PICARD, JACOB

PICARD, JACOB (1883–1967), German author and poet. Picard was born in Wangen, Wuerttemberg, and practiced law in Konstanz. He published two collections of verse, Das Ufer (1913), and Erschuetterung (1920), but turned seriously to literature when his legal career ended with the advent of the Nazi regime in 1933. He fled to New York via Soviet Russia and Asia in 1940. His lyrics expressed a traditionally religious outlook.

In 1936 he published his most important work, a collection of short stories entitled Der Gezeichnete (1936, reissued as Die alte Lehre, 1963; The Marked One and Twelve Other Stories, 1956), which described the folklore, piety, and traditions of Jews settled for centuries in the towns and villages of southern Germany. Some of his later poems were collected in Der Uhrenschlag (1960). A short autobiography, entitled "Childhood in a Village," appeared in the Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute (vol. 4 (1959), 273–93) and under the title "Erinnerung eigenen Lebens," in Allmend, 25/25 (1989) 5–38). In 1991 there appeared his Werke (in 2 vols., ed. by M Bosch).

add. bibliography:

W. Braun, "Jacob Picard," in: J.M. Spalek et al. (eds), Deutschsprachige Exilliteratur seit 1933, 2 (1989), 772–82; M. Bosch and J. Grosspietsch (eds), Jacob Picard: 1883–1967. Dichter des deutschen Landjudentums; Katalog zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung in der ehemaligen Synagoge Sulzburg (1992); M. Brandt, "Gertrud Kolmar an Jacob Picard. Briefe aus den Jahren 1937–1939," in: Juedischer Almanach des Leo-Baeck-Instituts (1995), 136–149.