London, Berlin, Tel Aviv – Neumark’s singular Judaica art collection

“A collection is an archive and a preserver of history – as such the Neumark family collection is a one of a kind when it comes to Judaica – our rare, at times one-of-a-kind works, are a window into a past world of Jewish traditions, characters, ceremonies and rituals.”

Spanning over five centuries The Neumark collection is a singular, highly significant record of Jewish life. Over 5000 items gathered by generations of the Neumark clan – meticulously executed engravings, oil paintings, scrolls, drawings and etchings crafted by some of the finest masters of their respective day. There are works printed on parchment, canvas, paper and fabric from the 15th century up to the 19th, depicting Jewish religion and social life in both Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities in Europe.

“A great deal of passion goes into collecting” says Dr Roni Neumark, trustee and custodian of the Neumark Family Trust & Collection, “it is a specialised practice that is highly rewarding for any collector of course, but mine is a vocation in a way, it comes with a long family history and I feel a strong sense of duty.”

Neumark shifts between London, Berlin and Tel Aviv. I meet him at his stunning London abode where we sit in a spacious room, surrounded by portraits of distinctly religious Jewish figures, awe-striking rare books dating back to the early days of printing, and one breathtaking Mona Lisa.

“Many of the items are extremely rare” Neumark told me, “some are one-of-very-few in existence, some are the sole copy that is known to exist, we also have items that are unknown to scholars”, absent from Alfred Rubens’s most comprehensive catalogue (A Jewish Iconography) considered as the most important source of visual Jewish social history.

“These works are a historic record of a long gone Jewish-European way of life” I note as I look at the detailed portraits of the rabbinical figures arounds me – engaging characters with eyes full of wisdom, integrity and grace. The paintings are captivating, instantly shifting the viewer into a different place in time. 

“I come from an orthodox background and so the spirit of these characters is very familiar to me, they are dear to me” Neumark replied, “I respect them, this is why there are pictures in my collection that I will not hang in the same room as them, such as the painting of Baruch Spinoza – Spinoza cannot be next to the rabbis because he is the first heretic, he cannot sit next to rabbis. Out of respect to them I never walk in the living room with my underpants or naked or anything like that, because of respect – my son ‘reminds’ me that they are already passed on – yes, but the way I see it, their character still exists, they are here with us forever.”

Image courtesy of the Neumark collection

A contemporary spirit

“Where Judaica collections tend to be of a niche such as manuscripts for example, I breathed a more contemporary air into mine” said Neumark, “I expanded the collection, so in addition to rare books and oil paintings we also have caricatures, satirical prints, important documents, there are also works related to antisemitism and blood libels.”

The jewels in the Neumark collection crown are too numerous to note here – among countless others, there stands a stunning selection of etchings by Rembrandt Van Rijn illustrating  scenes from the Old Testament, a special copy of the Magna Carta on which Neumark expands later on, rare bible and Talmud books printed on parchment hundreds of years ago – some, not long after printing itself was invented.

“I love rare books, I love to smell the pages and scan the book, feel the dust in my hand” reflected Neumark as we stood by one of the centuries-old books on display, “an old book has a smell that you cannot take out, it is absorbed in the pages especially when it is printed on parchment or Vellum, it stays forever. I feel like I go back in the time tunnel to when it was printed, holding one of my 16th century books I can find myself in Venice at the time of The Merchant of Venice, a time when Jews flourished.

These books were extremely expensive, especially when there were printed on parchment, when they were commissioned by someone, and when they are Hebrew books – the process was very long and very time consuming. We have books from the early days of printing – incunables, the time between when Johan Gutenberg invented printing and 1500.”

The Mona Lisa

Dr Roni Neumark. The Neumark Family and Trust Collection

The breathtaking MonaLisa is not part of the Neumark Judaica collection – “it’s my own craziness” said Neumark, “this is not a family legacy, just my own thing as an art collector, I fell in love with the story and purchased it through Christies.” The portrait of possibly the most famous face in the world is covered not just to protect the paint pigments that are 500 years old, but also out of respect for the rabbis whom she ‘shares the room’ with.

“The painting was made by copying the Leonardo’s original – through expert analysis we know that the painting’s colour is comparable to the version executed by one of Leonardo Da Vinci’s close pupils.”  Ms. Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, ‘Mona Lisa’, is an icon that is eternal –  a quality she shares with the entire collection. “In a way” added Neumark, “someone who has this kind of collection will never die either, his physical body will die but the legacy, the name, will last forever through these works.”

The Jewish articles in the Magna Carta

Magna Carta replica by John Pine 1733. Image courtesy of The Neumark Collection.

