Three pioneers of Hebrew lettering

 

“From Berlin to Jerusalem”: the Israel Museum shows the work of Israel’s early book designers.

 

Design is so omnipresent these days that it often goes unnoticed. The typefaces in the daily newspaper we read at breakfast, the cinema poster, the passport, the banknote are typical examples. And who indeed knows who designed the lion on the city’s coat of arms all those years ago, which millions of feet have traipsed over on the manhole cover, polishing it in the process? From October 2015 the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is holding an exhibition devoted to three such designers of everyday life. Moshe Spitzer, Franzisca Baruch and Henri Friedlaender were pioneers of graphic design in Israel. All three worked in Berlin before the Second World War and brought a formal language with them to their new home country that noticeably displays German influences. The exhibition is supported by Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach and the Goethe-Institut.

It was Israeli Ada Wardi who set the ball rolling. Herself a graphic designer, six years ago she began researching the work of Moshe Spitzer. “Nothing at all had been written about him, despite his being a phenomenal graphic artist and scholar,” says Wardi. In a cellar in Jerusalem she stumbled upon Spitzer’s estate, which contained valuable pieces: manuscripts by Martin Buber, Samuel Joseph Agnon, Stefan Zweig and Hermann Hesse; numerous letters, including by publisher Salman Schocken and poet Else Lasker-Schüler; books by his own publishing house Tarshish and lead type from his type foundry, which when established in 1954 was the first in Israel.

 

Wardi found out that Spitzer, Baruch and Friedlaender were closely linked through Schocken, who had run his publishing company in Berlin until 1938. Her research led her to the Israel Museum, where the hitherto unexplored estates of Baruch and Friedlaender were in storage. The idea for a joint exhibition on the life and work of the three designers was born. Wardi is guest curator.

Spitzer, Baruch and Friedlaender played a major role in the development of contemporary typefaces for Modern Hebrew. The idea was to revive a dead language reserved for religious study and prayer and make it into a medium of communication in everyday life, technology, culture and administration. When looking for a new Hebrew formal language, Baruch and Friedlaender applied what they had learnt as font designers during their studies in Berlin and Leipzig under the influence of Expressionism and the Bauhaus. Simple, elegant, but above all clearly distinguishable letters were needed – a significant challenge in Hebrew. Baruch made a start in the 1920s with the font “Stam”.

 

“Most people don’t know how much work is involved in designing a typeface,” notes Wardi. Friedlaender, who survived Nazi rule in hiding in the Netherlands thanks to his wife, wasn’t satisfied with his work, which became known as the Hadassah type, until after almost 30 years. He wrote a typography textbook and became head of a printing school in Jerusalem in the 1950s.

Moshe Spitzer, on the other hand, concerned himself with all aspects of bookmaking, proofreading and publishing throughout his entire life. He originally studied Indology and wrote his doctoral thesis on Sanskrit. “Spitzer represents the most enduring influence on book design in Israel,” says Wardi. The works he published, including a broad range from classic authors of world literature to contemporary writers to Medieval Jewish manuscripts, have a clarity and calmness to them. In terms of aesthetic and publishing aspects, Spitzer looked to the Insel-Verlag for orientation, but over the years increasingly cut the ties to his role model. “It is incredible that such beautiful books were produced under such difficult political and personal circumstances,” comments Wardi.

 

“Franzisca Baruch is my secret hero,” reveals Caroline Jessen, researcher at Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, which is supporting the Israel Museum in documenting and cataloguing the estates of Baruch and Friedlaender. “Baruch designed so much, but most of it anonymously.” To this day, a logo she designed adorns the daily newspaper “Haaretz”. In the 1940s her “Stam” font became the typeface for official occasions in Israel. She also designed the invitations for the ceremony held in May 1948 at which the Jewish state declared its independence, as well as – into the 1980s – the cover of Israeli passports.

The Israel Museum has another rare and sweet gem that has survived to this day, namely marzipan chocolates decorated with half-reliefs like precious cameos. Baruch made the confections herself; the images show Adam and Eve with the snake, birds with hearts and eight-armed candleholders. They not only wish readers a happy Hanukkah in Hebrew, but also “Merry Christmas”. The packaging showed a depiction of the Holsten Gate in Lübeck, but now it shows an old city gate in Jerusalem.

 

Wardi hopes the exhibition will spark further research on Israeli graphic design, also to bring more designers out of the shadow of anonymity. At least we now know who designed the lion in Jerusalem’s municipal coat of arms, namely Franzisca Baruch.

    

“From Berlin to Jerusalem – Three Pioneers of Hebrew Lettering and Book Design”

Israel Museum, Jerusalem

20 October 2015 to 19 March 2016