JUDAICA my,

AT THE |

SMITHSONIAN

•

CULTURAL POLITICS AS CULTURAL MODEL

Grace Cohen Grossman

with

Richard Eighme Ahlborn

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS
SERIES PUBLICATIONS OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

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commencing with Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge in 1848 and continuing with the

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I. Michael Heyman

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Smithsonian Institution
SMITHSONIA N STUDIE S I N HISTOR Y AN D TECHNOLOGY * NUMBE R 5 2

Judaica at the Smithsonian:

Cultural Politics as Cultural Model

Grace Cohen Grossman

with Richard Eighme Ahlborn

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS

Washington, D.C.

1997
ABSTRAC T

Grossman, Grace Cohen, and Richard Eighme Ahlborn. Judaica at the Smithsonian: Cultural

Politics as Cultural Model. Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, number 52, 252

pages, 142 figures, 1997.—This study surveys the history of the Smithsonian Institution's

ethnographic Judaica collection from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the present.

It investigates how the particular cultural perspective of the curators and collectors plays a

significant role in shaping acquisitions policy and interpretation of the collection through

exhibitions and publications. In large measure, the analysis focuses on the period from 1887 to

1927, during which time the collection was substantially formed. The establishment of the

Smithsonian's Judaica collection is framed in the context of the contemporaneous development

of the field of Jewish cultural history, the general museum world as represented by the United

States National Museum, and the study of Semitics in the academic realm. Special emphasis is

given to Cyrus Adler, the founding curator, and to Ephraim Deinard, whose personal collection

forms the majority of the Smithsonian's current Judaica holdings. This volume represents the

culmination of the Smithsonian Judaica Project, a decade-long effort to document the entire

collection, and the essay is followed by an illustrated catalog of selected objects and a

comprehensive database. There is also a basic glossary of Judaica terms and a bibliography. It

is projected that this presentation of technical and cultural information regarding the

Smithsonian's Judaica will provide a reference source and a model for additional typological and

social studies.

OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is

recorded in the Institution's annual report, Annals of the Smithsonian Institution. COVER DESIGN:

"Star-Spangled Banner" scroll, catalog number NMAH-PH 31842.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Grossman, Grace Cohen

Judaica at the Smithsonian : cultural politics as cultural model / Grace Cohen Grossman with Richard Eighme Ahlborn.

p. cm.—(Smithsonian studies in history and technology : no. 52)

Includes an illustrated catalog of selected objects from the Smithsonian Judaica collection and a comprehensive database.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Judaism—Liturgical objects—Catalogs. 2. Judaism—Liturgical objects—Pictorial works. 3. Smithsonian Institution—Catalogs. 4. Jewish museums—History. 5. Jewish art and symbolism. I. Ahlborn, Richard

E. II. Smithsonian Institution. III. Title. IV. Series.

NK1672.G766 1997 296'.074'753—dc21 96-45219

® The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American

National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48—1984.
Contents

Page

Preface, by Richard Eighme Ahlbom iv

Foreword, by Paul Taylor vi

Acknowledgments, by Grace Cohen Grossman viii

Introduction 1

1. The Science of Jewish Art and Culture 4

2. The United States National Museum 17

3. Cyrus Adler: Activist Scholar 28

4. Accreditation of Semitic Study 32

5. Oriental Antiquities and Jewish Ceremonial Objects 36

6. The World's Columbian Exposition 42

7. The Section of Religious Ceremonials 62

8. The Ephraim Deinard Collection: A New Factor 69

9. New Generations 80

10. Conclusion . . 86

Appendices

I. American Jewish Historical Exhibition: Schedule of Objects 92

II. Classification Used in the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition .. . .. . 94

III. Religious Ceremonials Exhibition at the World's Columbian Exposition . . . 95

IV. "Exhibit of Religious Ceremonials," New York Evening Post, 6 September

1894 98

V. Archival Sources 100

Catalog 103

Glossary 226

Bibliography 230

Database 238

in
Preface

After more than a century, the Smithsonian Institution's collection of ethnographic

Judaica merits wider use and recognition by scholars and the interested public. Its creation,

as meticulously reconstructed by curator Grace Cohen Grossman, provides a significant

insight into the development of institutional thought concerning cultural preservation and

performance. The hopeful attitude of Cyrus Adler and George Brown Goode that

scholarship would positively impact visitors' social perceptions of an "other" culture,

ameliorating prejudice and extending tolerance to that group, may no longer be an article

of faith in the secular world of scientifically derived data. However, data must be

manipulated, interpreted, and packaged to become knowledge, and the increase and

diffusion of this knowledge remains the goal of the Smithsonian Institution.

The development of an identifiable Judaica collection within the early Divisions of

Oriental Antiquities, Biblical Archaeology, and Historic Religions, beginning in the late

nineteenth century, reflects the Smithsonian's quest for both scholarly legitimization and

political and public viability. Officials stated that scholarship ultimately would support and

confirm society's moral values. Religion, if scientifically studied, collected, and exhibited,

with fine artifactual examples and labels detailing the object's materials, uses, and

meanings, would extend the attentive viewer's mind past possible biases into a realm of

universal tolerance and truth. In this way scholarship could serve the public good.

Although the daily activities of observant Jews became the focus of the Smithsonian's

Judaica collecting in the early twentieth century, it was their specifically religious practices

and appurtenances that seemed to provide the best examples for public education about

religion. Religion was to be shown as a universal mode of human behavior. By 1950,

however, the brutal realities of two world wars in less than thirty years and ethnographic

studies of non-Western cultures had altered the Smithsonian's practices in regard to the

collection, study, and display of religion. In the mid-1960s a display on Judaism became

part of the Hall of Asian Cultures in the National Museum of Natural History, but much of

the Judaica, because of its European origins, was transferred with C. Malcolm Watkins's

Division of Cultural History to the new National Museum of History and Technology

(renamed the National Museum of American History in 1980).

As the 1970s began, the Smithsonian's Judaica collection was quietly visited by a few

scholars, and loans from it continued to be made, but it awaited a champion. Among those

who requested to see the Judaica was Grace Cohen Grossman, a young curator from

Chicago's Spertus Museum of Judaica. Despite moving to Los Angeles, where she served

as curator for the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum's project team to plan a new

museum and its inaugural core exhibition and to establish a major collection of American

Judaica, Grossman continued to make brief visits to Washington, D.C., to work with the

Smithsonian's collections and documentary resources. The number of identified artifacts

gradually rose in number from fewer than 300 to more than 800, and collecting was

reinitiated. By the late 1980s Elizabeth Kessin Berman and Sheila Salo had recorded the

artifacts' cataloging data utilizing the Hebrew University's International Index of Jewish

Art system, a task that was made possible by funding from the Horace W. Goldsmith

Foundation of New York. The most valuable parchment, paper, and textile artifacts were

rehoused by the Smithsonian's Department of Conservation with great care.

The time had come to plan a publication of the Smithsonian's Judaica collection. This

work was accomplished with another Goldsmith Foundation grant. Claudia Schiffer also

made a contribution to further this effort. Grossman prepared the historical essay that

IV
NUMBER 52

follows and produced the accompanying catalog, which has been published with another

generous grant, this time from the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation of Chicago. The

knowledge, skills, and patience of Grace Cohen Grossman are very largely responsible for

the reactivation of the Smithsonian Institution's Judaica collection.

Richard Eighme Ahlbom
Foreword

The reader may be bewildered by the presence of a foreward to Dr. Grossman's masterly

volume on the Judaica collection at the Smithsonian Institution that is written by an

anthropologist. The reason is that, for historical reasons explored in this volume, some 200

objects of Judaica (even more if archaeological material were included) are housed in the

collections of the Department of Anthropology of the Smithsonian Institution's National

Museum of Natural History.

Most Judaica in the National Museum of Natural History is under the curatorship of the

Department of Anthropology's Asian Cultural History Program. In fact, Dr. Grossman's

study dovetails neatly with a wider effort within that program to reinterpret old

anthropological collections in light of two components: what they tell about the culture

that produced the artifacts, and what they tell about the cultural politics of the collecting

culture. These themes were explored, for example, in Artifacts of Diplomacy: Smithsonian

Collections from Commodore Matthew Perry's Japan Expedition (1853-1854), Chang-su

Houchins's 1995 study of the Smithsonian's very first anthropology accession.

I urge the reader to enjoy perusing Dr. Grossman's catalog of Smithsonian Judaica in the

same way as I have enjoyed reading it: seamlessly, attentively, and without reference to the

Smithsonian custodial unit that has "inherited" any particular object. In this volume, Dr.

Grossman documents a group of artifacts that were purposefully assembled at many

different times and in disparate ways for different purposes. Some were collected as part

of a broad and conscientious plan to provide a museum- and library-based scientific

infrastructure for studies of Jewish religion, cultural history, and ethnography. Other

objects, such as the Hanukkah lamps within the Virgil M. Hillyer Collection of Heating

and Lighting Devices, seem to have been acquired as fortuitous, incidental components of

globetrotting collecting efforts that were focused elsewhere.

