In the section “Jews from Ukraine” — the story of Ephraim Moses Lilien, an artist from Drohobych, who is called the first Zionist artist. His journey took him through Galicia, Krakow, Munich, Berlin, Basel, and Jerusalem, and his graphics helped the Jewish national movement find its own visual language.
A Jew from Drohobych who became an artist of national revival
Ephraim Moses Lilien was born on May 23, 1874, in Drohobych — a city in Galicia, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today it is the Lviv region of Ukraine. At birth, his name is also indicated as Maurycy Lilien. He died on July 18, 1925, in Badenweiler, Germany, but between these two dates, he managed to travel a path that connected Ukrainian Galicia, European modernism, Jewish culture, Zionism, and the future Israel.
For the section “Jews from Ukraine” Lilien is an almost ideal hero. His biography shows that Jewish history on Ukrainian lands is not only about shtetls, synagogues, pogroms, wars, and tragedies of the 20th century. It is also a powerful contribution to world art, European graphics, the culture of the Jewish national movement, and the visual language without which early Zionism would look different.
He was not born in Jerusalem, Berlin, or Vienna. His first point on the map was Drohobych.
It was from this city that the man later called “the first Zionist artist” emerged. This definition does not mean that there were no artists among Jews before him. It means something else: Lilien was one of the first to turn the idea of Jewish national revival into recognizable images — prophets, exiles, heroes, farmers, people who look not only back to the past but also forward to the future.
Drohobych was not an accidental backdrop. Galicia at the end of the 19th century was a complex space where Ukrainian, Jewish, Polish, German-speaking, and Austrian cultural environments coexisted. Here, a talented person could hear different languages, see different religious traditions, and early understand that identity is not a flat scheme but a whole world.
Later, Drohobych will be associated with Bruno Schulz, the Gottlieb brothers, and other names important for European and Jewish memory. Lilien occupies a special place in this row: he became not only an artist of his city or his time but also one of those who helped the Jewish people see themselves in a new historical image.
From a sign maker to European modernism and Zionism
Ukrainian period: Drohobych, Lviv, Krakow, and Lilien’s first steps
Ephraim Moses Lilien was born on May 23, 1874, in Drohobych — then it was Galicia as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today the Lviv region of Ukraine. In the Ukrainian context, this is fundamental: his first cultural environment was precisely Galician, Drohobych, multinational.
He grew up in a poor Jewish family.
According to Ukrainian sources, Lilien’s father was a craftsman, a carver, or a turner. The family did not have money for a full gymnasium, so the future artist received primary education in a Jewish real school. It was already clear then that he had artistic abilities.
His first practical skills were not acquired in an academy but in a craft.
Young Lilien worked as an apprentice to a master who dealt with signs and shields. This is an important detail: his path to art began not with salons but with applied urban graphics — letters, lines, decorative forms, signs, the visual language of the street. Later, the sense of line and poster expressiveness would become one of the strong sides of his style.
In 1889, at about 15 years old, Lilien went to study at the Krakow School / Academy of Arts. There he studied painting and graphic techniques until 1893, including under Jan Matejko, one of the greatest artists of the Polish historical school. This stage is still connected with the Galician cultural space: Krakow was then an important artistic center for youth from Galicia.
Due to a lack of money, studies were not calm and continuous. Encyclopedic materials note that financial difficulties forced Lilien to return home and earn as a sign artist.
According to the “Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine,” in 1892–1894, he worked in Drohobych, and later he repeatedly visited and worked in Lviv — in 1894, 1899–1905, 1911, 1914, and 1923.
Thus, Lilien’s Ukrainian period is not only a fact of birth in Drohobych.
It is childhood in Jewish Galicia, early craft school, first earnings, studies in the Krakow artistic environment, and constant returns to the Lviv-Drohobych region. Only later will there be Munich, Berlin, Basel, Herzl, “Bezalel,” and Jerusalem. But the basis of his view — the urban line, Jewish memory, Galician multilingualism, and the sense of cultural borderland — was formed precisely here.
