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Illustrating Chicago's Jewish Left: The Cultural Aesthetics of Todros Geller and the L. M. Shteyn Farlag
In the 1930s, I have been told, inexpensive reproductions of Todros Geller's art could be found in nearly every home of Chicago's Jewish left. Particularly one picture: that of a traditionally dressed Jewish man standing beneath the curving tracks of the elevated train for which Chicago continues to be known. Geller's depiction of the intersection of Jewish tradition and modern-day Chicago had resonance for a portion of Chicago Jewry. His work was commissioned to adorn stained glass windows, bookplates, community center walls, and Yiddish and English books. Geller's art, it would seem, lent the Chicago Jewish left a certain aesthetic unity.
Geller did not reach his place of preeminence alone. Instrumental to his artistic success was the work of publisher and cultural activist L. M. Shteyn (pseudonym for Yitshak Leyb Fradkin, anglicized L. M. Stein in his English-language correspondence). In the course of nearly a decade, Shteyn's Yiddish press, the "L. M. Shteyn Farlag," published four art albums devoted to Geller's work and at least eight monographs illustrated by Geller. By nearly every account, Chicago's artistic and literary Yiddishist community was built upon Shteyn's cultural vision and patronage. As a cultural and artistic leader, he was perhaps as visible as Geller and his art; in the words of the "L. M. Shteyn jubilee committee" (with Chaim Zhitlowsky at its head), "Shteyn...has enabled the publication of a great quantity of literary and artistic editions, which were a jewel in every intelligent Jewish home."(1)
Geller and Shteyn migrated to Chicago within one year of each other: Shteyn left his native Berislav in 1917; Geller (who was also born in the Ukraine) emigrated to Chicago a year later by way of Montreal, Canada. Both proclaimed themselves to be "progressives" and "Yiddishists," and both became leading actors in Jewish cultural politics in Chicago. Although they shared certain political and cultural commitments, they were very different people: Shteyn was highly organized, with a mind for business details and a skill for subtle interpersonal diplomacy, while Geller was disorganized, prone to moodiness and spontaneous travel. (This difference in personality is immediately evident to anyone who peruses the personal archives of these individuals; Shteyn's prolific correspondence...