Besides being a distinguished scholar of ancient Judaism, Shnayer (Sid) Leiman is also one of the great collectors of, and experts on, Jewish books and ephemera. Herewith, his account of his efforts to identify a photograph of an aged Jew in pious garb on a postcard:

The [postcard] presents a black and white photograph, also standard for its time. It features a tombstone with a Hebrew inscription; a mausoleum behind the tombstone, with a brief Hebrew inscription; and what appears to be a cemetery attendant, with his hand atop the tombstone. Most important, it contains a German heading under the photograph, which reads in translation: “From the Eastern Front of the theater of war, Wilna, an old Jewish tombstone.”

The reverse prints the name of the publishing company that produced the postcard: “The Brothers Hochland in Königsberg, Prussia.”

In terms of historical context, the information provided by the postcard—a German heading; Vilna is defined as the eastern front of the theater of war; the postcard was produced in Königsberg can lead to only one conclusion, namely that the postcard was produced on behalf of the German troops that had occupied, and dominated, Vilna during World War I. The German military seized Vilna on September 18, 1915 and remained there until the collapse of the Kaiser’s army on the western front, which forced the withdrawal of all German troops in foreign countries at the very end of 1918.

Thus, our photograph was taken, and the postcard was produced, during the period just described. Its Sitz im Leben was the need for soldiers to send brief messages back home in an approved format. The ancient sites of the occupied city made for an attractive postcard. (This may have been especially true for Jewish soldiers serving in the German army.)

Leiman explains at length his quest to establish the identity not only the tombstone, but also the cemetery attendant. The quest leads him to October 8 to 10, 1920, during the unstable period that followed World War I’s end, when Polish soldiers seized Vilna and raped, robbed, and beat local Jews, murdering six. One of them was Meir Zelmanowicz, the man in the photograph.

Stephen Daisley writes about the slaying of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim:

Yaron and Sarah were murdered in a climate of lies and vilification and hatred. . . . The more institutions participate in this collective madness, the more madness there will be. The more elected officials and NGOs misrepresent the predictable consequences of asymmetric warfare in densely populated territories, where much of the infrastructure of everyday life has a dual civilian/terrorist purpose, the more the citizenries of North America and Europe will come to regard Israelis and Jews as a people who lust unquenchably after blood.

The most intolerant anti-Zionism is becoming a mainstream view, indulged by liberal societies, more concerned with not conflating irrational hatred of Israel with irrational hatred of Jews—as though the distinction between the two is all that well defined anymore.

For years now, and especially after the October 7 massacre, the call has gone up from the pro-Palestinian movement to put Palestine at the heart of Western politics. To pursue the struggle against Zionism in every country, on every platform, and in every setting. To wage worldwide resistance to Israel, not only in Wadi al-Far’a but in Washington, DC. “Globalize the intifada,” they chanted. This is what it looks like.