This biography is similar to the path of many talented people from Galicia: first a provincial town, then a craft, then an art school, then major European centers. But Lilien did not dissolve in the European environment. On the contrary, it was there that he turned the Jewish theme into a modern artistic language.
He worked in the aesthetics of Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil — European modernism at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. It was a style of decorative line, symbols, elongated figures, ornaments, strong black-and-white contrast, and almost musical rhythm of composition. But for Lilien, modernism was not just a beautiful form. Through it, he spoke of Jewish memory, exile, biblical past, national dignity, and hope for return.
His graphics were distinguished by a special tension. There was little accidental in them. The line could be soft and decorative, but the meaning often remained heavy: slavery, longing, expectation, spiritual resilience, the movement of people through history.
Lilien became known primarily as a book graphic artist, illustrator, and master of print graphics. His works existed not only in exhibition space. They appeared in books, magazines, albums, postcards, public projects — that is, they became part of mass visual memory. That is why his influence turned out to be broader than that of an artist working only for galleries.
How Lilien came to Zionism: Berlin, 1900, and the people around him
Lilien came to Zionism not through a party career but through the artistic and Jewish intellectual environment.
After studying in Krakow, Vienna, and Munich, he moved to Berlin in 1894. By the late 1890s, Lilien was already known in Berlin’s artistic and bohemian circles as a master of ex-libris, book, and magazine illustrator. At the same time, interest in the idea of “Jewish renaissance” — cultural renewal, which went alongside political Zionism, was growing in the German-speaking Jewish environment.
A key turning point was 1900 when the book “Juda” was published. The texts for it were written by the German poet Börries von Münchhausen, and the illustrations were created by Lilien. This book made him a notable figure among cultural Zionists: in it, Jewish antiquity was shown not as a museum past but as a source of strength, dignity, and national future.
It was after “Juda” that Lilien began to be actively perceived as an artist who could give the Jewish national movement its own visual language. His works were highly appreciated by representatives of cultural Zionism, including the circle of Martin Buber. Buber and cultural Zionists close to him saw in Lilien an artist capable of combining European modernism with the Jewish national idea.
An important figure next to Lilien was also Berthold Feiwel — a publicist, editor, one of the active figures of the Zionist movement. He was connected with circles where not only Herzl’s politics were discussed but also the need for new Jewish culture, literature, and art. Through such an environment, Lilien found himself not on the periphery but at the very center of cultural Zionism.
The next important date is 1901. Lilien participated in the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel and joined the democratic-Zionist faction. It was there that he created the famous image of Theodor Herzl on the balcony of the Les Trois Rois hotel. This portrait became one of the visual icons of political Zionism.
Thus, Lilien’s connection with Zionism became obvious. He was not a politician like Herzl and was not an organizer of the movement in the usual sense. His role was different: he made Zionism visible. Herzl gave the movement a program and a political dream, and Lilien gave this dream a face, a line, a symbol, and emotional strength.
In 1903, another important publication was released — “Lieder des Ghetto” / “Songs of the Ghetto” by Morris Rosenfeld with illustrations by Lilien. These images of poverty, exile, pain, and hope were also used in Zionist visual culture. Through them, Lilien showed the old Jewish world but at the same time hinted at the need to escape humiliation and return to dignity.
A logical continuation was the work with Boris Schatz. In 1904, Lilien, together with him, engaged in the idea of creating a Jewish art school in Jerusalem. In 1905, a society related to the future “Bezalel” project was created in Berlin, and in 1906, Lilien, together with Schatz, came to Jerusalem, helped open the school, taught the first class, and participated in forming its visual direction.
Therefore, Lilien’s path to Zionism can be shown as follows:
1894 — Berlin: entry into Jewish artistic and intellectual circles.
1900 — “Juda”: the first major work after which he began to be perceived as an artist of Jewish national revival.
1901 — Basel: Fifth Zionist Congress, democratic-Zionist faction, famous image of Herzl.
1903 — “Songs of the Ghetto”: visual language of Jewish pain, exile, and hope.
