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Rapoport unveils sculpture envisioned by Begin, Sadat by Margie Olster JTA About seven years ago, then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the late Egyptian Presi dent Anwar Sadat commissioned Nathan Rapoport to sculpt a bronze symbol of the Camp David Accord. After Sadat’s assassination, years of waiting and a new sponsor’s donation, the 75-year-old artist unveiled the massive bronze sculp ture, “Brotherhood of Man,” in New York. Rapoport, an internationally acclaimed sculptor, summed up his career in one sentence at the unveil ing: “Forty years I was striving with all my heart to express our pain and sorrow through the medi um of bronze and stone.” “Brotherhood of Man,” a depic tion of two brothers embracing in a wheat field, would have stood on the Israeli-Egyptian border as en visioned by Sadat and Begin. But after Sadat’s assassination in Oc tober 1981, the project lost mo mentum and fizzled out. Today the statue stands tempor arily in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza facing the United Nations in New York. In September, “Brotherhood of Man” will make the trip to its final destination at the Magen David Adorn National Blood Ser vice Center in Ramat Gan. The rebirth of Rapoport’s latest project came when philanthropist and American Red Magen David Adorn forlsrael(ARMDI)national chairman Joseph Handleman bought and commissionedthe statue for the new blood bank, financed partially by ARMDI. Rapoport said he chose the theme of brotherhood as a symbol of sharing, compassion and love. An inscription on the statue’s base tells the story in Rapoport’s words: “Long, long ago, on the site of old Jerusalem, the Holy City, there lived two brothers. They were far- mersand they tilled the land which they had inherited from their father. I he older was unmarried and lived alone. The younger was married and lived with his wife and four children. “The brothers loved each other and did not want to divide the fields between them. Both plowed, planted and harvested the crop together. After they cut the wheat, they shared equally in the produce of the earth.” The story goes on to say that the older brother worried that his brother had the responsiblity of a family and he did not. He con cluded his brother should get a greater share of the harvest. At midnight, he would bring a pile of wheat sheaves to his brother’s field. At the same time, the younger brother, worried that his older brother would grow old and have no children to care for him, began to bring piles of wheat from his side of the field to his brother’s field. This went on for several nights. “But on the third night when each brother was carrying a pile of sheaves to the other, they met at Louis Rosenberg (left), national president of American Red Magen David for Israei (ARMDI), and Joseph Handleman (right), ARMDI’s national chairman, stand in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza with sculptor Nathan Rapoport. the top of the hill. Suddenly they understood. Overcome, they dropped their sheaves and embraced and cried with tears of gratitude and happiness. It is this poignant image Rapo port chose for his “Brotherhood of Man” sculpture. “Legend has it that on that very spot the Temple in Jersualem was built, symbolizing peace and the brotherhood of man,” the inscription reads. Most of Rapoport’s 13 previous monuments depicted themes of the Holocaust and redemption in Jew ish history. One of the most noted Holocaust monuments, “The War saw Ghetto Uprising,” completed in 1948, stands in Warsaw. Other Rapoport sculptures in clude “Job,” at Yad Vashem; “Scroll of Fire” in the Judaean Hills; “Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs,” Philadelphia; “Memorial in Memory of the Jew ish Children who Perished in the Holocaust,” New York; and “Jacob Wrestling with the Angel,” Toronto. Rapoport, who was born in Warsaw in 191 1, began the study of sculpture at age 14 and went on to study at the Warsaw Academy of Arts and in France. After the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, he walked about 300 miles east until he met the retreating Pol ish army. Russians in Bialystok rescued Rapoport and he continued his art in Minsk. With the Nazi invasion of west ern Russia in 1941, Rapoport con tinued his sojourn at a labor camp in Siberia and then in Novosibirsk where he learned of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In 1943, he conceived the mon ument to the Warsaw Ghetto fight ers. In 1948, the statue was unveiled on Zamenhoff Street where the re sistance began and it remains on that site today. Rapoport made aliyah in 1948. A PuW*c Service o< This Newspaper rffl A The Advertising Council We need your type. Donate Blood. JL American ■ Red Cross © The American National Red Cross 1981 Lady Fingers Sherry B. Susaneck ! 2484 Briarcliff Rd., N.E. * 321-4247 at Zena’s in Loehmann’s Plaza wraps • manicures • pedicures • sculptured nails 20% off w/this ad—New customers only Evening appts. available 973-4968 Professional & Personal Home Health Care nursing center * 373-2858 - Decatur 426-8668 — Marietta RN’S, LPN’S, NA S Homemakers l - i \ e-in Com pan ions Hlderlv Person Aides Critical Care /. V. Therapy Tender Loving Care ► Image Development ► Brochures ► Publicity & Promotions ► Special Projects mflRCIfl DWORETZ COmmUNICATIONS marcia Dworetz 1429E Willow Lake Dr., NE Ptlanta. GP 30329 40 4 634-4018 A Deli With A Difference A bit of Korean seasoning! ReubenS Old Mill Shopping Center 3101 Upper Roswell Rd. Marietta 565-6140 OUR SEMI-ANNUAL '/2 PRICE SALE STARTS MONDAY, JUNE 30 IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE OUT OF TOWN OR WANT FIRST SELECTION PLEASE SHOP THIS WEEK MON.-SAT. OPEN 9:30AM-6PM VISA & MASTER CHARGE ACCEPTED ALTERATIONS AVAILABLE AT REASONABLE PRICE Buckhead 233-6759 3047 Peachtree Rd. Sandy Springs Plaza 255-6224 6261 Roswell Rd. Roswell Village 993-7003 at Holcomb Br., Rd. (Roswell) Perimeter Mall 399-6607 Upper Level (New Section) PAGE 13 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE June 20, 1986