The Book of Job, Ze’ev Raban and Meir Gur Aryeh, Jerusalem, 1942

Ze’ev Raban

Ze’ev Raban (1890-1970), born Wolf Rawicki in Łódź, Poland, was a leading painter, decorative artist, and industrial designer of the Bezalel school and was one of the founders of the Israeli art world. In 1921, he participated in the historic art exhibition at the Tower of David in Jerusalem, the first exhibit of Hebrew artists in Palestine, which became the first of an annual series of such exhibits. He designed the decorative elements of such important Jerusalem buildings as the King David Hotel and the Jerusalem YMCA and also designed a wide range of Jewish religious objects. The book illustrations of Raban are a good example of his eclectic mix of European and Oriental style.

Raban studied sculpture and architectural ornamentation at several European art academies. These included the School of Applied Art in Munich at the height of the Jugendstil movement, the neoclassical studio of Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, then a center of Art Nouveau, under symbolist and idealist artists Victor Rosseau and Constant Montald.

Under the influence of Boris Schatz, the founder of the Bezalel Academy, Raban moved to the Land of Israel in 1912. He joined the faculty of the Bezalel school and soon took on a central role there as a teacher of repoussé, painting, and sculpture. He also directed the academy's Graphics Press and the Industrial Art Studio. By 1914, most of the works produced in the school's workshops were of his design. He continued teaching until 1929.

Raban was the designer who, more than others, influenced the creation of the "Bezalel style," whether in book illustration, silver objects, or playing cards. He combined Oriental motifs and Western design, depicting scenes in the Land of Israel through a biblical and ideological filter.

Meir Gur Aryeh

Meir Gur Aryeh (1892-1951) was born Meir Gorodetsky (Horodetzky) in Bobruisk, Russia (now Belarus), to a Hasidic family. After studying art in Russia, he was invited to continue his studies at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. After immigrating to Israel, his family changed its name to "Gur Aryeh." After completing his studies, he was appointed head of the department of drawing, ivory, and amulets at the school. He was a member of the Menorah group and one of the founders of the Hebrew Artists Association in 1920, serving for a period of time as its secretary. In 1923, he and Ze'ev Raban founded the "House of Work for Industrial Art." Among the well-known works created in this framework were the decorations for the YMCA building in Jerusalem.

The Recipient

In 1914, Brigadier Albert Guido Bonn, C.B.E., M.C. (1889-1962), an engineer by training, joined the Royal Canadian Engineers and commanded a Sapper Company on railway construction in France. He was awarded the Military Cross for “conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.” 

Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War he raised 692 General Construction Company, RE, and took the unit to France where it was employed doing airfield construction for the Air Component of the British Expeditionary Force. After Dunkirk, he became CRE (Airfields) Scotland and the Islands. In June 1941, he was appointed Deputy Chief Engineer Works (Airfields) on the staff of the Engineer-in-Chief, Middle East, and later became Chief Engineer Airfields, Middle East with responsibility for airfield construction and maintenance in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, Algeria, and French Morocco. He was made C.B.E. in 1943 in recognition of gallant and distinguished services and was mentioned in dispatches on three separate occasions. 

It was during this period, when he oversaw the building of airfields throughout the Middle East, that he crossed paths with Simon (Shimon) Diskin, a fellow engineer and successful Jewish Palestinian building contractor whose expertise and local knowledge proved extremely useful to the British officer. Irrespective of their occupational connection, the two men, the British officer and the Jewish contractor, seemed to have made a more personal connection as well, one which occasioned the creation of this breathtakingly beautiful manuscript.

The year 1942 witnessed the construction of at least two separate airfields under the auspices of Colonel Bonn, Megiddo Airfield and RAF base Ramat David (where Hannah Senesh and her companions trained before parachuting into Hungary). But it was also the year in which Bonn suffered the tragic loss of both of his sons because of the war. His older son, Flight Officer Peter Michael Bonn, aged 19, was shot down over the South Pacific on February 21 while valiantly defending Jakarta, a mere two weeks before it was eventually overrun by Japanese forces. His younger son, Ian Henderson Bonn, died on July 5, a mere ten days before his eighteenth birthday. The sudden loss of both children within less than a five-month period was a heartrending blow to Colonel Bonn and inevitably invited comparison to the events recounted in the biblical book of Job. 

It was after the death of Bonn’s second son, Ian, that Simon Diskin decided to commission this volume as a balm to his colleague's wounded soul, recalling that in the final chapters of the book of Job God restores all of Job’s possessions and grants him the blessing of new children to recompense Job’s faith. Calling on the artistic talents of two of the country’s finest artists, Ze’ev Raban and Meir Gur Aryeh, Diskin spared no expense and authorized the artisans to use the highest-quality vellum, the finest inks and pigments, 22-karat gold, sterling silver, and 114 red rubies. Although Diskin did not formally dedicate the volume to Bonn’s sons’ memory, there are unmistakable signs that it is their deaths that inspired its creation.