1904–1906 — Boris Schatz and “Bezalel”: transition from European Zionist graphics to an attempt to create Jewish art in Jerusalem.
Thus, it becomes clear that Lilien did not “accidentally find himself next to Zionism.” He entered it through Berlin, through the circles of cultural Zionism, through Martin Buber, Berthold Feiwel, Boris Schatz, through the book “Juda,” the Basel Congress, and the image of Herzl. His contribution was not political but visual: he helped Zionism see itself.
Why Lilien is called the first Zionist artist
At the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century, Zionism was not only a political movement. It needed a language. Not only the language of speeches, programs, and congresses but also the language of images. What does Jewish return look like? How to present Zion to a person who has never seen Eretz-Israel? How to show not only the suffering of exile but also the dignity of a people who want to become the subject of their own history again?
Lilien gave this movement a strong visual form.
The National Library of Israel directly calls him “the first Zionist artist.” Materials about him emphasize that his turn to Zionist art is associated with the Fifth Zionist Congress.
It is important to understand: he did not “create Zionism.” Zionism as a political movement had its leaders, ideologists, organizers, congresses, and institutions. But Lilien helped make Zionism visible. He gave it faces, lines, symbols, poses, biblical depth, and modern artistic energy.
In his works, the Jew was no longer just an image of an exile or a victim. He could be a prophet, a warrior, a farmer, a thinker, a builder of the future. This was fundamentally important for an era when the Jewish national movement was trying to create a new image of itself.
In this sense, Lilien worked not just as an illustrator. He worked as an artist of national imagination.
Herzl in Basel: a portrait that became almost an icon
The most famous visual episode in Lilien’s biography is associated with Theodor Herzl.
In 1901, during the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel, Lilien made the famous image of Herzl on the balcony of the Les Trois Rois hotel. Herzl stands by the railing and looks into the distance, at the Rhine. This photograph became one of the most recognizable images of political Zionism. The Jewish Museum of Switzerland describes it as a postcard with a reproduction of Ephraim Moses Lilien’s photograph “Theodor Herzl in Basel, 1901“.
The strength of this portrait is not only that it depicts Herzl. The strength is in the composition. He looks not like an ordinary congress participant but like a person looking into the future. In this image, there is loneliness, a prophetic pose, anxiety, and confidence at the same time.
And here it is important to remember: one of the main visual symbols of the Zionist movement is associated with an artist from Drohobych.
Lilien did not just press the camera button. He knew how to see the symbol. He understood how to create an image of an era from a real person. That is why Herzl on the balcony became more than a portrait. It became a visual formula for the dream of a Jewish future.
There is another important detail. Lilien often used Herzl’s features as a model for the image of the “new Jew.” In Herzl, he saw not only a politician but also a type of face that could be turned into an artistic sign of national revival.
Main works of Lilien: from “Juda” to “Songs of the Ghetto”
Lilien is known not for one work. His legacy includes book graphics, biblical illustrations, Zionist symbols, photographs, portraits, and projects related to Jewish culture at the beginning of the 20th century.
“Juda”: ancient history as an image of the future
One of Lilien’s key works was the 1900 edition of Juda — a book of ballads on Old Testament themes by the German poet Börries von Münchhausen with illustrations by Lilien. Encyclopedic sources note that it was this project that helped turn him into one of the main artists of the Zionist theme; the Israel Museum writes that the illustrations for this book almost immediately made Lilien an outstanding Zionist artist.
Why is this important?
Because in Juda, the ancient history of Israel was presented not as a dead past. It looked like a source of strength. Biblical characters in Lilien’s work were not museum figures. They were strong, monumental, almost modern. In them, a reader at the beginning of the 20th century could see not only a religious plot but also a national idea.
This was an important step: Jewish antiquity became the language of the future.
“Lieder des Ghetto”: the pain of exile and the dignity of the people
Another important project is Lieder des Ghetto, or “Songs of the Ghetto,” illustrations for the German translation of poems by Morris Rosenfeld. This cycle became one of the most famous in Lilien’s legacy. It features themes of poverty, labor, exile, suffering, social pain, and hope.