Another Jewel in the collection’s town is a document of monumental significance – a 1733 replica of the Magna Carta engraved by John Pine. “Pine has asked the crown for permission to print the landmark document again because copies the 13th century original were disintegrating, burned or destroyed. Pine even added the coat of arms of the nobles and the knights who signed the original. The document is of relevance to a Judaica collection because two of the 63 articles, number 10 and 11, are directly against Jewish money lenders.

In the past, Christian people couldn’t lend money for interest rate so the king John used the Jews to do it for him – the gentile noblemen who owned land came to the Jews, took money and paid interest rate, when they couldn’t pay the interest rate however, the Jews would say ‘give me your land as collateral’. But because Jews couldn’t own land, the king said “look Mr Jew, ‘give me the land and I will give you the money’. Years on, King John came to own most of the land of English Jews and the noblemen had nothing, so in Magna Carta time they forced the king to stop this Jewish custom of taking their lands – because the king didn’t need the Jews anymore, he has expelled them from England.”

Another items of grave importance is the first ever Hebrew Bible printed on parchment in Venice in 1517 with the permission of Pope Leo the 10th of the medici dynasty. “It is by the Daniel bombers printing house who interestingly, was not Jewish himself, he hired Jewish Scholars to help him because as you know, every letter has to be scrupulously checked.”

Neumark’s Orthodox German roots

“I have an office and  storage in Berlin, it is a place I feel a connection to, when I land there I feel at home – I feel the smell of my family. I go through the areas where the Orthodox Jewish  community was – just to give you an idea with some statistics, my grandfather belonged to a community of 700 orthodox Jews, compared  to 55,000 people who were Reform – the new philosophical way and the beginning of secularism.

When I was a child, he was in Israel, I was asking him about the Nazis, asking ‘grandpa when were you harassed by the Germans?’ he would point to a temple of the reforms in Israel and tell me ‘they hated us’, they used to call them ‘the old Jews’ you know, the old style with the kippah.”

The collection is part of the long Neumark family history – centuries’ long journey that began in the late Middle Ages, when Roni Neumark’s orthodox ancestors settled in the Brandenburg province of West-Prussia near the Oder River. There the family would remain through times of persecution as well as affluence – right up to Hitler’s rise to power.

“My family were Jews who lived under the Prussian crown, and were then protected” reflected Neumark, “the king gave them this decree, this title meaning that the king or the monarchy has some interest with them, either for money or transactional business. The title meant that they cannot be harassed, they can wear regular clothes and live wherever they want. It is important to remember that this game-changing, favourable treatment was preceded by hard times  – at the time of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn for example, Jews couldn’t enter the city of Berlin from the main gate but only from the cattle and the horses gates, you couldn’t stand on the same pavement as a non-jewish man.”

Baruch Spinoza. Image courtesy of The Neumark Collection.

In 1934, Roni Neumark’s grandfather left Hitler’s Germany and emigrated to Palestine in along with many zionist German Jews.

“He convinced his younger siblings to come after him, the last sister came in 1939 I believe. My grandfather’s parents, Berta and Simon Neumark, remained in Berlin and were deported to Riga by train in October 1942. As soon as they arrived, after a three day journey, they were taken to death pits in the Bikernieki forest near Riga and were shot dead alongside hundreds of other members of Berlin’s Jewish community” – thus, centuries of Jewish-orthodox life of the Neumark family on the soil of Prussia-Germany came to a tragic end.

“They were all shot in trenches, it is a well known story written by Anthony Beaver about these atrocities – the German soldiers were just 17, 18 they couldn’t stop vomiting and fainting and they cried to be left alone. Commanders telegrammed Berlin about the vomiting soldiers tasked with endless shooting, having to kill 50,000 people in 72 hours. The details are beyond gruesome – after hours of shooting, the barrel on the machine gun is too hot so you had to let it cool down, with the people in the trenches awaiting their death. Berlin eventually sent boxes of Schnapps so the soldiers were half drunk when shooting.”

The dream – a Tel Aviv home for the collection

Neumark has storage in Tel Aviv, Berlin and London. “My plan is to open my own museum in Israel” he concluded, “this is the dream, to put on display manuscripts, books, paintings and Scrolls that the world has never seen. Having my own museum is going to be like a closure and a new beginning – the Renaissance of this collection.”

When asked what collecting is actually like, Neumark speaks of a mixture of the love of art, addiction, ego and a factor of OCD – “I know details of about 5,000 items, it is with me all the time” he explained, ” my worry is the future and ensuring that the works, the books are cared for with the care they deserve, because many people don’t know their uniqueness, it is a legacy but others do not share this feeling of huge responsibility that I have. Even my son – I once convinced him to look at the 16th century book which he did, but then he left it half open which was upsetting. One time we left the building and there was a Lamborghini or Ferrari outside, he suggested selling a painting and buying this kind of car – to me this is not even an option.”