Hebrew logo of the group Shalom Achshav / Peace Now

To show his support and contribute to a protest movement (that called prime minister Menahem Begin to begin a peace process, in 1978), [David] Tartakover voluntarily designed a poster with the title "Peace Now". The title became the movement's name and was made into the first political sticker in Israel, which is effective till this day.

The logo originated in the poster Tartakover designed for the 30th anniversary of the state of Israel. in which the word "Peace" is set in the biblical Koren font (designed by Eliahu Koren in the 1950s as a revival of Spanish-Italian Hebrew type from 1800s) with blue skies in the background. According to Tartakover, the innovation in the Peace Now logo was the combination of the two typefaces – “Peace” set in the traditional Koren and “Now” set in the headline-style Haim, explicitly secular Israeli. The contrasting combination gave the logo its presence and memorability.

[tipografiaivrit.blogspot.ch]

“The right will not silence me”. Printed cardboard sign (Peace Now, 2011).

Peace Now flags and signs at a rally in Tel Aviv.

Ada Fishman: Di yidishe arbetorin-bavegung in Erets Yisroel, Warsaw: HeHalutz / Al-HaMishmar, 1931

An early use of the Haim typeface on the cover of a book by Ada Fishman on the Jewish Working Women’s Movement in Palestine. The book, originally written in Hebrew, was published in a Yiddish translation in Warsaw in 1931.

Following Yiddish orthography the typeface is set with diacritical marks (for letters used as vowels). For Mandatory Palestine the acronym א״י (Erets Yisroel) is used. In Yiddish (as in Hebrew) acronyms are formed with a double apostrophe called Gershayim.

David Tartakover: Tartakover (טרטקובר), Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2011.

Catalog with images and notes on the work of Israeli graphic designer, collector, political activist and artist David Tartakover (*1944).

The text on the cover reads as follows:

David Tartakover was born in Haifa, grew up in Jerusalem and lives in Tel Aviv. At the age of 18 he went to the paratroopers, from there to Bezalel, and at the age of 22 went to London to study graphic design. He returned to Jerusalem, then went to Tel Aviv and settled down to work. Since then he has not stopped. Tartakover is who we are. His work is a mirror that reflects Israeli society and its culture in the last 40 years. The look of our faces. Sometimes as we would like to look, and sometimes as we really do.

The cover features two classics of Hebrew typography. Frank-Rühl (פרנק-ריהל) is the first modern Hebrew typeface, designed by Rafael Frank (1867–1920) and originally issued between 1908 and 1910 by the typefoundry C. F. Rühl in Leipzig. C. F. Rühl was taken over by the H. Berthold AG in Berlin who included the typeface in their groundbreaking catalog of Hebrew and Yiddish typefaces (Katalog hebräischer und jüdischer Schriften der Schriftgießerei H. Berthold AG) from 1924.

Haim (חיים) was designed by Jan Le Witt (1907–1991) and originally produced by the Warsaw based typefoundry Jan Idźkowski i S-ka in 1929 for the Yiddish market. The typeface became very popular for headlines and titles in Palestine in the 1930s. The narrow version of the typeface used on the spine originally was produced by the same company around 1936 without the participation of Le Witt.

On the Linotype website both names of the original designers are misspelled (as “Frank Ruhl” and “Yaacov Haim Lavit”).

Further reading:
— Ittai Joseph Tamari: “Rafael Frank und seine hebräischen Druckschriften”, in: Manfred Unger (ed.): Judaica Lipsiensia (Leipzig 1994), 70–78.
— Stephen Lubell: “Joseph Tscherkassky — Orientalist and Typefounder”, in: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (1996), 222–239.
— Marian Misiak, “Chaim: owoc wielokulturowej Warszawy”, in: Paneuropa, Kometa, Hel. Szkice z historii projektowania liter w Polsce (Kraków 2015), 76–81. See also this excerpt published on dwutygodnik.com.