On the front board there are four discrete gold elements. These include the central plaque embossed with the words of Job 1:21: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The gold badge at lower-right is the coat of arms of King’s College, Wimbledon, with its motto, “Sancte et Sapienter,” which translates to "with holiness and wisdom." Both of Colonel Bonn’s sons had attended the school, and Colonel Bonn himself served as one of the Governors. 

The gold badge at lower left is the emblem of the Royal Air Force, inscribed with the RAF’s motto, “Per Ardua Ad Astra,” or “Through Adversity, to the Stars.”

The final gold plaque centered on the front board, on top, depicts a sword with five drops of blood and the words “Strike Hard.” These are taken from the motto of the RAF Bomber Command—“Strike Sure, Strike Hard”—in which Colonel Bonn’s eldest son served before being shot down.

These plaques leave no doubt as to the purpose for which this book was commissioned. It clearly conveyed Diskin's heartfelt message of condolence to the grieving Bonn family.

Amazingly, the entirety of the project, including both the design and execution of its intricately worked front and rear boards, the meticulous pen- and brushwork of the illustrations, and the rubricated initials, had been completed in a mere six months. Before delivering the completed book to Diskin, who would in turn present it to Colonel Bonn in December of 1942, Ze'ev Raban took the unprecedented step of mounting an exhibition of it in his own home, recognizing that this might very likely have been the crowning book illustration/bookbinding project of his life.

The Benefactor

A native Jerusalemite, Simon (Shimon) Diskin (1903-1976) was an extremely successful builder, contractor, and engineer, whose first major project on behalf of the British was in 1939, when he was called upon to upgrade the longstanding Camp Balaklava tent outpost in Jerusalem into a permanent military base designed to accommodate a new military wireless installation, with accompanying barracks for the garrison. The newly built base quickly acquired the name Camp Allenby. It continued to serve as the hub of British military presence in Jerusalem until the end of the Mandate in 1948, when it came under the authority of the Israeli Border Police. Today, it is the site of the American Embassy in Jerusalem.

Diskin’s most well-known buildings built on behalf of the British Mandatory government in Palestine include such Jerusalem landmarks as The Rockefeller Institute (now, the Rockefeller Museum) and the residence of the High Commissioner (Armon ha-Natziv).

He was both a fervent Zionist, serving as the chairman of the Jerusalem branch of the General Zionist Party and a delegate to the 1946 Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, and a true Anglophile, who recognized that the war effort of Great Britain against the Axis powers required the strong support of the Jews of Palestine. Hoping to set an example for his coreligionists, in 1940 he spearheaded an effort by the Jews of Palestine to raise private funds to acquire aircraft for the Royal Air Force. His own contribution of 1,000 Palestinian pounds, which would be equivalent to $90,000 in today's dollars, was recorded on the front page of The Palestine Post. The donation was accompanied by a letter to the High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael, expressing his hope that his gift might be “regarded as the humble contribution of one, who like so many others of his fellow-Jews of Palestinian birth and nationality, is convinced of the supreme justice of Britain’s noble cause and the inevitable victory of British arms and moral values.” The following year, he urged young Palestinian Jews to join the British Army to combat the forces of evil represented by the Axis powers.

Diskin was the cofounder of Jerusalem’s Builders and Contractor’s Association and would, in later years, go on to devise a unique, patented modular construction method, in which one prepared concrete unit is mounted on top of another like a children’s game of blocks. His innovation helped to sustain the rapid pace of building cost-efficient homes for the masses of refugees that made their way to the newly founded State of Israel in the years following the Second World War.

His financial success allowed him to contribute generously to numerous other philanthropic efforts, including Jerusalem’s Bikkur Holim Hospital and the “Tzofim” (Israeli Scouting Movement). Diskin died in the United States in 1976 while visiting his daughter. His body was repatriated to Israel, and he is buried in the Sanhedria cemetery in his beloved Jerusalem.

The Work

The book of Job is one of the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible and is often counted among the masterpieces of world literature. The book’s theme is the eternal problem of unmerited suffering, and it is named after its central character, Job, who attempts to understand the sufferings that engulf him.

The book of Job may be divided into two sections of prose narrative, consisting of a prologue (chapters 102) and an epilogue (chapter 42:7-17), and intervening poetic disputation (chapters 3-42:6). The book’s artful construction accounts for much of its impact. Job, a prosperous man of outstanding piety, is tested by Satan to see whether his piety is rooted merely in his prosperity. But faced with the appalling loss of his possessions, his children, and finally his own health, Job still refuses to curse God. Three of his friends then arrive to comfort him, and at this point the poetic dialogue begins. The poetic discourses—which probe the meaning of Job’s sufferings and the manner in which he should respond—consist of three cycles of speeches that contain Job’s disputes with his three friends and his conversations with God. Job proclaims his innocence and the injustice of his suffering, while his “comforters” argue that Job is being punished for his sins. Job, convinced of his faithfulness and righteousness, is not satisfied with this explanation. The conversation between Job and God resolves the dramatic tension—but without solving the problem of undeserved suffering. The speeches evoke Job’s trust in the purposeful activity of God in the affairs of the world, even though God’s ways with man remain mysterious and inscrutable.