Gedenḳ eyn mol far ale mol

Yosef Tchaikov, 1888–1979 (Artist)

Gedenḳ eyn mol far ale mol (Remember Once and for Always)

Poster 

Berlin-London: Oze; Federation of Ukrainian Jews, 1923

OZE (Obschestvo zdravookhraneniia evreev), Russian for Society for the Protection of the Health of Jews) was established in 1912 in St. Petersburg, Russia, as an advocate for accessible healthcare and better living standards for the most vulnerable members of the Jewish population. World War I, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the waves of pogroms of 1918–20 led to a catastrophic situation of epidemics, impoverishment, and famine that was particularly devastating for the Jews in Ukraine. OZE also established an office in Berlin in 1922, primarily focusing on fundraising campaigns in Western Europe to improve living conditions for Ukrainian Jews. 

The campaign made critical efforts to appeal to Jews, using bold and direct health messages in their main spoken language of Yiddish. Organizers engaged leading contemporary Jewish artists to visualize these appeals in posters that could be hung in community kitchens, hospitals, clubs, schools, and dormitories. 

Yosef Tchaikov, an avant-garde artist who at the time lived in Kyiv and led a sculpture section of the Jewish Kultur-lige (Culture League) Art School, created a bold graphic message for this poster. It shows the health hazards of spitting, with a figure of a traditionally dressed Jewish male depicted in Cubist style and snakes of infection rising from the floor. The OZE Berlin office published the poster in 1923, with support from the London-based Federation of Ukrainian Jews and Fund for the Relief of Jewish Victims of the War in Eastern Europe.