Through the Smithsonian's Judaica Project, a joint effort of the National Museum of

Natural History and the National Museum of American History, the artifacts selected for

inclusion in this volume (and others not included here) have been brought together by

cross-referencing and standardized cataloging. They now share some of the collective

usefulness and meaningfulness that Cyrus Adler and Otis T. Mason hoped to give them.

These curators' somewhat paradoxical dream required that any "ethnographic" collection

(one designed to describe, celebrate, or document a particular culture) be inherently

"ethnological" (designed to be of value within a larger science of comparative ethnic

studies). Collections of material culture, like cultures themselves, had to be described in

their own terms, yet the descriptions also had to foster comparative (culture-historical or

anthropological) study.

One leitmotif of this volume is the recurrent recognition that our century saw the

destruction of so much Judaica in Europe. Those events make the items of Judaica that

were saved at the Smithsonian and elsewhere even more precious.

Since 1973, research on the Smithsonian's Judaica collection has focused on identifying

the pan-Smithsonian corpus of Judaica objects for appropriate description and

interpretation, and this book is one result of that effort. With the involvement of the many

individuals listed in the acknowledgments, the Smithsonian Judaica Project has provided

a model of collection-based study whose results extend beyond the publication of this

volume. This catalog will introduce the public to this collection and its history, and I hope

it will provide the impetus for more detailed studies to follow, such as textual or

philological analyses of several intriguing manuscripts listed here. In addition, the

VI
NUMBER 52 vii

Smithsonian's Judaica Project has resulted in major behind-the-scenes improvements to

the process of identifying and cataloging Judaica throughout the various Smithsonian

collections. Finally, many of these artifacts have been conserved or restored and their

physical storage much improved. In the case of the anthropology collections, this is partly

because this project coincided with the construction of a new state-of-the-art storage and

research facility, to which the Judaica and many other collections have been transferred.

But much of the credit for the physical improvement of the collection is due to Dr.

Grossman and her colleagues; from the outset, this research project has included initiatives

for the much-needed conservation of the objects themselves.

Paul Michael Taylor

Director, Asian Cultural History Program

Research Anthropologist

National Museum of Natural History

Smithsonian Institution
Acknowledgments

It is quite a challenging experience to work on a history of an extraordinary collection

such as the Smithsonian Institution's Judaica collection and actually to have been a part of

that history for over 20 years. In December 1972 I was introduced to a slim volume,

published in 1929, entitled Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the United

States National Museum, by Arthur M. Feldman, curator of the Renwick Gallery, who later

became the director of the Spertus Museum of Judaica, where I was then curator. The

catalog was a revelation that a collection of Jewish ceremonial objects existed at the

Smithsonian and that the first objects had been collected in the nineteenth century. From

that introduction, the Smithsonian Judaica Project developed. Initiated as an inventory in

the 1970s, my research was aided by funding from the Smithsonian Institution's Office of

Fellowships and Grants and from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. A

comprehensive cataloging effort, as well as documentation of the history of the collection,

was made possible by the very generous assistance of the Horace W. Goldsmith

Foundation, beginning in 1985. At the same time, Smithsonian staff, under the direction of

Scott Odell, undertook a major conservation program to preserve and rehouse hundreds of

objects in storage. This publication was brought to fruition with a major grant from the

Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation. I especially want to thank Reuben Feinberg and

Janice Feinberg, directors of the foundation, who truly shared in this vision.

Many individuals have played significant roles in the process. For over two decades,

Richard E. Ahlbora, curator of history at the National Museum of American History

(NMAH), has been a stalwart advocate of the project. His collaboration has been the

catalyst for progress, from the very first attempts to locate the objects through the

publication of this catalog. Curators of anthropology Gus Van Beek and Paul Taylor have

been supportive of the project and facilitated research at the National Museum of Natural

History (NMNH). Tom Freudenheim, former assistant secretary for the arts and

humanities, was a staunch proponent of the project, and his enthusiasm for the publication

helped keep the momentum going.

Myron M. Weinstein, an expert in paleography and former head of the Hebraica Section

of the Library of Congress, undertook the mammoth task of cataloging the approximately

two hundred documents in the Smithsonian's Deinard Collection. Weinstein's extensive

research on Deinard's bibliographic efforts has been most helpful in illuminating his work

as a collector of Judaic artifacts. Elliot Lefkowitz aided in the initial work on Deinard.

Nathan Snyder, a colleague during my years at the Spertus Museum, also provided

assistance in translations of the manuscript material. Susanne and Paul Kester aided with

translations as well. Ulrich Furst played an important role in computerizing the database.

A number of individuals who worked on the Smithsonian Judaica Project deserve

special recognition. With the support of a grant from the Horace W. Goldsmith

Foundation, Elizabeth Kessin Berman worked on the project for nearly two years. She

surveyed Judaica in each Smithsonian department, processed the cataloging data for entry

on the International Index of Jewish Art forms, and administered the major storage

stabilization project with the Department of Conservation. Sheila Salo typed all of the

International Index of Jewish Art forms and, in so doing, edited each record. William Diess

and Susan W. Glenn at the Smithsonian Institution Archives guided me through the

intricacies of the archives to make certain that I could explore each facet of the

history of the Judaica collection. Similarly, Rhoda Ratner and Ellen Wells facilitated work

in the Smithsonian Libraries. David Shayt, collections manager of the Division of

vm
NUMBER 52 j x

Community Life, contributed to research efforts at the National Museum of American

History. Batja A. Bell, museum specialist in the Registrar's Office at the NMAH, has

served as in-house Judaica consultant since 1989. Joellyn Wallen, while an intern at the

Smithsonian, assisted in getting the manuscript into its final form, as did Nina Spiegel, a

research assistant at the Skirball Museum. Sue Warga did a masterful job of copy editing

the final manuscript, vastly exceeding her expected role. Smithsonian photographers

Richard Strauss and Ricardo Vargas most admirably met the challenge of making a

hundred images in less than two weeks to accommodate my schedule. A listing of other

current and former members of the Smithsonian staff who helped make this project

possible follows.

National Museum of American History

Office of the Registrar: Jeanne M. Benas, Martha Morris, Katherine P. Spiess

Curators: Rita Adrosko, William Lawrence Bird, Doris Bowman, Elvira ClainStefanelli, Coralee C. Gillilland, Anne C. Golovin, Elizabeth M. Harris, Claudia

Brush Kidwell, Ramunas Kondratas, Gary B. Kulik, Keith E. Melder, Rodris Roth,

Carl H. Scheele, Theresa A. Singleton, Deborah J. Wamer, Helena E. Wright

Specialists: Barbara Dickstein, Richard E. Drake, Ellen Roney Hughes, Peter

Liebhold, Harry Rubenstein, Anne M. Serio, Robert Sheldon

Collections Manager: Barbara Coffee

Office of Exhibits: Deborah Bretzfelder

Conservators: Martin Burke, Ann Craddock, Katherine Dirks, Lynne Gilliland, Nikki

Horton, Carolyn M. Long, Carolyn L. Rose, Catherine Valentour

Archives: Laurie Baty, John Fleckner, David Halberstich, Jane Odom, Fath D. Ruffins

Library: James Ryan

Secretaries: Dotty Jacobs, Minnie Krantz, Elizabeth Lamond

National Museum of Natural History

Curators: James Krakker, William B. Trousdale

Collections Manager: Candace Green

Specialists: Margerita Brigida, Joseph Brown, James D. Rubinstein

National Anthropology Archives: Paula J. Fleming, Herman J. Viola

Cooper-Hewitt Museum

Curators: Elaine Dee, David Revere McFadden, Gillian Moss

Freer Gallery of Art

Curator: Glenn Lowry

Volunteers: Lisa Kane, Lauretta Kendrick, Muriel Resnick, Dafna Seligman

Smithsonian Press

Supervisory Editor, Series Section: Diane M. Tyler

There are a number of people whose constructive critiques shaped this work. Barbara

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, who read an early version of the text, advised on the theoretical

framework for this study and generously shared with me some of her own research in

progress. Jonathan Sarna reviewed the manuscript at several stages and was extremely

supportive in aiding me to determine important themes to explore and in providing me

with significant source material. Rafi Grafman copyedited all of the catalog entries and

made many significant content contributions as well. Richard I. Cohen and Ira Robinson

also read early drafts of the essay and made useful comments.

Uri D. Herscher encouraged me to complete my doctoral studies at Hebrew Union

College (HUC), and I am grateful to him and to Lee Bycel, who made it possible for me

to do so while continuing my work at the HUC Skirball Museum. This essay is developed

from my doctoral dissertation, and it benefited immeasurably from the counsel of my

professors. I have been most fortunate in having Joseph Gutmann as my teacher for over
SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

twenty years. His penetrating analysis is without equal. My dissertation advisor, Stanley

Chyet, was a true mentor; he inspired, guided, analyzed, and edited my work incisively and

with meticulous care. Michael Signer taught me invaluable lessons in gaining insight in the

study of texts. David Ellenson's approach to modern Jewish thought provided the

intellectual contextualization for this work. William Kramer has informally served as my

counsel throughout this process, and his advice has been of great importance. I especially

want to acknowledge Sally Adler Wolfinsohn, who graciously met with me and allowed

me to record her personal recollections of her father, Cyrus Adler.