For the Ukrainian context, there is an additional bridge here. Morris Rosenfeld was a Jewish poet writing in Yiddish, and Ivan Franko translated his texts into Ukrainian. Therefore, around “Songs of the Ghetto,” an amazing cultural connection arises: Jewish poetry, a world-class Ukrainian translator, and an artist from Drohobych who creates strong visual images for these motifs.
This does not mean that Franko and Lilien worked together on one project. But it shows how close intellectual and artistic intersections could be in the Eastern European Jewish-Ukrainian space.
Biblical illustrations: the past as the energy of return
Lilien worked a lot with biblical plots. He was interested in prophets, patriarchs, exodus, land, exile, struggle, spiritual mission. In such works, he did not just illustrate the text. He created an image of Jewish history as a continuous line leading from antiquity to modern national awakening.
Researchers note that in Lilien’s biblical graphics, the past is often presented as majestic and alive, resonating with the ideas of spiritual and artistic revival.
In his work, a biblical hero could look like a person already belonging to the modern world. This was Lilien’s special strength: he did not leave Jewish history in the past. He translated it into the language of his time.
Images worth remembering
Among the well-known works and motifs of Lilien, “The Queen of Sabbath,” “The Silent Song,” “Zion,” images of the victims of the Kishinev pogrom, biblical scenes with Abraham, Joshua, Balaam, and other characters are often mentioned. In these works, it is visible how the artist combined the decorativeness of modernism with heavy historical memory.
His art was beautiful but not easy.
Lilien and “Bezalel”: from Drohobych to Jerusalem
Another important chapter is Lilien’s connection with Jerusalem and the “Bezalel” art school.
In 1906, he, together with Boris Schatz, was involved in the creation of the “Bezalel” Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. The National Library of Israel notes Lilien’s participation in the trip to Eretz-Israel with Schatz and associates him with the school’s emblem.
Yes, his stay in Jerusalem was not long. But even short participation had symbolic significance. Lilien found himself next to one of the first institutional projects of Jewish art education in Eretz-Israel.
This was a path that beautifully fits into one line: Drohobych gave him a start, Krakow and Munich — a school, Berlin — an artistic scene, Basel — a Zionist symbol, Jerusalem — a connection with future Israeli art.
For the Israeli audience, this line is especially important. Lilien was not just a “Jewish artist from Europe.” He was one of those who helped form the visual ground on which the art of Eretz-Israel and Israel later developed.
Ukrainian trace: why Lilien is important not only to Israel
In the Ukrainian perspective, Lilien is important as part of the multinational heritage of Galicia.
He was born on the territory of modern Ukraine. His early environment — Drohobych, Galicia, the Jewish community, the Austro-Hungarian cultural world. His path shows that Ukrainian land gave the world people who influenced not only local history but also world culture.
Such biographies are especially important today when Ukraine is rethinking its own complex memory. Russian propaganda has been trying for decades to simplify Ukrainian history, presenting it as flat, secondary, or artificial. But stories like Lilien’s biography show the opposite: Ukraine was and remains a space of many cultural lines.
Here lived and created Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, Armenians, Greeks, Germans, Crimean Tatars, and other peoples. Their heritage does not cancel Ukrainian identity. On the contrary, it shows its depth.
Lilien is not a “foreign” figure for Ukrainian memory. He is a Jewish artist from Drohobych, a son of Galicia, a person whose biography connects a Ukrainian city with Berlin, Basel, and Jerusalem.
For NANovosti — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency, such stories are especially important because they help see Ukrainian-Israeli connections not only through diplomacy, war, and politics but also through a deeper layer — memory, culture, art, family roots, and the shared history of the Jewish people in Ukraine.
Lilien, Franko, Lesya Ukrainka: invisible cultural threads
In recent years, Lilien’s name in Ukraine is increasingly spoken of not only as a Zionist artist but also as a figure that can be placed alongside Ukrainian intellectual pursuits at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries.
Here an interesting connection arises: Lilien, Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka.
