Enchanted We Whirl in the Dance of Youth: The Jewish Avant-Garde in Lodz and the Artist Books of Farlag Achrid, 1921

In the first three decades of the 20th century, the importance of Jewish artists from Central and Eastern Europe grew in the international artistic community. Liberated from the dictates of orthodox religion, they accepted the vision of the modern world, joining the current of changes shaping European culture of the interwar period. In Lodz, which next to Warsaw was the second largest center of Jewish life in Poland, the ideas of ＂new art＂ were realized by artists associated with the poet Moses Broderzon and the avant-garde Yung Yidish group. Three volumes of poetry, printed in 1921 by Achrid, an ephemeral publishing house, containing works of the Jewish poets Chaim Krul, David Zitman and Rahel Lipstein, with original hand-colored linocuts created by Ida Brauner, Esther Carp and Dina Matus, should also be linked to this circle. This book includes facsimiles of the original publications of the Achrid, along with English translations of the poems, preceded by articles on the environment of Jewish writers and painters in Lodz, from 1918 to 1939, and the artistic aspects of Achrid’s books. The narrative concludes with a bibliographical note and brief biographies of the poets and graphic artists.