Numerous colleagues have championed the Smithsonian Judaica Project as it evolved,

and their friendship has meant much: Nancy M. Berman, Barbara C. Gilbert, and the entire

staff at the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum; Harvey Horowitz and Yaffa

Weisman of the HUC Frances-Henry Library; Emily Bilski, Susan Braunstein, Susan

Goodman, Norman Kleeblatt, Vivian Mann, Diane Lerner Saltzman, Ward Mintz, and

Joan Rosenbaum, current and former staff at the Jewish Museum; Shalom Sabar and

Bezalel Narkiss of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; Anna R. Cohn of the Smithsonian

Institution Traveling Exhibition Service; Michael Grunberger and Peggy Pearlstein at the

Library of Congress; Neil Harris at the University of Chicago; Linda Altshuler at the

Bamum Museum; David Altshuler of the Museum of the Jewish Heritage; Olga Weiss and

Mark Akgulian at the Spertus Museum; Rex Moser of the United States Information

Agency; Elaine H. Gurian, Susan Morgenstein, and Gayle Weiss, now independent

museum consultants; Darcie C. Fohrman, exhibit designer; Manfred Anson, Bill Gross,

Peachy and Mark Levy, Alfred Moldovan, the late Jean Moldovan, Peter Schweitzer, and

Benjamin Zucker, collectors of Jewish art.

On a more personal note, the friendship of Jacqueline Koch Ellenson, Deborah E.

Lipstadt, and Myra Siff Weiss has been invaluable in helping me to keep perspective and

maintain an even keel.

My beloved parents, Rabbi Seymour and Naomi G. Cohen, have patiently encouraged

me to "finish up," and I know this publication will be an enormous source of pride for

them. My wonderful sons, Dov and Ari, have never known a time when I didn't spend my

"summer camp" at the Smithsonian. Although I know they missed me, I think the privilege

they had of going behind the scenes in the Smithsonian storerooms while growing up was

an experience they will never forget. Finally, I wish to thank my husband, Ira, who is my

constant tower of strength and support.

Grace Cohen Grossman
The publication of this volume was made possible with a grant from the

Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation.

Judaica at the Smithsonian:

Cultural Politics as Cultural Model

Grace Cohen Grossman

with Richard Eighme Ahlborn

Introduction

In late February 1887 24-year-old Cyrus Adler, who had that

very week completed his doctoral studies in Semitics at the

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, went to the Smithsonian Institution to see an exhibition of photographs of

recently discovered ancient clay tablets. To his disappointment,

the cuneiform inscriptions had been removed from display;

however, it was his good fortune that when he went to inquire

as to why they were no longer on view, the curator, Otis T.

Mason, chanced to overhear his request. Mason invited Adler

to come to his office to view the photographs. By the time their

meeting ended, Adler had offered to help the United States

National Museum form a collection of casts of Near Eastern

antiquities. It was quite common in those days to augment the

museum's small scientific staff with volunteers, and from the

position he first assumed, that of assistant honorary curator of

the collections of Oriental antiquities, Adler launched a 20-year

career at the Smithsonian, during which time he rose to the

distinguished rank of assistant secretary.

Cyrus Adler's association with the Smithsonian may have

been the result of serendipitous circumstances, but he earnestly

pursued every task he undertook at the United States National

Museum. His dedication and hard work secured his position

and increasing authority. As a curator, librarian of the

Smithsonian, and assistant secretary, Adler played a significant

and influential role at a time of tremendous growth in the

National Museum. When he left the Smithsonian officially, in

Grace Cohen Grossman, Skirball Museum, Hebrew Union College,

Los Angeles, California.

Richard E. Ahlborn, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560.

1908, Adler was accorded the lifetime title of honorary

associate in historic archaeology. He would, in fact, continue

his active involvement with the Smithsonian until the late

1920s.1

To more fully understand Adler's accomplishments, his

achievements must be measured in terms of his personal

aspirations. Adler was deeply committed to an ideology that

shaped his endeavors during his tenure at the Smithsonian.

Akin to the movement for the scientific study of Judaism, the

Wissenschaft des Judentums, which originated in Germany in

the 1820s, Adler's special agenda was the recognition of the

study of Judaism as an essential and valuable aspect of higher

learning, one that should take its legitimate place in the world

of secular scholarship. However, it should be recognized that,

similar to the motivation of the Wissenschaft proponents,

Adler's mission to develop Jewish studies as a scientific

discipline was not simply an intellectual pursuit. His quest to

establish a Judaica collection at the United States National

Museum was a momentous first step toward his ultimate goal

of countering anti-Semitic stereotypes and gaining acceptance

for Jews as truly equal partners in American society.

For Adler, museum work was only one facet of his

remarkable career as an advocate for Jews and Judaism. His

campaign also was carried out in the academic sphere, through

the field of Semitics, and in the political realm as well. It was

Adler's good fortune that at the Smithsonian he found a

congenial and receptive atmosphere. Moreover, his involvement with the Smithsonian occurred at an important juncture

for the National Museum, when a new, pioneering philosophy

was coming to the fore. Therefore, it also is important to

evaluate Adler's experience at the Smithsonian as it typifies a

larger pattern in the realm of collections and exhibitions.
SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

FIGURE 1.—Cyrus Adler. (Smithsonian Institution Archives)

In this study, the history of the Smithsonian Institution's

Judaica collection is analyzed as an example of "cultural

politics as cultural model."2 Cultural politics and cultural

model are used here to mean the way in which, at a given time

and place, those responsible for developing collections and

interpreting them attempt to establish the authenticity and

authority of a specific perspective. This perspective may be

referred to as cultural politics. The particular series of

interpretive methods they choose are the cultural models.3

In forming museum collections and using them in part to

articulate cultural models, many questions are addressed, either

explicitly or implicitly: What is the purpose of forming the

collection? Who should do the collecting? How should the

collection be constructed and documented, and how should that

documentation be recorded? What should be collected? How

should the collection be preserved? The way in which these

questions are dealt with gives evidence of the philosophy,

identity, and values of those making the decisions within the

collecting culture and partially defines the culture being

collected.

The phenomenon of collecting changes the character of that

which is collected. An object that is "collected" and thus

separated from its original use and environment has the

potential for multiple meanings to be ascribed to it.4 What was

once an implement serving a specific purpose becomes subject

to new interpretations, including those pertaining to its history,

form, and symbolic content. Although "objects speak," they do

so in a symbolic language that has a particular meaning to the

people who made and used those objects.5 Every subsequent

encounter is an exercise in decoding, in order to make the

objects speak to us, but by the very nature of the means utilized,

it is impossible for something not to get altered in the

translation.

The process of interpretation is ongoing. After the collection

has been arranged in some logical order and made available to

researchers and the community of origin, a further transformation occurs. For example, when the artifact is exhibited, the

choice of artifacts and the mode of presentation and interpretation reflect the point of view of those who created the

exhibition. Through the exhibit display, artifacts and supportive information have the power to create a certain ambiance

and thus project a particular cultural message. Ideally the

cultural message expressed in the exhibition will be understood

by the viewer, but because each visitor comes with a personal

agenda, there is no certainty that the visitor will gain a precise

understanding of the intended interpretation. This is the case

also with publications that describe and discuss artifacts in

collections.

In the late nineteenth century, the general climate of cultural

politics at the United States National Museum strongly

emphasized popular education, which contained a large

measure of moral teaching. The cultural model espoused was a

methodology that focused on the idea as the central element

with the objects serving as illustrations. This approach suited

Adler well, because his curatorial efforts, in the form of

acquisitions and exhibitions, were bound to the concepts he

wanted to explore and the message he wanted to convey. The

prominence of the idea was such that George Brown Goode, the

theoretician of the new philosophy, even expressed the opinion

that "for the purposes of study, a cast was as good as the

original."6 Indeed, the first collection initiated by Adler for the

Department of Historic Archaeology consisted largely of casts

reproduced by European museums. His training in the field of

Semitics prepared him well for this task. Adler's expertise in

Semitics also enabled him to serve as a special commissioner

for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, for which he

secured ethnographic exhibits from the Near East.

Adler's entry into the museum field coincided with newly

emerging research approaches that emphasized classification

and comparative study.7 Within this context, it is actually quite
NUMBER 52

appropriate that the term that came into use in the nineteenth

century for objects collected by a museum is specimen, with its

connotation of the item serving as an example of a whole or of

a class, especially for scientific investigation. The cultural

model that Adler ultimately developed in order to achieve the

agenda of his cultural politics was a department of historic

religions, which highlighted Judaism but did so within the

context of comparative religion. It was a brilliant resolution and

one that was completely appropriate within the museum world

of the time, although in actuality his goals were not to be

realized to the extent he might have liked.

