Illustration for "Shifs Karta" ("Boat Ticket"), in Ilya Ehrenburg's Six Stories with Easy Endings

El Lissitzky, one of the leading Russian avant-garde artists, started his artistic career promoting the revival of a Jewish national art in Russia. Within a few years, however, he abandoned Jewish themes in favor of a universal, abstract language. This collage represents his last work with Jewish content. It is unusual in its combination of dramatic visual quality, enigmatic subject matter, and Jewish symbols. The complex imagery includes the imprint of a black hand, the Hebrew letters peh and nun (traditionally used on Jewish gravestones as the acronym for "here lies"), examples of Hebrew script, and a return ticket: "Hamburg-New York." These are all arranged within a skewed Star of David and defy a single interpretation. In addition to illustrating Ehrenburg's story, the collage is most commonly interpreted as Lissitzky's affirmation of the new world of the Revolution and universalism and his rejection, and symbolic burial, of the old order.