Reviewing an ongoing exhibit of the paintings of Max Oppenheimer at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, Liam Hoare writes:

The nature of [Oppenheimer’s] life, which took him to Berlin, Prague, Geneva, and Zurich in search of work and forced him into exile in New York after the Nazi annexation of Austria in March 1938, led to his collection being scattered across continents. Because he was a Jewish artist and a modernist, his work was also branded “degenerate” by Nazi authorities, confiscated, and destroyed.

Born July 1, 1885 into an assimilated, middle-class Jewish family, the son of a journalist and music critic, Oppenheimer enrolled at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1900 before continuing his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he came under the influence of the liberal experimentalist Franz Thiele.

Oppenheimer’s early work from around 1910 was dedicated to portraiture. His representations of his subjects, most prominently the German writer Heinrich Mann, are like apparitions. They are lit with a kind of ethereal glow that seems to emanate from the subjects themselves. The lines of their suit jackets wiggle and wave, while their facial expressions and posture radiate ennui, a mood accentuated by the portraits’ dark backdrops. There is a deep seriousness, in particular artistic seriousness, to Oppenheimer’s portrait work.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.