The Smithsonian Institution's Judaica collection was formed

largely during a 40-year period from 1887 to 1927, and

therefore this study focuses on that era. Yet it will be shown

that from Adler's partisan ideology in the late nineteenth

century to the multicultural issues of today, the cultural politics

of advancing the public's understanding of American Jews and

Judaism has been a factor in the development of cultural

models, as evidenced in acquisitions, exhibitions, and publications. What is perhaps most extraordinary is how the changes in

these cultural models have, over time, altered the meaning

ascribed to individual objects.

Notes

'Adler wrote of the honor in his autobiography, I Have Considered the Days

(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1941), page 276. This statement is

confirmed in an undated report on the Division of Historic Archeology, which

indicates that he was designated an associate on 12 October 1908, two days

after he left the Smithsonian (Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit

201, Assistant Secretary in Charge of the U.S. National Museum, 1875-1902,

Box 16). The date of Adler's last active involvement is based on his

correspondence in the Smithsonian Archives, which ends in the late 1920s.

(Hereafter, these archives will be referred to by the acronym SIA. with the

record units being referred to as RU.) Adler's subsequent influence in

Washington emerged in interesting and unexpected ways. For example, while

chairman of the Army and Navy Section of the Jewish Welfare Board, Adler's

familiarity with the federal art bureaucracy made it possible for him to exert

influence on Charles Moore, chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts, so that

the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier monument would not include Christian

symbolism (National Archives, Adler to Moore, 12 December 1922; decision,

Commission of Fine Arts, Minutes, 14 December 1922; Arlington National

Cemetery—Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Box 23, Project File RG66). We are

grateful to Helene Lipstadt for sharing this information with us from her

forthcoming study of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: "The Body of an

American:" The Unknown Soldier, Performance, Spectacle, and Ritual.

2My interest in the way in which cultural politics is reflected in methodology

dates to my formal introduction to ethnography, in 1974, when I attended a

seminar at the Israel Museum taught by Aviva Muller-Lancet. She was good

enough to share with me her paper entitled "Exhibition and Ethnic Image," an

evaluation of an exhibition on Jewish life in Morocco, which was prepared for

the multinational seminar "The Role of Anthropological Museums in National

and International Education," held in connection with the 1974 International

Council of Museums (ICOM) meeting. The exhibit is documented in A.

Muller-Lancet, editor, La vie juive au Maroc (Jerusalem: Israel Museum,

1973).

3The question of what cultural models are and how cultural politics interacts

with them has been the subject of many authors in recent years. Ivan Karp

discussed the "political" aspect of museum exhibition in his lecture "Exhibiting

Cultures: A Critical Examination of the History of Ethnographic Display,"

Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 5 February 1991, which

was part of a series entitled "How Museums Came to Display the History of

Art." Also see Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, editors, Exhibiting Cultures:

The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian

Institution Press, 1991) (I am particularly grateful to Barbara KirshenblattGimblett, who shared with me a draft of her essay "Objects of Ethnography")

and Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D. Lavine, editors.

Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture (Washington, D.C.:

Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992). The essays in these volumes were first

presented at two conferences held at the Smithsonian in 1988 and 1990 on the

presentation and interpretation of cultural diversity in museums. The role of

objects in studying past cultures was the topic of another Smithsonian

conference held in 1989; the papers were published in Steven Lubar and W.

David Kingery, editors. History from Things: Essays on Material Culture

(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993). For a discussion on

the centrality of collections in museums, see Susan M. Pearce, Museums,

Objects, and Collections: A Cultural Study (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian

Institution Press, 1992). Additional books relevant to the subject of cultural

politics and cultural models are listed in the bibliography.

••This theme is developed by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett in "Objects of

Ethnography," in Karp and Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures, page 388. She writes,

"The artfulness of the ethnographic object is an art of excision, of detachment,

an art of the excerpt. Where does the object begin and where does it end? This

I see as an essentially surgical issue."

sThe concept "objects speak" was developed as a section of the exhibition

"Celebration: A World of Art and Ritual," curated by Victor Turner at the

Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian in 1982. The exhibition was cosponsored

by the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Folklife Programs.

6George Brown Goode, "The Museums of the Future," Annual Report of the

United States National Museum, 1888-1889 (Washington, D.C.: Government

Printing Office, 1891), page 433.

7The important relationship between research and collections was clearly

established by an act of Congress in June of 1880, which legislated that the

material findings "made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geological

Survey, or by any other parties for the government of the United States" were

to be given to the National Museum and that these "treasures" were to be

preserved in perpetuity "to render them of the highest service to research and

education." The act of Congress is cited in George Brown Goode, editor,

Smithsonian Institution, 1846-1896: The History of the First Half Century

(Washington, D.C.: DeVinne, 1897), pages 334-335.
1. The Science of Jewish Art and Culture

The Age of Enlightenment, first heralded in the seventeenth

century, elevated reason to a position of supreme importance.

The ethos of the Enlightenment championed the notion that

critical, rational inquiry was the key to learning truth. Of great

significance was the suggestion by scholars that this approach

could be applied even to the study of religion. Originating in

Germany, Religionswissenschaft, the scientific study of religion, was an outgrowth of the Enlightenment. In a radical change

of perspective, its proponents asserted that religions were not

immutable but were rather the products of history. Now, it was

argued, it could be demonstrated that religions changed over

time and were subject to the vagaries of human experience in

their development.

The Enlightenment, along with the process of Jewish

emancipation in western Europe beginning in the eighteenth

century, brought about a revolutionary transformation in

Jewish study. Since antiquity, Jewish learning and religious

piety had been inseparably bound. The process of change began

in the mid-eighteenth century, most notably in the work of

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), who pioneered the haskalah (enlightenment) movement.1

 Then in the early nineteenth

century, as Jewish students began to enter the universities,

young intellectuals sought to link the study of Jewish religious

and historical development to the new canons of modern

critical scholarship. In 1819 the Verein fur Kultur und

Wissenschaft der Juden was founded in Berlin. The adherents

of this "science of Judaism movement" aspired to develop a

field of Jewish studies as an academic discipline parallel to

other areas of study in the vaunted world of the German

universities.

In an essay entitled "On the Concept of Judaism," Immanuel

Wolf introduced the importance of the scientific study of

Judaism.2 As he explained, Judaism had never been investigated before from a "wholly independent standpoint." Until

this time the focus of both Jewish and Christian scholars had

been theology.

The problem of the bias of Christian scholars had been

previously articulated by Leopold Zunz in an 1818 essay, "On

Rabbinic Literature." In the context of exposing the ignorance

of non-Jewish scholars about Jews and Judaism, Zunz made a

plea for recognition, in university research and teaching, of

Judaism, its literature, and the contributions of Jews to many

sciences.3 For centuries, the pattern of studying Jews and

Judaism within the framework of Christian theological concerns had reflected the polemics of the relationship between

Jews and Christians.4

The scientific study of Judaism would institute a new

approach. As Wolf described it: "The content of this special

science is the systematic unfolding and representation of its

object [Judaism] in its whole sweep, for its own sake and not

for any ulterior purpose." Furthermore, in this new age, with

Judaism in a "state of inner ferment, striving to assume a shape

in harmony with the spirit of the times," it was essential to

confront the crisis by employing the accepted means of the

times. Jews "must raise themselves and their principle to the

level of a science for this is the attitude of the European

world."5

The particular scientific method that Wolf outlined had three

parts: first, the textual study of the literature of Judaism;

second, the depiction of Judaism from a historical perspective;

and third, philosophical analysis according to "its inner essence

and idea."

The Wissenschaft des Judentums movement also had

pragmatic aims. In the quest for Jewish political emancipation,

the academic study of Judaism aspired to elevate the status of

Jews and dissipate centuries-old prejudices and stereotypes by

demonstrating that Judaism was an integral part of Western

culture that had unfolded in accord with scientific laws. The

Utopian hope Wolf expressed was: "If one day a bond is to join

the whole of humanity, then it is the bond of science, the bond

of pure rationality, the bond of truth."6

Moreover, the focus of Wissenschaft des Judentums was not

only the study of the past, but also the study of Jewish

experience as it advanced into the present. The new studies

were to provide the means for responding to the challenges of

Judaism's encounter with modernity and to serve as the basis

for all Jewish religious reform and practice.

Although the Verein fur Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden

was short-lived (the society formally disbanded in 1824), the

ideology of the movement persisted. Once begun, the quest for

the "authentic" study of Judaism never ceased.

Jewish Antiquarian Societies: Countering Prejudice with

Culture

The hopeful promise of emancipation was not to be fully

realized. Yet even though the climate of discrimination against

Jews in Europe was becoming increasingly worse, there were

scholars who remained steadfast in their idealism. The political

events of the last quarter of the nineteenth century forged a role

as image-makers for the academics, who often found themselves at the forefront of the effort to bolster the status of the
NUMBER 52

Jewish community in the face of growing political antiSemitism.7

 There was still a fervent hope that anti-Semitism

could be counteracted by scholars whose work demonstrated

the "genuine history" of Jews and Judaism.

