ANA STA SIIA O. SIMFEROV SKA A Jewish Painter between Reform, Lviv National Academy of Arts Judaism, and Zionism: Wachtel’s
[email protected] Portrait of Abraham Kohn Abraham Kohn, the first Reform (Progressive) rabbi of Lemberg/Lviv, died at the age of forty-one in 1848 under unclear circumstances.1 His death triggered long-lasting speculations among various members of the Lemberg Jewish community. Was his death a murder and, if it was, than who was guilty? Discussions of that question have lasted until present day. Historians have advanced different answers trying to understand the realities of the Galician Jewish community in the 19th century and the religious life of Lemberg, the center of the eastern province of the Habsburg Austrian Empire, in which Abraham Kohn appeared so vibrantly and disappeared so suddenly. Within the context of the debates around Kohn, so far one aspect has been neglected. In 1902, Wilhelm Wachtel, a young Jewish Galician artist, painted a portrait of Rabbi Kohn – a vivid representation of Kohn that significantly adds to the image of the progressive rabbi in Lemberg collective memory.2 Wachtel presented Kohn as a religious icon, as a saint, and as a quintessential modern figure. Wachtel’s portrait was the only posthumous image of Kohn created fifty-four years after the tragic demise of the rabbi. Taking into account the controversial role of Abraham Kohn as the marginal reformer among the traditionalist majority, why did he reappear in the Lemberg milieu as an iconic figure early in the 20th century? How did it happen that the portrait of a Reform rabbi was painted by an artist who so strongly allied himself with Zionism – the movement with which the late 19th century Reform Judaism was at odds? 1 On Kohn’s life, ideas and and activities, see: Michael Stanislawski, A Murder in Lemberg: Politics, Religion and Violence in Modern Jewish History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); Patrick Gleffe, “Rabbiner Abraham Kohn: Ein Reformer und Märtyner,” in Von Salomon Sulzer bis “Bayer & Schwarz,” ed.