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.
My day—
Is punctured like a sieve,
And ridiculed like a whim.
May winter whiteness blossom,
May autumns turn gray,
May summers whistle—
Become nightingales.
When a rye-wind
Would have twisted my…
Ḥay ibn Yaqẓān, composed by the Muslim philosopher Abū Bakr ibn Tufayl al-Qaysi (1110–1185), relates the story of Ḥay ibn Yaqẓān, literally “Alive, son of Awake,” as he grows up alone on a deserted…
Is Israel alone a dying nation? Numerous civilizations have disappeared before there emerged the one in which we live so happily and unhappily at the same time. Each dying civilization was confident…