SCHATZ, BORIS. Yerushalayim ha-Benuyah: Chalom be-Hakitz ["The Rebuit Jerusalem: A Daydream"]

AUCTION 38 | Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters & Graphic Art

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Lot 244
(BEZALEL).

SCHATZ, BORIS. Yerushalayim ha-Benuyah: Chalom be-Hakitz ["The Rebuit Jerusalem: A Daydream"]

FIRST EDITION. Additional title, featuring Schatz on Jerusalem rooftop beckoned to by the prophet of the future pp. 190, (4). First and final leaves reinforced. Browned. Contemporary boards, top of spine frayed. 4to

Jerusalem: n.p. 1924

Est: $300 - $500
“Boris Schatz's exile on the shores of the Sea of Galilee during World War I, was a time of fruitful contemplation and writing. He composed this fictional story, set in Palestine one hundred years in the future, which offered a sublime alternative to the miserable reality of strife and struggle that had engulfed him in recent years. His utopian novella, was a programmatic manifesto written acording to the conventions of the then popular literary genre of the futuristic novel. The story opened with the Biblical artisan Bezalel ben Uri miraculously appearing at the Bezalel School one day in the midst of the war and inviting Schatz on a tour of Palestine in the year 2018 (see p. 108). This device allowed the author to present a detailed description of Bezalel and the Land of Israel of the future” (Boris Schatz: The Father of Israeli Art [Israel Museum Catalogue, 2006], p. 27)