At first glance, these are different worlds. Franko — a Ukrainian writer, thinker, translator, and public figure. Lesya Ukrainka — one of the key figures of Ukrainian literature, author of dramatic and poetic texts about freedom, strength of spirit, captivity, dignity, and resistance. Lilien — a Jewish graphic artist associated with modernism and Zionism.
But if you look deeper, there are indeed “invisible threads” between them.
All three lived in an era when the peoples of Eastern Europe were searching for the language of their own dignity. All three worked differently with themes of freedom, national awakening, historical memory, spiritual strength, and resistance to humiliation. For Franko, it was word and thought. For Lesya Ukrainka — dramatic energy and inner freedom. For Lilien — line, image, symbol, the face of a new person.
It is especially interesting that Lilien and Franko meet through the theme of Morris Rosenfeld. Lilien illustrated “Songs of the Ghetto,” and Franko translated Rosenfeld into Ukrainian. This is one of those cultural bridges that are rarely visible in school textbooks but are important for understanding the true depth of the Ukrainian-Jewish space.
What image of a Jew did Lilien create
Before the era of Zionism, European art often depicted Jews through an outsider’s view. These could be stereotypes, religious caricatures, images of poverty, alienation, or exoticism. Lilien offered a different image.
In his work, the Jew is not an object of someone else’s observation but a subject of his own history.
He can suffer but does not disappear. He can be an exile but does not lose dignity. He can remember destruction but look forward. He is connected with the Bible but does not get stuck in the past. He is modern, strong, beautiful, tragic, and aimed at return.
This is the essence of his Zionist graphics.
Lilien did an important thing: he visually restored the dignity of the Jewish body, the Jewish face, the Jewish memory. His heroes often look monumental. They possess a strength that was so lacking in European stereotypes of the ‘weak’ or ‘landless’ Jew.
Therefore, his works were important not only as art. They participated in the creation of a new self-perception.
Why Lilien is important for Israel today
For Israel, Ephraim Moshe Lilien is part of the early cultural history of Zionism. He lived before the creation of the State of Israel but worked with images that helped make this future imaginable, visible, and emotionally convincing.
Herzl gave Zionism a political language. Congress organizers gave it structure. Settlers and builders gave it practical form on the ground. And artists like Lilien gave it a face.
Without images, a national movement remains a program. With images, it becomes part of memory.
That is why Lilien is important not only to art historians. He is important to everyone who wants to understand how the Jewish idea of return became not only a text but also a picture, a symbol, a postcard, an emblem, an illustration, a portrait.
He is also important because his biography reminds us: part of Israel’s cultural roots pass through the cities of modern Ukraine — through Drohobych, Lviv, Odessa, Chernivtsi, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Uman, Berdychiv, and many other places.
Why Lilien is important for Ukraine today
For Ukraine, Lilien is part of a reclaimed memory.
For a long time, many Jewish names associated with Ukrainian cities were perceived separately: as the history of ‘Jews of Eastern Europe,’ but not as part of the Ukrainian cultural landscape. Today, such an approach no longer works. If a person was born in Drohobych, studied, formed in the Galician environment, absorbed its multilingualism, and then influenced world art, it is impossible to erase him from the Ukrainian cultural map.
Lilien helps Ukraine speak about itself more honestly and deeply.
Not as a monotonous territory where there was only one line of history, but as a complex European space where different peoples created a common cultural fabric. This is especially important during the war when Ukraine defends not only its territory but also its right to its own memory.
Russia tries to destroy Ukrainian cities, erase archives, kill people, destroy cultural symbols, and impose an imperial version of the past. In response, Ukraine reclaims names, places, languages, and destinies that prove: its history is much richer than any imperial schemes.
Ephraim Moshe Lilien is one of those names.
Finale: an artist from Ukraine who helped the Jewish people see themselves
Ephraim Moshe Lilien lived only 51 years. But his path turned out to be surprisingly rich. He was born in Drohobych, went through European art schools, became a master of modernism, joined the circle of Jewish intellectuals and Zionists, created iconic illustrations, photographed Herzl in Basel, and was connected with the artistic beginnings of Jerusalem.
