I studied Ephraim Moses Lilien’s black-and-white print, Dybbuk. Not knowing who Lilien was, I did what most curious people do—I Googled him.

Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874–1925) was a Polish-Jewish Art Nouveau illustrator, photographer, and printmaker. I recommend exploring his work on Wikipedia. Lilien was known as the “first Zionist artist,” a title I had never encountered before. He profoundly influenced early Israeli visual culture and helped found the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.

As a member of the early Zionist movement, Lilien traveled several times to Ottoman Palestine between 1906 and 1918, although he never settled there........

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