This phenomenon was manifested in the creation of national

Jewish historical societies in the late nineteenth century. The

development mirrored a general nineteenth-century preoccupation with the validation of one's cultural or religious group, as

evidenced by contemporary groups such as the Society of

Antiquaries in England. The formation of these Jewish

historical societies, which were established to research "the

antiquity, fate and contribution of Jews in their respective lands

of settlement," revealed the fears and uncertainty of the

respective communities, yet ironically they also confirmed the

growing world of Jewish scholarship.8

The earliest of the national Jewish historical societies, the

Societe des Etudes Juives, was founded in Paris in 1880. To be

sure, one of its aims was to demonstrate that modern Jewish

scholarship was not exclusively the province of Germany;

however, its primary mission was to focus on the study of Jews

in the history of France and of French Jews in the history of

medieval Judaism. In 1897 a pioneering work, Gallia Judaica,

authored by Henri Gross, was published. Gallia Judaica is a

geographical dictionary documenting all of the places in France

where, according to medieval Jewish sources, Jews were

known to have lived. The goal was to indicate the extent to

which Jewish settlement was part and parcel of French life

since the age of Charles the Great.9

A collector who epitomized the antiquarian movement was

Israel Solomons (1860-1923), a bibliophile and collector of

Anglo-Jewish books, manuscripts, prints, bookplates, and

documents. His primary reason for forming his collection was

to use it to reconstruct Jewish history in England from the time

of the readmittance of Jews in the mid-seventeenth century

through their acculturation into British life two centuries later.

In contrast to many other Jewish collectors of the Victorian

period, Israel Solomons was an observant Jew and remained

pronouncedly Jewish in his orientation.10 Paralleling the efforts

of other, non-Jewish antiquarians, Solomons formed his

collection as a basis for historical research and scholarship as a

national, patriotic enterprise. However, Solomons collected

Anglo-Jewish objects to demonstrate the Jewish contribution to

modern English history, thus proudly demonstrating Jewish

patriotism.

Jewish Folklore

Similarly, efforts for ethnographic investigation were initiated by Jewish scholars to counterbalance objectionable

characterizations of Jews that were appearing under the guise of

academic anthropological investigation. In "Das Judenthum

und die Ethnographie," which appeared in Israelitische

Wochen-Schrift in 1873, David Kaufmann (1852-1899)

sought to refute these distortions, recognizing that the citing of

"science" by the anthropologists was barely a pretext and that

their "investigations" demonstrated strong antipathy to Jews.''

In Hamburg in 1896, Max Griinwald (1871-1953) issued a

call to establish a Museum fur judische Volkskunde. Like

Kaufmann, Griinwald was critical of anthropological portrayals

of Jews in racial terms and sought to establish Jewish folklore

studies as a means for Jews to represent themselves authoritatively. His belief, as explained by Barbara KirshenblattGimblett, was that "comparative folklore studies would show

the interaction and commonalities between Jews and other

peoples, in contrast with anthropology which stressed immutable and despised differences rooted in inherited physical

characteristics."12

By the time of Griinwald's proposal, the documentation of

"living communities" was already being facilitated by the

advent of photography.13 As early as 1860 Michal Greim

(1828-1911) opened a studio in Kamenets Podolsk, Russia.

Greim traveled to small villages and towns to photograph

traditional Jewish life. In 1891 he sent a collection of 160

photographs of Jewish life in Podolia and Volhynia (a region of

the Ukraine, annexed by Russia in the second partition of

Poland in 1793) to Eliza Orzeszkowa, a Polish author, in honor

of her jubilee year in the literary field. In 1900 Greim won a

silver medal for an exhibition in Warsaw of his photographs of

ethnic communities in these rural areas. In 1912, 50 years after

Greim's trailblazing excursion, an expedition organized by S.

An-sky returned to these same communities for the purpose of

documenting traditional folkways. An-sky collected ceremonial artifacts and communal documents and, with a cylinder

recorder, gathered thousands of Yiddish folk songs and tales.

Yet another important contribution to ethnographic and

folklore studies was made by Matthias Bersohn (1823-1908),

a collector of Jewish and Polish antiquities and works of art. He

was the first to photograph wooden synagogues in Poland. A

Jewish museum in Warsaw was founded with his bequest.

Bersohn's venture was expanded through the efforts of Majer

Balaban (1877-1942), who extensively photographed Jewish

landmarks, Jewish life, and Jewish artifacts.

Collecting Jewish Art

A much more revolutionary development was the newly

emerging phenomenon of collecting Jewish ceremonial objects. With the separation of these tashmishe kiddusha

(implements of holiness) from their functional use in Jewish

celebration, the meaning of the objects was profoundly

transformed. From the holy, they became cultural artifacts,

examples of Jewish heritage.

The formation of collections of Jewish art and artifacts and,

ultimately, the establishment of Jewish museums offer yet

other examples of the effort to portray Jews and Judaism in a

historically accurate manner. Ritual objects, along with

ethnographic artifacts, paintings and sculptures on Jewish

themes, and memorabilia of important Jewish personalities and
SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

key events, were to play a role as "witnesses to history" in the

effort to represent the Jewish cultural heritage. This process

echoed the agenda of the Wissenschaft des Judentums: to

investigate the essence of "authentic" Judaism both for Jews

and as a means to help Jews gain acceptance by the community

at large.

Beginning in the last quarter of the nineteenth century,

collections of Jewish art were formed in Europe, Eretz Yisrael,

and the United States.14 Typically, the collections of Jewish art

and artifacts in museums either were formed privately by one

individual or resulted from the vision and passion of a single

person who spearheaded a particular acquisitions effort. The

motivations to form collections were varied, differing from one

individual to the next.

Portraying Jewish Life: Moritz Daniel Oppenheim

The metamorphosis from holiness to heritage was presaged

in a remarkable series of paintings by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim entitled "Bilder aus dem altjiidischen Familienleben"

("Scenes from Traditional Jewish Family Life") painted

between the 1850s and his death in 1882. From the first

publication of a portfolio of six of the paintings in 1866,

Oppenheim gained widespread recognition for these works.

They mark a watershed in Jewish cultural expression, for they

were an early effort to preserve Jewish identity through fine

art.15 In general, Oppenheim's works on Jewish themes reflect

a conscious encounter with the challenges of emancipation and

assimilation.16 Oppenheim's sensitive and dignified, though

anachronistic, portrayals of Jewish life in the ghetto, popular

among traditionalists and reformers alike, were a nostalgic

anchor in a new and turbulent world.

Moritz Daniel Oppenheim was born in Hanau, Germany, in

1800. The son of middle-class parents, he left home at age 17

to pursue a career as an artist. Oppenheim studied in Munich

and Paris and then from 1821 to 1825 trained in Rome with the

Nazarenes. Although influenced by these German Christian

artists, whose work focused on New Testament themes, the

splendor of Catholic churches, and the awesome Christian

religious sites of Rome, Oppenheim was drawn to life in the

Jewish ghetto. Despite being separated from the Orthodox

environment of his youth, he remained loyal to his faith and

rebuffed efforts by the Nazarenes to convert him. He persisted

in maintaining some traditional customs; for example, he

arranged for Sabbath meals in the Roman ghetto.17 In 1825

Oppenheim settled in Frankfurt, and the Rothschilds became

his patrons. Oppenheim received commissions for numerous

portraits and historical paintings, and because of his financial

success, he became known as "the painter of the Rothschilds

and the Rothschild of painters."

Although it would be three decades before Oppenheim

gained renown for his genre paintings of Jewish life, in 1833

and 1834 he painted a landmark work that was a precursor to

his later preoccupation. "Return of a Jewish Volunteer from the

Wars of Liberation to His Family Still Living in Accordance

with Old Customs" expresses the tension between traditional

Jewish life and modernity.18 The painting has been interpreted

by Elisheva Cohen as conveying Oppenheim's dismay at the

continued political inequities directed toward the Jewish

community. Jewish volunteers had taken part in the wars of

liberation against Napoleon Bonaparte; some had lost their

lives, and some had been wounded, as was the soldier in "The

Return." Yet the Congress of Vienna of 1815, which marked

the end of the war, meant the termination of civil rights

previously granted to the Frankfurt Jewish community. The

old, reactionary policies were re-established, and the debt to the

Jews for their participation in the battles was not honored.19

The Jews of the Grand Duchy of Baden chose this painting

as a gift for Gabriel Riesser, Oppenheim's closest friend, an

eloquent advocate for Jewish rights.20 The gift was an

appropriate one, for it characterized well Riesser's political

ideology that loyalty to one's faith was not an indication that

one was disloyal to the fatherland. In describing the significance of Oppenheim's depiction of the returning soldier in his

home, Riesser wrote, "Indeed the artist has chosen the right

picture in order to bring vividly to mind our religion as formed

thousands of years ago: the family [as] its sanctuary, parental

love as its symbol, father and mother as its priests."21

The idealization of the family was very much in consonance

with middle-class German life. An important influence was Die

Gartenlaube, a nationally circulated popular weekly that aimed

at political liberalization by means of educating the family; the

magazine contained some feature for each member of the

family.22 In this milieu, Oppenheim's "Bilder," focusing on

family life, became celebrated immediately.23 In addition to the

art portfolios, the images also were marketed on postcards and

pewter plates.

