Yitzhak Katz

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Yitzhak Katz (Hebrew: יצחק כץ; May 19, 1901 – 1991) was an Israeli civil servant and art critic who helped shape Israeli art and culture.

Born in Mykolaiv, then part of the Russian Empire, Katz grew up in a religious Jewish family. His father, Abraham Katz, was a rabbi. In 1906 the family moved to Alexandria, Egypt, where his father started a sewing shop and founded the Yiddish Theater Association. In 1912 they moved to Cairo, but Yitzhak stayed with his sister in Alexandria, studying painting and attending a school run by Baron de Menashe Elijah Antebi.

After high school, Katz lived in Cairo and earned a living writing plays for the Green Theater. He planned to study in Paris, but in 1919 he met Batsheva Charlap from Rehovot. He followed her to Palestine in 1920 and settled in Jerusalem, where he worked as a government clerk and later for the Palestine Express travel agency. He also connected with local intellectuals and artists, including Reuven Rubin.

At the end of 1923 the couple moved to Tel Aviv, living on Ahad Ha’am Street. Their home became a hub for Tel Aviv’s bohemian scene in the 1920s and 1930s. Katz left the travel agency in 1924 and, in 1925, became secretary of the Regional Chamber of Jaffa (later the Tel Aviv Chamber of Commerce), a post he held until 1952. In 1928 he was named honorary Consul of Belgium by Meir Dizengoff, serving until 1936.

Katz also wrote art reviews and criticism in Hebrew journals and newspapers. Yigal Zalmona described him as a “man of culture who fought the first war for modern art” in Israel. In 1925 he argued for a new national art that moved away from exile’s biblical iconography and drew inspiration from contemporary Eastern and Western cultures.

When Katz died in 1991, his archive was moved to the Information Center for Israeli Art at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The collection includes photographs, writings, and correspondence with artists of his time.