Yom Kippur

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THE DAY OF ATONEMENT by Jacob Kramer (1892-1962)
Pencil, Brush and Ink 1919
Purchased
(280K)
Jacob Kramer was born in the Ukraine to a very artistic family. His father was a court painter and his mother was an opera singer. The family came to England when Jacob was 7 to escape from the pogroms and they settled in Leeds. Just two years later, he ran away from home and went to sea for six months. He returned to Leeds in 1907 and began to attend Leeds School of Art. His studies were in part paid for by the Jewish Education Aid Society who helped fund the education of needy children of talent. He studied for one year in London at the Slade School of Art, where he met many other Jewish artists including Mark Gertler and David Bomberg.

Kramer was forced to return to Leeds by the death of his father and the need to care for his mother and sisters. In 1919, the Leeds Jewish Representative Council commissioned the painting Day of Atonement which they presented to the Leeds City Art Gallery in 1920. It took Kramer nine months to complete the painting which measures 1.21cm x 99cm. The Ben Uri drawing is a study for the oil.

In 1924, an article was published about the painting which describes it as follows:

"What he wanted to produce was an impression of the spirit of that rite;...the absolute unison of mind and body of all taking part, and he would have concealed his purpose if he had wasted the smallest attention upon the individual aspect of the actors in the scene. For this reason the greater the simplification of form, the more obvious the refusal to consider individual detail, the more compelling is the statement of the communal character of the moment represented." There are a number of differences between the drawing and the final painting which suggest that Kramer altered the composition in order to make the praying men even more similar to each other. In the painting, all the men have black beards, whereas in the drawing, a wider range of ages is suggested by the fact that there are black-bearded, grey-bearded and white-bearded men. In the drawing, all the men are looking down except one who looks heavenward. Kramer obviously decided that he stood out too much because in the painting, two men look towards the sky.

The men are wrapped in their tallitot which reach down to their feet. Note how their facial features are made up of stripes and resemble the stripes on their prayer shawls. In this way he has signified that the men are so involved with their prayer that their shawls have become part of them.

The Day of Atonement starts, like Shabbat, at sundown, and there is a long evening service called Kol Nidre, and services throughout the day.. Tallitot are only usually used during morning services, but on Yom Kippur, they are worn for the evening service and all through the day to create a special atmosphere of worship. Jews fast for 25 hours on Yom Kippur, to help them to direct their thoughts to their spiritual rather than to their physical needs.

Another drawing in the Ben Uri Collection also shows a scene of the Day of Atonement.

RENEWAL OF THE VOWS ON THE SCROLL OF THE LAW by Simeon Solomon (1840-1905)
Watercolour and charcoal 1895
Purchased with the assistance of Mosheh Oved 1918
(289K)
This drawing, part of a collection of 15, was purchased in 1919 with the help of founder member Mosheh Oved. The drawings are some of the earliest works to have been acquired for the Society. Interest in the work of Solomon had been aroused by a long article written about him in Renaissance, a monthly literary and art magazine published in Yiddish. Oved, a jeweller with contacts amongst art dealers discovered that the collection was for sale and contributed towards the cost to purchase it for Ben Uri.

Simeon Solomon was the youngest child of Meyer and Catherine Solomon, who moved in fashionable society in London. His brother Abraham (1823-1862) and his sister Rebecca (1832-1886) were also artists. Simeon studied at the Royal Academy Schools. Rebecca worked with the Pre-Raphaelite artist Millais and this was probably how Simeon became a member of their Brotherhood. They were particularly interested in painting scenes from biblical, poetic and literary sources, as well as scenes of religious ritual, and so Simeon produced several paintings of Jewish practices.

In 1973, Simeon was arrested and charged with homosexual offences, and although released on bail, he found it difficult to be received into fashionable society after this. He seems to have had to rely on the support of his family and friends, and so may have produced drawings with Jewish subject matter such as this one to sell to his family and friends. After this incident, he turned increasingly to alcohol, and would have used the money to support his addiction. He lived in a central London poorhouse and eventually died of alcohol-related diseases.

This drawing shows one of the readings from the Torah during Yom Kippur. The Torah is made up of the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Portions are read in synagogue on Shabbat and on festivals. On Yom Kippur, portions from the Torah are read both in the morning and in the afternoon.

The Torah is a scroll made of parchment. The words of the five books of Moses have been hand-written in Hebrew by a scribe. The scroll is wound around two rollers, bound with a binder, and covered with a mantle. This is usually made of fine cloth such as silk or velvet, and silver bells or a crown are used to cover the rollers to add to the Torah's finery. A silver breastplates and a silver Yad (Hebrew for hand) are also used to 'dress' the Torah.. The latter is used to keep one's place when reading, so that the Torah does not get covered in finger marks. When the Torah is read, all the accessories are removed and the Torah opened out at the correct passage.

In this drawing, the Rabbi is using his hands and the Torah, (often known as the Five Books of the Law), although a scroll, is not wound around the roller. The Rabbi dresses in white on Yom Kippur to denote purity, but here only one of the Rabbis wears white. These inaccuracies are probably due to the fact that Solomon was not an observant Jew , and relied on his childhood memories to produces these late drawings showing religious scenes.