, despair, hope, childcare, weddings, personal hygiene, strenuous labor, socializing, as well as recreational and religious activities. Common visual elements include barb-wire fences, guard towers, soldiers and tents.
All linocuts have been signed in Hebrew in pencil underneath by the respective artists who created them, all of whom where members of the art program. The artists include Yitzhak Samushi, Elisheva Heiman, Lea Tirs, Michael Bloch, Chana Stern, F. Rosenberg, Moshe Bernstein (1920-2006, a noted artist), Nachum Bendel, Gotel Gotman, Mantel Berkovitz, Avraham Sher, David Tashamovsky, Baruch Friedman, Peretz Weinreich (1925-2015, who would go on to become a noted cartoonist and caricaturist in Israel), Baruch Rendsburg, Meir Wachtel and others. The final page contains a list of plates. The cover image reproduces the image of plate #12 titled "Be-Sha'ar" (At the gate).
Text in Hebrew.
Binding with minor rubbing to extremities, and light silver paint stains on the front cover. Bound in illustrated cover, with some smudging to the image (likely shortly after the production of the book), as well as some light stains and abrasions, mostly in the margins. The plate with the quote from Rutenberg, has a small hole near the gutter, repaired on the verso with paper. Plates throughout still clean and vibrant, with some occasions smudges mostly in the margins, produced from ink bleeding at the time of production. Binding and interior in very good to very good+ overall. Extremely scarce.
[WITH]
"Shurot", Issue #50. Cyprus. N.P. [Published by the "Line of Defenders"]. Single-sided illustrated broadside, measuring 12 1/4x 8 1/4". This is the 50th and final "Jubilee" issue of the Hebrew-language newspaper/newsletter published clandestinely for those Jewish refugees inturned in the camps in Cyprus. The periodical was published in only 50 issues, from October 17th 1948 until this final issue on February 3rd 1949. The Hebrew publication was created by member of the so-called "Line of Defenders", a secret network comprised of Palmach members who had been deported to the Cyprus camps, with the goal of informing the refugees in the camps about news in Israel and the world. It also often contained short Hebrew language lessons. This final issue contains a small illustration at the bottom of the page depicting two sad angels with their bags and belongings, with the Hebrew caption: "Only the angels remain", referring the those who were still waiting to be able to emigrate to Israel. Age toned. Issues are now extremely scarce. Laid in. vg to vg+. Item #52824
* Only two copies listed on OCLC.
Hebrew title: בגרוש קפריסין
Hebrew title: שורות, גליון היובל-גליון החסול.
Price: $12,500.00