Oppenheim's depiction of the life and customs of a bygone

world—that is, the pre-emancipation ghetto—is clearly romanticized. It has been suggested that the didactic, nostalgic

"Bilder" may be simply a reflection of Oppenheim's own more

observant religious practice in his later years, which is also

evidenced in his correspondence. Certainly Oppenheim's

childhood memories served as a basis for his work; however, it

is more likely that the main motivation to create the series was

the growing assimilation of German Jewry.24

Although none of the later works is as overtly political in

subject matter as is "The Return," these works do convey a

subtle political message. Oppenheim's paintings have been

described as indicators of the German Jewish conception of

emancipation because they "refracted a religious nostalgia

fraught with political significance."25 The political aspect was

in his effort to recast Jews in a favorable light so as to dispel the

derogatory view of Judaism maintained by those who opposed

Jewish emancipation in Germany and challenged the ability of

those who maintained Jewish traditions to become fully

patriotic citizens.

Oppenheim's works, which were intended as a visual primer

of "authentic" Judaism for both Christians and Jews, portray
NUMBER 52

FIGURE 2.—"The Return of the Jewish Volunteer from the Wars of Liberation to His Family Still Living in

Accordance with Old Customs," by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Frankfurt, Germany, 1833-1834. (Courtesy of

The Jewish Museum, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard D. Levy, the owner maintaining life right;

accession number 1984-61)

Jews as sensitive and dignified and emphasize the importance

of morality in Judaism. For Oppenheim, the family was central

to the development of moral character and ethical behavior. He

underscored the role of the family as a counterbalance to a trend

in Jewish life that emphasized the individual and personal

expression in one's daily conduct. Oppenheim focused on

Judaism as a religion by stressing the inherent spirituality in

following its rituals. In this respect, Oppenheim's paintings

were a "rehabilitation of the pre-emancipation ghetto."26

Whereas Jews may no longer have celebrated Judaism in the

same way as their forebears had, Oppenheim's "Bilder" were

meant to evoke a sense of pride in the past.

Exhibiting Jewish Art: The Isaac Strauss Collection

Isaac Strauss (1806-1888), a musician who was chef

d'orchestre to Napoleon III, was an avid collector of paintings,

sculptures, and decorative art objects. He purchased Judaica

during his extensive travels in Europe, especially in Germany.

We can only speculate on Strauss's motives for collecting

Jewish ceremonial objects. One suggestion is that nostalgia was

his impetus, and that he acquired these objects as a way of

relating to his "own origins ... his own family had been quite

observant Jews."27

The first time Jewish ceremonial art was ever displayed in a

public forum was the exhibition of 82 items from Strauss's

collection at the Exposition Universelle at the Palais de

Trocadero in Paris in 1878. A brief catalog was published to

accompany the exhibition.28 Whatever may have been

Strauss's motives for forming a collection, his decision to bring

the objects into the public arena in a museum exhibition meant

that the objects were subject to a significantly wider variety of

interpretations.29 The Strauss collection provides a particularly

interesting case because of the different circumstances in which

it was exhibited: first, as part of a major exposition at the Palais

de Trocadero, among ethnographic exhibitions of many diverse

"exotic" cultures; second, at the Anglo-Jewish Historical

Exhibition in London in 1887, where, although the exhibition's

focus was Anglo-Jewish history, the objects were intended to

represent the finest of Jewish ritual artifacts. In 1890 the

Strauss Collection was purchased by Baronne Charlotte, wife

of Nathaniel de Rothschild, for the Musee de Cluny in Paris, an

art museum, which meant yet another approach to its study,

although it was not placed on exhibit there for many decades.30
SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

"Religious Liberty" Sculpture: The American Centennial

The official Jewish representation at the 1876 Centennial

Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, provides quite a

different sensibility from that of the exhibition of the Strauss

Collection at the Exposition Universelle. At the time, there

were no Judaica collections in the United States that might have

been used to represent Judaism. In any case, at the Centennial

Exposition there were to be six monuments sponsored by

ethnic and religious groups, so it was appropriate that the

planned Jewish contribution to the Centennial Exposition was

to be a sculptural work. The theme of the sculpture, "Religious

Liberty," and the selection of Moses Jacob Ezekiel as the artist

were determined by the International Order of B'nai B'rith,31

which commissioned the work. For everyone concerned with

the sculpture, the intention was to create a major monument

that would make a highly significant symbolic statement at the

Centennial on behalf of the American Jewish community.

The proposal for the sculpture was orchestrated by Simon

Wolf (1836-1923), who was born in Bavaria and emigrated to

the United States in 1848.32 He became a lawyer and began

practicing in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. During

the presidential campaign of 1868, Wolf publicly defended

Ulysses S. Grant against charges of anti-Semitism stemming

from the infamous General Order 11 of 17 December 1862,

which ordered the expulsion of all Jews from areas under

Grant's military control. (The order was revoked by Lincoln.)

Although Grant did not subsequently demonstrate any antiJewish sentiment, this terrible incident was widely publicized

during the campaign, so Wolfs support was helpful. When

Grant won the presidency, Wolf was named recorder of deeds

for the District of Columbia. Early on, Wolf became an activist

for Jewish affairs and was particularly adept at using the

political ties he developed in Washington to advance causes of

concern to American Jewry. Wolf was active in B'nai B'rith

and also served for many years as chairman of the Board of

Delegates of Civil and Religious Rights.33

Wolf recounted his role in the "Religious Liberty" commission in an address he gave in 1921, at the time of the

reinterment of Moses Jacob Ezekiel at Arlington National

Cemetery.34 According to Wolf, he presented the plan at the

40th convention of the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, held

in Chicago in 1874. Ezekiel would later acknowledge his

gratitude to Wolf for his role in spearheading this important

project:

I... owe the initial steps to you and you alone, and to your lofty clear mind and

your most noble desire to reflect honor upon our race: the placing of an

enduring record of the one principle of our government which alone prevents

the recurrence of oppression, of religious fanaticism and intolerance, and makes

our country the most civilized one on the face of the earth.35

Moses Jacob Ezekiel was the first American artist of Jewish

birth to achieve international recognition. Born in Richmond,

Virginia, and a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute,

Ezekiel fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. In

1869 he left for Europe to study sculpture at the Royal

Academy in Berlin. In 1873 he was awarded the Michael Beer

Prix de Rome, conferred by the Royal Academy in Berlin.

According to his memoirs, late in 1873 he received the

commission for "Religious Liberty," and he decided to use his

thousand-dollar prize money to travel to America instead of

going to Rome, as was expected of him by the academy.36

Ezekiel wrote of the work "Religious Liberty."

It seems so strange today to think that I, the great-great-greatgrandson of

Manasseh ben Israel, who had induced Oliver Cromwell to introduce religious

liberty in England [by readmitting the Jews], should be commissioned to carry

out that gTeat idea in enduring marble in America for her centennial year in

1876.37

It is significant that Ezekiel's monument was devoid of any

overt religious symbolism and indeed was in no way

identifiably Jewish. The iconography, as described in J.S.

Ingram's book The Centennial Exposition Described and

Illustrated, explains that the work embodied classical ideals and

style:

["Religious Liberty"] represents Republican Freedom, in the figure of a woman

eight feet high holding in her left hand the laws of equality and humanity, and

symbols of victory; in her right the genius of Faith raising the burning torch of

religion. Liberty is a female of majestic and dignified mien, strikingly grand in

the simplicity of her Greek attire. She is clothed in armor.... The genius of

Faith, holding the flaming torch is a handsome youth, naked, symmetrical in all

its forms. The crown of laurel, the instrument of the American Constitution, the

colossal eagle crushing the serpent (the symbol of tyranny) typify the glory and

power of the country of Washington.38

The artist's intention was to create an allegorical portrayal of

the universalist message of Liberty, as guaranteed by the

Constitution of the United States. This theme echoed Ezekiel's

own sentiments about Judaism:

I must acknowledge that the tendency of the Israelites to stamp everything they

undertake with such an emphasis is not sympathetic to my taste. Artists belong

to no country and to no sect—their individual religious opinions are matters of

conscience and belong to their households and not to the public. In reference to

myself, this is my standpoint. Everybody who knows me knows that I am a

Jew—I never wanted it otherwise. But I would prefer as an artist to gain first a

name and reputation upon equal footing with all artists in art circles.... I do not

want to be stamped with the title of "Jewish sculptor."39

Ezekiel worked on the commission for two years in Rome.

