Yitzhak Danziger

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Sheep of the Negev (1963), Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Relief (1958), Givat Ram, Jerusalem.

Yitzhak Danziger (1916-1977), Israeli sculptor.

Danziger was one of the pioneer sculptors of the Canaanite Movement, and later joined the "Ofakim Hadashim" (New Horizons) group.

Sculptor Yitzhak Danziger, who was born in Germany and emigrated to then British Mandate of Palestine, created his statue "Nimrod" in 1938-1939 .

The "Nimrod" statue [6] is 90 centimetres high and made of Red Nubian Sandstone imported from Petra in Jordan. It depicts Nimrod as a naked hunter, uncircumcised, carrying a bow and with a hawk on his shoulder. The style shows the influence of Ancient Egyptian statues. (See Hebrew website with a photo [7])

The unveiling of the statue caused a scandal. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem which had commissioned Danziger's statue was not happy with the result and religious circles made strong protests.

Within a few years, however, the statue was universally acclaimed as a major masterpiece of Israeli art, and has noticeably influenced and inspired the work of later sculptors, painters, writers and poets up to the present.

The Nimrod Statue was also taken up as the emblem of a cultural-political movement known as "The Cannanites" which advocated the shrugging off of the Jewish religious tradition, cutting off relations with Diaspora Jews and their culture, and adopt in its place a "Hebrew Identity" based on ancient Semitic heroic myths - such as Nimrod's. Though never gaining mass support, the movement had a considerable influence on Israeli intellectuals in the 1940s and early 1950s. (copied from "NIMROD (BIBLE)" wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod)