Parchment leaf illustrated by the artist Shlomo Yedidya Seelenfreund. Inscribed at center: " Look down from the Heaven and see that we have become an object of scorn among the nations. We are thought of as sheep led to slaughter" (from the Tachanun prayer). An illustration of an eye gazing from heaven appears in the upper right corner. The artist's signature appears on the edge of the illustration: "S. Yedidya 1942". He created the illustration in the midst of the Holocaust, in the shadow of the terrible rumors that reached Eretz Israel of the mass murder of European Jews.
Shlomo Yedidya (Salamon Seelenfreund) was born in 1875 to Dayan Elazar Ze'ev Lajos HaCohen Seelenfreund and to Léni nee Weiszburg in the city of Szentes, Hungary. Two years later, his father was appointed Dayan in the Szeged community, and the family moved there. At the age of 16, Shlomo Yedidya left Szeged to Budapest to build his life as an artist. He studied at the art school in Budapest and afterward studied and worked in printing presses and in various graphics workshops. Later, he left Hungary and journeyed to Rome, Paris and Germany to participate in arts and crafts workshops, and to continue his studies. After his return to Hungary, he established a workshop and (in c. 1898) married Shoshana, also descended from the Weiszburg family. Art periodicals published his crafts and he became known as a master-artist and art teacher. He was invited to design and decorate the new Neology Synagogue in Szeged, inaugurated in 1903. Later, he was exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Szeged (1910) and in Budapest. In 1921, he immigrated with his family to Eretz Israel, settled in Jerusalem and established a workshop. Eventually, the Seelenfreund family joined the small settlement of Beit Tolma in the Arazim valley (adjacent to Motza, near Jerusalem) where they built a house adjacent to a small field and garden. During the 1929 pogroms, on Shabbat, August 24, the house was burnt upon all its content – plans, finished works of art and equipment – the rest was looted. The family was evacuated on time and survived. In 1940, after wandering in various rented apartments in Tel Aviv, Shlomo Yedidya and his son Yehuda built their home in the Borochov neighborhood of Givatayim. In 1947, Shlomo and his wife Shoshana moved to the Yavne Senior Home in Tel Aviv. With the beginning of the battles of the War of Independence, during an Egyptian bombing, their home was hit when they were away and many of Shlomo Yedidya's works were damaged. In 1958, Shoshana Yedidya died and three years later (1969) Shlomo died. (The biographic details were taken from an article written by Timna Rubinger, published on behalf of the Memorial Museum of the Hungarian Speaking Jewry, Safed).
Approximately 23X28 cm. Good condition. Stains [primarily to margins].