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FREDERICK WILLETTS
President
WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA
important volumes, one of which,
Impressionism us and Expression-
ismus. went into five editions. As
a professor at the University of
Breslau he was widely respected
but in 1933 the new regime ousted
all Jewish teachers. He found a new
niche when the post of director
of the Juedisches Museum was
vacated that year by the departure
of its founder, Dr. Karl Schwarz,
to Tel Aviv.
During five stormy years the
Juedisches Museum was a place
of quiet and comtemplation not
only for Landsberger. but also for
thousands of Berlin Jews who
came to view there a world that,
to many of them, was entirely new.
To educate them, Landsberger pub
lished what to this day remains
the most concise introduction to
Jewish art written in the German
language, Einfuehruns in die Jue-
dische Kunst. Another fruit of the
Hitler era is his compilation and
selection of letters by his fatherly
friend, the eminent painter Max
Liebermann who had died, humil
iated and heart-broken, in 1935.
In November 1938 the Germans
divided that it was too generous
even to tolerate the Jewish minority
by allowing them to exist in new
medieval Ghettoes. They embarked
upon large-scale pogroms, thous
ands were dispatched to Concen
tration Camps, the doors of the
Juedisches Museum were Closed —
forever. I.an isberger escaped to
ingland, and from there migrated ot
America where the Hebrew Union
College, by offering him a position
as lecturer on Jewish art, enabled
him to build for himself a re
newed career in the new land.
Landsberger's two major books,
available to the American reader.
\ History of Jewish Art, and
Rembrandt, the Jews and the
Bible, were written before the
Museum was to keep him busy
with administration (his only staff
consists of his wife, who takes
care of the considerable official
correspondence!. There is, never
theless, hardly a year during which
Landsberger does not contribute a
very substantial piece to that
eminent spring of learning, the
Hebrew l nion College Annual. He
was able, through detective work
of a Sherlock Holmes, to discover
the identity of the scribes and
illuminators of the Cincinnati and
Washington Haggadoth. In “Jewish
Artists before the Period of Eman
cipation," and its sequal, “New
Studies in Early Jewish Artists."
he has proven unfounded the as
sumption that Jews were inactive
m the fine arts prior to the last
century.
The Museum .of which he is in
charge, consists of three small gal
leries: one for alternating exhi
bitions of paintings and prints, an
other for prints and photographs,
and a third room devoted chiefly
to ritual objects. Since the Museum
boasts of some ten thousand items,
including pictures, it is clear that
only a small fraction can be shown
ble
ted
nee
md
die
my
ach
left
at one time. But the best
use is made of the “overf:
many items are loaned for
periods to temples and syna
centers and schools, and son.
terial always is on the ro
special traveling exhibition,
ranged by the Landsbergers.
most items are very valuabli
all of them are irreplaceabh
curator and his wife spend
hours carefully wrapping up
object to insure them against
or breakage before they permit
themselves to wave “good-byi " to
their “children”.
Visitors might be told at this
point that the museum collection
can, of course, be skimmed m
twenty minutes. But it is wiser to
reserve for it an hour or tw-o, dur
ing which Dr. Landsberger, who
knows the history of each item,
can point out fascinating details
that would be missed by the un
initiated. Chronologically, the ob
jects can be divided into three
groups: relics from antiquity, ac
quired by the famous archaeologist
and president of the Hebrew' Uniun
Dr. Nelson Glueck; Jewish ceremo
nial art from the pre-emancipation
era: and paintings, drawings anci
prints by Jewish artists of the 19lh
and 20th centuries.
In its one hundred and ten ket-
uboth, the Museum boasts of the
world’s largest collection of illu
minated marriage contracts. These
documents were often lavishly dec
orated with flow'ers, birds and even
human figures in the most fanciful
manner. Some Italian ketuboth
are unmistakably influenced by
Renaissance painting. Where the
Hebrew text is an integral part of
the decoration, it is a sure indica
tion that the ketubah was the
work of a Jewish scribe. The famous
Cincinnati Haggadah, a precious
product of 15th century Germany,
with its many vignettes of Jewish
domestic life, is in the college li-
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