Summary
The Bulgarian artist who co-founded Bezalel in Jerusalem, whose vision of a new Palestinian artistic style rooted in the multireligious history of the land Peretz presents through Altneuland (journal) (Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, PDF p.213-215).
Details
- The CEP cooperated with Schatz, the Hilfsverein and other German Jewish organizations to found Bezalel in Jerusalem (PDF p.213).
- Schatz hoped Bezalel memorabilia might become an export branch providing ornaments for churches and synagogues throughout the world, and that the school should “develop an artistic style appropriate to the country and its history”, drawing on Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions and on motifs discovered in excavations of synagogues, churches and mosques (PDF p.214).
- That interreligious hybridity was missing from Rabbi Lazar Grünhut’s eyewitness account, in which the carpets were supposedly designed with exclusively Jewish motifs; shortly after the founding, the Berlin administration withdrew support for the unique Oriental-Palestinian style, which Schatz felt foiled his mission to define Jewish national art from Jerusalem (PDF p.214-215).
Related pages
Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, Bezalel, Altneuland (journal)