William Gropper, Anti-Semitic Artist, that Hitler Made Love Jews

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
By Menachem Wecker

ILLINOIS---When it comes to William Gropper’s illustrations of Jews, it’s a tale of two artists. Some of the New York-born cartoonist’s drawings of fellow Jews epitomize the worst of anti-Semitic caricature — hooked noses, large foreheads, big lips, and hunched shoulders. But Gropper (1897-1977), who grew up as one of six children in a poor Jewish family on the Lower East Side, has another Jewish repertoire. This body of work by Gropper, a 1931 recipient of the Young Israel Prize, includes dozens of depictions of rabbis often in prayer, dancing hasidim, biblical scenes (such as Jonah, Joshua, and Adam and Eve), Talmud scholars, a “Shtetl series,” and other scenes of Jewish life. Rather than denigrating Jews, these pieces celebrate a Jewish identity which seems to have lain dormant in Gropper until he saw the Nazi atrocities of World War II. [link]