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Yosef Mordechai Bass was born in Lebov (today Lamberg in the Ukraine), Poland on May 5, 1908. After completing hih school he volunteered for military service, completed officer training and worked as a caricaturist and satiric writer in various Polish newspapers.
After his discharge he began studying in the Architecture Department of the Politechnion in Lebov and he worked there as a painting assistant.
He was a gifted athlete who excelled at short distance running. His record time was 11.3 seconds for the 100 dash. He also won עטור מדליות בקרב חמש.
He played כחלוץ in the HaHeshmonayim team, a Jewish soccer team that played in the Polish National League before World War II.
In 1934 he decided to leave the Politechnion because of the restrictions forced on the Jewish students there. He foresaw the terrible fate of Polish Jews and convinced his parents to immigrate to Palestine, joining them in 1936.
After arriving in Palestine he enrolled to the Technion to study architecture and completed his degree in 1938. Bass then continued to play soccer for the Maccabi Haifa team until their game against the British police team where he was a כבלם and was deliberately wounded by the British חלוץ. His knee was too badly injured in that game and he never played soccer professionally again.
In 1939 he married Ruth Lavit Buchner and over the years they celebrated the birth of two daughters and a son. During this time he worked for HaAshnav, was the chief editor of BeTerem and even began publishing a daily political caricature in Haaretz.
In 1940 he published a satirical weekly titled 'סכות' and was its chief editor for six years. In 1941-42 he taught painting in the Ohel-HaShem high school in Ramat Gan. From 19940 until 1947 he worked as an architect in the Tel Aviv Municipality.
In 1947 he began working as a freelance architect and with the outbreak of the War of Independence he enlisted to the IDF and was transferred to the Israel Police, where he served as Israeli police first קצין ההסברה. As part of his role he was asked by police commissioner Hizkiyahu Sahar to find a Hebrew word for “taxi”. This is how he coined the term “monit”, a combination of mone (meter) and mehonit (car), which was later adopted by the Israeli public and the Academy of the Hebrew Language and served as a root base for many additional words that came after (such as masa’it- truck and meyhalit – container).
After the War of Independence he went to back to his architectural work.
In 1957 he founded the P.B.S. Advertising and Public Relations Ltd. and provided PR services for various institutions, political parties, commercial and private companies.
In 1981 he partnered with the large tourism company Kopel Tours Ltd. to establish Kay Advertising Ltd. His work in the advertising firm included the graphic design of n endless number of commercial logos, including those of Bank Leumi, Amidar, The Israel Nature and Parks Authority and Supergas. He won eleven Israel Coins and Medals Corporation first place awards and designed logotypes, posters, public notifications and advertisement campaigns.
Bass continued to provide weekly caricatures to the Friday edition of Haaretz for thirty years (until the ‘60s) and even drew caricatures of stage actors and artists that accompanied his theatre revues and those of the famous theatre critic Haim Gamzo Zal. During those years he also wrote and published the illustrated humoristic column “Kav Had” (“Sharp Line”) under the pseudonym “Biss”. He also published weekly caricatures in Dvar Hashavua, Rimon and Bamahane and illustrated several children’s books. In the late ‘50s he spent two years publishing the weekly satirical sports magazine Ehad Efes (“Zero One”) that dealt primarily with humor and sports events.
In the late ‘60s Bass began creating political caricatures that appeared each week in the non-
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Hebrew local media including, among others, the Yiddish newspaper Letste nayes, the Romanian periodical Viaza Nostra, Uykelet , the Polish Novini Courier and others. He designed a huge number of posters for prominent art and entertainment shows, performances (Harry Belafonte, Louis Armstrong, Marlen Ditrich and many others) and plays ("Anna Frank”, “Throw Him to the Dogs”, “Miraleh’ Efrat”, “Napolean in New Orleans”, “The Swamp”, “I Like Mike”, ‘Swallow on Mayumba Beach” and many others) and even designed theatre sets and programmes (“I Like Mike” and others). He painted many portraits of wellknown figures (Count Bernadotte, Yitzhak Sade, Yehudi Menuhin, Abraham Shlonski, Mané-Katz, Shalom Esh, Haim Weizman and others).
Yosef Bass published eleven caricature books that were comprised of the works published in Haaretz since the early ’40.
1942 – Al Yemin VeAl Smol (“On Right and Left”) -Introduction by: Uri Keisari
1944 – HaYamim HaElu (“Those Days”) - Introduction by: Prof. Dov Sedan
1949 – Avadim Heinu (“Slaves We Were”) - Introduction by: Dr. Haim Gamzu
1951 – HaMaccabia BeHaifa (“The Maccabiah in Haifa”) - Introduction by: Ben Zion Pat
1952 – Hayu Zmanim (“There Were Times”) - Introduction by: Yitzhak Shenberg
1955 – Yehiye Tov (“It Will Be Good”) - Introduction by: Dr. Yaakov Horovitz
1959 – HaShanim Halalu (“Those Years”) - Introduction by: Dr. Haim Gamzu
1961 – HaZaken VeYayam (“Old Man and the Sea”) - Introduction by: Haim Hazaz
1968 – Medina Ze Lo Tzhok (“A State is no Joke”) – Introduction by: Shimon Peres
1968 – Dayan BeEin Hacaricatura (“Dayan in the Caricature Lens”) – Introduction by: Gavriel Tzifroni
1980 – Haya Tov (“It Was Good”) – Introduction by: Shlomo Tanai
The book HaZaken VeYayam (“Old Man and the Sea”) was commissioned by the rime Ministers Office and focused on David Ben-Gurion. Bass was invited to spend a few days with him in Sde Boker to prepare illustrations and caricatures for the book.
Dayan BeEin Hacaricatura (“Dayan in the Caricature Lens”) was commissioned by the Ministry of Defense after the Six Day War. It was a compilation of caricatures of Moshe Dayan as a symbol of victory as he appeared in the Israeli and internal press (even in the Arab media).
Gbthe introduction to his ninth book - Medina Ze Lo Tzhok (“A State is no Joke”) was provided by Shimon Peres: Mr. Yosef Bass has been a paintbrush journalist these many years, a man endowed with such an array of skills that he has become an institution in his own right in the stages of the new Israel. His vision penetrates, his brush is disciplined and persuasive, his observations are natural and constant, and he has a sense of humor that manages to mere the bitter truth with necessary tolerance. And for those familiar with his work it is clear that he not only meets endless challenges but also provides a clear, conscientious point of view. He is not only a man with the ability to perceive but also provide perspective”.
Yosef Bass passed away in 1995.
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