He was called the first Zionist artist not because he was the only one. But because he was one of the first to give the Jewish national revival a coherent artistic image.
Lilien helped the Jewish people see themselves not only through the pain of exile but also through dignity, beauty, strength, memory, and hope.
And in this, there is a special Ukrainian note. One of the artists who created the face of early Zionism was born in Ukrainian Drohobych. His line went from Galicia to Basel and Jerusalem. Therefore, his name rightfully belongs to several stories at once — Jewish, Ukrainian, European, and Israeli.
For the section ‘Jews from Ukraine‘, Ephraim Moshe Lilien is not just the biography of an outstanding artist. It is proof that Ukrainian land gave the Jewish world people who changed not only the culture of their time but also how an entire people envisioned their own future.
Man-bridge: Drohobych — Berlin — Basel — Jerusalem — Braunschweig
The biography of Ephraim Moshe Lilien is most accurately described not by a straight line ‘Drohobych — Jerusalem,’ but by a route through several cultural centers: Drohobych, Berlin, Basel, Jerusalem, and Braunschweig.
Lilien was born on May 23, 1874, in Drohobych — then it was Galicia within Austria-Hungary, today the Lviv region of Ukraine. It was there that the path of the artist began, who would later become one of the main visual authors of early Zionism.
After his first steps in the craft and studies in Krakow, his road went through Vienna, Munich, and Berlin. In 1894, Lilien moved to Berlin, where he became known as a book graphic artist, illustrator, photographer, and master of modernism.
A key date is 1901. During the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel, Lilien created the famous image of Theodor Herzl on the balcony of the hotel Les Trois Rois. This portrait became one of the visual icons of political Zionism.
In 1906, Lilien found himself in Jerusalem and was associated with the early history of the Bezalel School of Arts, created by Boris Schatz. He did not just ‘visit’ Eretz Israel: Lilien participated in launching a new Jewish art school, taught the first class, helped set its visual direction, and, according to the National Library of Israel, created the design of the Bezalel emblem.
His task was not only pedagogical. Lilien helped connect biblical plots, the Zionist idea of return, and the language of European modernism. Through him, early Bezalel received not just a curriculum but an artistic idea: Jewish art should speak of the past but look to the future.
In Eretz Israel, he also worked as a photographer. In 1906, Lilien photographed Jerusalem, the country’s inhabitants, types, and scenes around the new school: among the known subjects are a Yemenite Jew, Samaritan high priest Amram ben Yitzhak, an Arab figure in an abaya, as well as the Bezalel drawing class. This is important: Lilien looked at the country not only as a Zionist artist but also as a visual witness of the era.
However, Jerusalem did not become his permanent home. Already in 1907, Lilien returned to Berlin but continued to visit Palestine. Sources usually indicate that between 1906 and 1918 he was there four times. One of the subsequent trips was related to World War I: Lilien served in the Austrian military press corps as a war photographer.
In the same 1906, he married Helene Magnus from a Jewish family in Braunschweig. Therefore, after his death on July 18, 1925, in Badenweiler, Lilien was buried not in Jerusalem but in the Jewish cemetery in Braunschweig.
Thus, his map looks briefly: Drohobych, 1874 — Berlin, 1894 — Basel, 1901 — Jerusalem, 1906 — Palestine, trips until 1918 — Braunschweig, 1925.
Drohobych gave him roots, Europe — an artistic language, Basel — a place next to Herzl, Jerusalem — a connection with Bezalel, and Braunschweig became the last point of his earthly journey.
Ephraim Moshe Lilien is buried in the New Jewish Cemetery in Braunschweig, Germany, next to his wife Helene. His tombstone is made based on his own illustration ‘Cemetery’ / ‘Friedhof’ for Morris Rosenfeld’s book ‘Lieder des Ghetto.’ In this illustration, Lilien depicted a tombstone with his name in advance — and after his death, this artistic image was brought to reality.
Read more – in the section ‘Jews from Ukraine‘.