Following earlier visits, Jankel Adler arrived in Paris in 1933, where he worked alongside the printmaker Stanley Hayter’s Atelier 17. He can be seen as part of a ‘second wave’ of artists from Russia who was drawn west to Germany, then France.

His etching brings a modernist technique to a traditional subject. 'Ein Jude' which refers specifically to his Jewish identity combines modernist aspects – flattened and geometric forms and enlarged hands – with the archetypal image of the bearded eastern European shtetl Jew, reminiscent of the main protagonist of 'Fiddler on the Roof'.