Because he was late in completing the work, "Religious

Liberty" arrived after the close of the Centennial Exposition,

and the unveiling of the monument in Fairmount Park was

scheduled for 4 July 1876.40 Wolf had hoped that President

Grant would attend the ceremony. In his letter of invitation,

Wolf wrote:

This evidence of patriotism and of love of liberty on the part of American

citizens of Jewish faith is in keeping with their history and lofty ideals and

conception of duty. No class of citizenship has been made happier by religious

liberty than the Jew, for the denial of that liberty in other lands has been the

cause of endless persecution and misery. We sincerely trust that this statue,

typifying so grandly the separation of church and state, may be an inspiration

and an example for all the generation of the future.41
NUMBER 52

FIGURE 3.—"Religious Liberty," by Sir Moses Ezekiel. (National Museum of American Jewish History)

Grant's response duly praised the Jewish community:

I congratulate you and all concerned for this splendid contribution on the part

of American citizens who at all times, in war and in peace, have shown their

loyalty and patriotism on and in behalf of the Republic.42

In representing religious liberty, this sculpture, which was

"dedicated to the People of the United States by the Order of

B'nai B'rith and the Israelites of America," epitomized the

ideal view that Jews were indeed equal to all other Americans.

Moreover, Jewish sentinels were on the alert to ascertain that

American civil liberties would be upheld.
,

,^'>;

FIGURE 4.— Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, with spice boxes from the Strauss Collection; NMAH 154570

(photo 11). (Negative number 92-16404)

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NUMBER 52

11

FIGURE 5.—Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, with Torah scrolls from the Sassoon Collection; NMAH 154570

(photo 7). (Negative number 92-16405)

The Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition

The Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, presented in 1887

at the Royal Albert Hall in London, was the first major

exposition organized to further interest in the historic preservation of Judaic art and artifacts. Plans for the exhibition grew out

of the attempt to establish an Anglo-Jewish Historical Society,

initiated by Lucien Wolf and Alfred Newman.43 Wolf and

Newman had each submitted letters to the newspaper Jewish

World proposing the society, but they received no response.

However, Newman's campaign against the demolition of the

Spanish and Portuguese Bevis Marks Synagogue galvanized

public opinion and brought the issue of historical preservation

to the fore.44 Sir Isidore Spielmann (1854-1925), an organizer

of art exhibitions, suggested to Wolf that the best way to

accomplish the goal of establishing the society was through an

exhibition.

The stated objectives of the exhibition were "to promote a

knowledge of Anglo-Jewish History; to create a deeper interest

in its records and relics, and to aid in their preservation" and "to

determine the extent of the materials which exist for the

compilation of a History of the Jews in England."45 A massive

undertaking, the landmark exhibition comprised over 2,500

ritual objects, antiquities, paintings, documents, books, and

prints, which were borrowed from some 345 lenders, both

individuals and institutions. Among the private collections of

Anglo-Jewish historical objects that were borrowed were the

collections of the exhibition's organizers, Newman and Wolf.

Israel Solomons also was a major lender. In addition to items of

Anglo-Judaica, Solomons lent several ceremonial objects,

which he had acquired at auction.46 Although the original intent

had been to focus only on Anglo-Jewish history, it was decided

to include examples of Jewish ceremonial art as well, no matter

what the country of origin.

The collections of Isaac Strauss and Reuben D. Sassoon

(1835-1905) were the highlights of the ceremonial art section

of the exhibition.47 The Strauss Collection, which now

numbered 129 objects, was brought over from Paris. The

Sassoon Collection was purchased, in large part, from Philip

Salomons (1796-1867), the brother of Sir David Salomons, the

first Jew to serve as Lord Mayor of London. The collection

formed by Philip Salomons was for use in the private

synagogue in his Brighton home. Sassoon added this to the

group of objects he had acquired for his own private

synagogue.48

It was vital to the planners of the exhibition that it not be

viewed solely as a sectarian enterprise. The general committee

overseeing the exhibition was diverse and ecumenical, includ-
12 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

ing Christian clergy and representatives of secular academic

scholarly organizations, such as the Royal Archaeological

Institute and the Anthropological Institute. Supplementary

exhibitions were held at the Public Record Office, the British

Museum, and the South Kensington Museum.

The specter of the Wissenschaft des Judentums admonition

that support of "authentic" Jewish scholarship was a Jewish

responsibility was evident in the publicity issued prior to the

opening of the exhibition:

It is the duty of English Jews to support the Exhibition by attendance and

interest. The outside world will look upon the success of the exhibition as a test

of the position of the Jews in public esteem. They will justly argue that if Jews

take no interest in their history, they themselves need not do so. The very fact

of the Exhibition is a proof that a deep interest is taken in the communal history

by the leaders of the community, and where they lead there is little fear the

community will follow.49

The exhibition had a clear political agenda: to stress to the

community at large the positive aspects of Judaism and to

dispel negative stereotypical images of Jews. The success of

this effort was optimistically reported in an article written after

the exhibition's opening:

The Exhibition is a remarkable record of prejudices outlived by dint of

honorable conduct, a record of which not only Jews may be proud, but of which

England has reason also to be proud. England has to be proud of her treatment

of Jews, and Jews have to be grateful to the great country that has held up the

beacon of tolerance through so many years of misrepresentation and ill-will.

From this point of view the Exhibition is truly Anglo-Jewish, and in the best

sense of the word, national.50

The public presentation of Jewish ceremonials and documents

and artifacts of Anglo-Jewish history was not universally

supported, however. In answer to the exhibition's detractors,

the Reverend Dr. Hermann Adler51 addressed this issue in a

sermon delivered at the Bayswater Synagogue on 15 April

1887, two weeks after the exhibition opened to the public:

The question has been raised, is it wise for our community thus to thrust itself

upon public notice? Do not our strength and our wisdom lie in a dignified

reserve, and in the absence of all ostentation? ... Our purpose has not been to put

in evidence proofs of the Hebrew's wealth, evidences of his superior skill and

intelligence. The main object of the collection gathered in the Albert Hall is

educational and instructive; to diffuse by means of object lessons some

knowledge of Hebrew antiquities generally, and more particularly of the history

of our race in the British Empire. ...

Had there been less mystery about our religious observances, there would,

perhaps, have been less prejudice, certainly less foul aspersion.52

The conscious effort to reach out to the non-Jewish community

in an attempt to improve the political status of the Jews was

successful, at least in Adler's view. A milestone in AngloJewish history was reached with the invitation to the Jewish

community to participate in a nondenominational service of

thanksgiving in honor of the Jubilee celebration for Queen

Victoria. According to Hermann Adler, this was the first time

the Jewish community had been included in such a service, a

fact he attributed to the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition.53

The field of Anglo-Jewish history benefited tremendously

from the exhibition, with a series of scholarly papers presented

weekly at the Royal Albert Hall as well as a number of

publications. In an effort to be as comprehensive as possible,

the exhibition catalog attempted to list every known object of

Anglo-Judaica as well as all of those exhibited. The organizers'

original goal also was achieved with the establishment of the

Anglo-Jewish Historical Society in 1893. The London Jewish

Museum was not established until 1932.

Establishing Jewish Museums

VIENNA

In the 1890s in Europe there was a flowering of interest in

the study and exhibition of Jewish artifacts and the formation of

Jewish museums. This phenomenon reflected a general trend

on the continent, where numerous ethnographic museums were

established in the late nineteenth century. In the spirit of the

Wissenschaft des Judentums movement, the intention of the

Jewish museums was to follow the principles of scientific

research in acquiring and exhibiting items of the Jewish

cultural heritage, with the assumption that such objective study

would convey a positive image of Jews. The study of artifacts

in a museum was seen as parallel to the study of texts in a

library: the objects were "documents" to be employed in the

process of critical, rational inquiry.

The Gesellschaft fur Sammlung und Konservierung von

Kunst und historischen Denkmalem des Judentums (Society

for the Collection and Conservation of Jewish Art and Historic

Monuments) was established in Vienna in 1895. The Vienna

Jewish Museum, which was established later, was destroyed by

the Nazis during World War II.

HEINRICH FRAUBERGER: DUSSELDORF AND FRANKFURT AM

MAIN

In 1901 a group with similar goals, the Gesellschaft zur

Erforschung Judischer Kunstdenkmaler (Society for the Research of Jewish Art Monuments) was founded in Frankfurt am

Main. Interestingly, the force behind the formation of the

Frankfurt society was Heinrich Frauberger (1845-1920), a

Catholic art historian and director of the Dusseldorf Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Applied Arts). Frauberger was the

first trained art historian and museologist to take an interest in

the field of Jewish art. Frauberger's concern for the preservation of Judaica is said to have stemmed from a personal

incident: In 1895 he was consulted about the design for a

railing around a Jewish grave, and, unable to find adequate

resources to respond to the inquiry, Frauberger determined to

begin to study and collect artifacts of the Jewish cultural

heritage.54 Although several German museums had begun

acquiring Judaica as a consequence of ethnographic studies and

a general interest in religion, Frauberger's plan was much more

ambitious.55 In 1908 Frauberger organized the first exhibition

in Germany of Jewish ceremonial objects; it was installed at the
NUMBER 52

13

Diisseldorf Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Jewish Museum in

Frankfurt was established in 1922; looted by the Nazis during

World War II, it was reopened in 1988 in the former Rothschild

Library.56

SALLI KIRSCHSTEIN: BERLIN

Frauberger himself amassed a private collection of Judaica.

