Zionist art depicting Yemenite farmers concealed their actual labor hardships.

Evidence

In view of this attitude it would be difficult to see the cover of the JNF’s Golden Book of 1913 only as Bezalel artists’ naive expression of Zionist imagery: “pioneers toiling in fields and vineyards, shepherds playing their flutes to their flocks.” Idyllic images of oriental Jews as agricultural workers intended to present the Yemenite workers in an ideal setting; they also helped, however, to conceal the truth about the hardships that the Yemenites had suffered in this project in which the JNF played an important role. All in all, the Yemenite Jews rarely featured in Zionist art of this kind and it is significant that the cover of the third Golden Book of the JNF featured agricultural workers with a more properly Western appearance. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 621 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Bezalel dismissed its Yemenite silversmiths without notice or compensation in 1913.; Zionist art used idyllic oriental-Jew images to conceal labor exploitation — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 621; Zionist settlers stereotyped Yemenite Jews as primitive, submissive cheap labor — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 597 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Zionist art used idyllic oriental-Jew images to conceal labor exploitation #corroborates (0.97) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 621