Willy Graf (from 1919 known as William Ritter von Graf) was a German architect based in Stuttgart. During World War I, Graf served in the Prussian army and was ennobled for his heroism. His firm Graf & Roeckle designed a number of notable buildings in Germany, including synagogues. He also designed a plaque honoring Jewish soldiers from Stuttgart who had fought in World War I. The august synagogue he designed in Mainz, erected on Hindenburgstrasse in 1911–1912, included a central, circular nave with a large dome and side wings housing a weekday synagogue, community rooms, wedding hall, and a Museum of Jewish Antiquities. It was looted and burned on Kristallnacht in 1938. Graf continued to live and work in Germany during the Nazi period and afterward.
Natan turns to memories of her 1950s childhood on a kibbutz as inspiration for many of her works. She often uses everyday materials, such as netting and underwear, in her sculptures, as in this one…
This is the frontispiece to the first volume of Blasio Ugolino’s Thesaurus Antiquitatum Sacrarum, a thirty-four-volume collection of Latin treatises on Jewish customs, laws, institutions, and sacred…
This is the second version of First Class: The Meeting—And at First Meeting Loved painted by Abraham Solomon. A young man in naval uniform talks with an older man and a young woman, who sits near the…