Born in Lwów (Lemberg), Austro-Hungarian Empire (today Lviv, Ukraine), Wilhelm Wachtel studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and later in Munich. He lived in Palestine from 1936 to the outbreak of World War II, at which point he moved to the United States. Many of Wachtel’s existing pieces render Jewish scenes, both mundane and mythological. However, much of his oeuvre was lost during World War II.
The History of Matzah: The Story of the Jews, Part I, is part of a triptych series that employs text and three-dimensional elements in relief to chronicle Jewish history from Moses to the birth of the…
This watercolor sketch of uprooted Jews arriving in the Warsaw Ghetto was one of many artworks Rynecki made while incarcerated there. Before the war, many of his paintings documented the vibrancy of…
Jews, in the past celebrated for the ability to understand all things, are now in danger of being unable to understand anything at all culturally, for they do not have self-awareness. Without such…