Yizkor dem ondeynḳen Zshiṭomirer ḳdoyshim

United Zhitomir Relief Committee

Zuni Maud, 1891–1956 (Artist)

Yizkor dem ondeynḳen Zshiṭomirer ḳdoyshim (Memorial for remembering the Zhitomir Martyrs)

New York: Zshiṭomirer fareynigṭen relif ḳomi, 1921

In immediate response to the devastating Jewish pogroms in Ukraine of 1918–20, the United Zhitomir Relief Committee in New York, made up of recent immigrants from Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region who maintained strong connections to their families there, published a deeply moving and well-documented Yizkor (memorial) book. The publication was the first of its kind in the United States, combining sophisticated art and poetry with visual photographic evidence of the tragedies, historical accounts of the events, and names of the victims. The result is a profoundly touching martyrological tribute. The book commemorated not only the pogroms of 1918–20, but also the earlier pogrom of 1905.

The talented young Jewish artist Zuni Maud (born Yitzhok Moyed), himself an immigrant, drew the cover and most illustrations in the book. The cover, with two symbolic women’s figures burying their faces in their palms in deep grief, resembles a tombstone. Above the figures, the Hebrew word Yizkor (“remember”) is inscribed; below them is the phrase from Eikhah (The Book of Lamentations), “Al ele ani bokhiyah” (“For these things do I weep”). Creating such an elegiac illustration as this was an unusual departure for Maud, who was best known as a cartoonist, poet, playwright, and puppeteer.