It was purchased about 1908 by Salli Kirschstein (1869-1935),

a successful Berlin businessman whose avocation was Jewish

art. He wrote extensively on art and formed an important

collection of Judaica, which he displayed in a private museum

in his home. Kirschstein wrote that the catalyst for his forming

a collection of objects of Jewish culture was the very lack of

representation of Judaica at the Arts and Crafts and Ethnology

Museum in Berlin: "In the Ethnology Museum in Berlin, in its

all embracing exhibition, in which all the nations of the world,

from the most primitive to the most culturally advanced are

represented, the Jews alone are absent!"57

Kirschstein, in the spirit of Wissenschaft des Judentums,

believed that the study of Judaism—in this instance, the

collecting and researching of objects representing the Jewish

cultural heritage—was a vital link between the past, present,

and future of the Jewish people as well as a way to counteract

anti-Semitism:

A museum must concentrate [on making the past] come alive and serve as a

source of contemplation and knowledge. A Jewish Museum can be of great

value in keeping our people together. It can also considerably influence the

attitude of non-Jews toward Jews and Judaism, because the meager knowledge

of Jewish life is and has been one of the strongest motives for anti-Jewish

attitudes.58

Six thousand items from Kirschstein's collection were sold to

Hebrew Union College (HUC) in 1925. The Kirschstein

Collection is now housed in part at the HUC Klau Library in

Cincinnati, with most of it at the HUC Skirball Museum in Los

Angeles. A Jewish museum was established in Berlin after

World War I; the nucleus of the museum was a bequest by

Dresden collector Albert Wolf (1841-1907) of ceremonial

objects, medals, and portraits. The museum was plundered by

the Nazis during World War II.

SALOMON HUGO LIEBEN: PRAGUE

In Prague, the effort to establish a Jewish museum was

spearheaded by Salomon Hugo Lieben (1881-1942), a

historian who taught religion in Prague's German-language

schools.59 The situation in Prague was similar to the one in

London in that Lieben's initial efforts were prompted by the

threatened demolition of several historic synagogues. Despite

his efforts, however, the synagogues were destroyed. Also like

the Anglo-Jewish collectors, Lieben had a nationalist bent, and

he wanted particularly to preserve the cultural heritage of

Bohemia and Moravia.

Lieben endeavored to preserve the artifacts of other

synagogues that had fallen into disuse. In 1906 he created the

Verein zur Griindung und Erhaltung eines jiidisches Museums

in Prag (Organization for the Founding and Maintenance of a

Jewish Museum in Prague). Lieben's work further extended to

rural villages in his attempt to locate objects. The collection he

amassed, approximately 1,000 ceremonial objects and 1,500

Hebrew books and manuscripts, was first housed in 1912 in the

former building of the Jewish burial society; in 1926 it was

moved to the Ceremonial Hall in the heart of Prague's Jewish

Quarter.

A bizarre fate befell the Prague Jewish Museum during the

Nazi regime. In 1941 the Nazis designated the museum as the

depot for all of the synagogue treasures from Bohemia and

Moravia. Moreover, as Jews were deported, objects from their

homes were shipped to the museum as well. The Nazi plan was

for this reconstituted museum to serve as the centerpiece for

anti-Semitic propaganda and ultimately as a museum of the

destroyed Jewish people. As a result, the State Jewish Museum

in Prague has the largest collection of Judaica in the world.

LESSER GIELDZINSKI: DANZIG

A rather unique antiquarian interest is what motivated Lesser

Gieldzinski (1830-1910) to form a phenomenal collection of

"Danzigiana."60 Gieldzinski, who was born in Poland, settled

in Danzig in 1860 and became a successful grain merchant. He

was a passionate collector and an extraordinary connoisseur.

His home became a veritable museum, and he counted among

his distinguished guests the German kaiser Wilhelm II and his

wife, Augusta. Gieldzinski wore with pride a medal given to

him by the kaiser.

Gieldzinski was also a committed Jew who served on the

board of directors of the Synagogen-Gemeinde from 1884 until

his death, in 1910. He formed a superb collection of Judaica,

which he donated to the Great Synagogue in Danzig (Gdansk,

Poland) in 1904 to commemorate his 75th birthday. He

stipulated that the collection should be housed in its own room,

to which entry should be free to all. Gieldzinski tried to acquire

any Judaica that had a Danzig connection, thus bringing

together his dual allegiances. For instance, a miniature Torah

ark fashioned after the Brigitenkirche Tower in Danzig is a

quintessential example of the characteristic adaptation of local

styles in the creation of Jewish ceremonial objects.

In 1939 the Gieldzinski Collection, along with the ceremonial objects of the Great Synagogue of Danzig, was sent to the

Jewish Museum in New York for what was hoped would be

temporary safekeeping. It was stipulated that if after fifteen

years there were no safe and free Jews in Danzig, the collection

should remain in America for the education and inspiration of

the rest of the world. The collection, of course, has remained in

America.61
14 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

BORIS SCHATZ: ESTABLISHING JEWISH ART IN

ERETZ YISRAEL

The prime mover behind the effort to establish a school for

Jewish arts and crafts in Eretz Yisrael was Boris Schatz, who

founded the Bezalel School for Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem.

Schatz (1866-1932) was born in Lithuania, studied art in Paris,

and in 1895 became court sculptor to Prince Ferdinand of

Bulgaria. Schatz met Theodor Herzl in 1903 and became an

enthusiastic Zionist. Schatz later would write that Herzl was

receptive to his plan to create the school, which was both

ideologically aligned with Zionist ideals and pragmatic in its

approach. His ideal was that a Jewish art should be created by

weaving together the cultural threads that had been pulled apart

and damaged during the two thousand years Jews had lived in

the Diaspora. But this was not to be "art for art's sake." Schatz,

although trained in the fine arts, was a realist and stressed that

the students should learn crafts, which would bring revenue to

the school and, in turn, help support their studies. According to

Schatz, during the course of their conversation Herzl inquired

as to the name of the proposed school, and Schatz responded,

"Bezalel, after the first Jewish artist who built us a sanctuary in

the wilderness."62

In the wake of Herzl's sudden death in 1904, Schatz sought

the approval of various Zionist institutions to help make his

dream a reality.63 At the 1905 Zionist Congress Schatz

presented his proposal, which was accepted, and in 1906 the

school was established.

Soon after the establishment of the school, the Bezalel

Museum was founded, primarily to serve as a resource for the

students. The school was closed during World War I and again

after Schatz died in 1932. The Bezalel Museum later was

incorporated into the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The school,

now known as the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design,

remains an independent entity.

CYRUS ADLER: JUDAICA AT THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL

MUSEUM

Cyrus Adler's efforts to create a collection of Judaica at the

United States National Museum take on even greater significance when analyzed in light of these patterns of development

of the study and preservation of the Jewish heritage, as reflected

in the establishment of societies and museums in Europe and

Palestine during the late nineteenth and early twentieth

centuries. Adler, as a result of his Semitic studies, was well

aware of the acquisitions of recently discovered archaeological

artifacts in the major European museums. His offer to form a

collection of casts of Near Eastern antiquities was grounded in

his knowledge of those collections. Moreover, he traveled to

Europe several times and met with numerous individuals from

the general museum world as well as with his Jewish

contacts.64

Adler's goal for the Judaica collection at the Smithsonian

was to teach about Judaism through ceremonial objects in a

scientific, objective way. Adler believed that there was a

continuous link between biblical Judaism and contemporary

Jewish ritual practice. This meant that the Judaica collection

should logically begin with the Bible and biblical antiquities.65

Adler's endeavors in the museum world and in the Jewish

community demonstrate his ardent belief that the study of

Judaism, according to the principles of modern scientific

scholarship, would counteract prejudice and elevate the status

of Jews and Judaism, both in a historical perspective and in

contemporary society.66 It is ironic, and yet quite understandable in view of the historical baggage of the Jewish experience

in Europe, that it would be in America at the United States

National Museum that the aspirations of the Wissenschaft des

Judentums would be most nearly met.67

Notes

'The movement called haskalah, which is the Hebrew term for the

enlightenment movement in Judaism, has its roots in the general Enlightenment, but its goals were particular to the Jewish experience. On Mendelssohn

and for a general discussion of the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement, see

Michael A. Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew (Detroit: Wayne State

University Press, 1967). A collection of writings pertaining to the Wissenschaft

movement is published in Paul R. Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, The Jew

in the Modern World: A Documentary History (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1980).

2The title of Wolfs essay is "Uber den Begriff einer Wissenschaft des

Judentums," Zeitschrift fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums, number 1 (1822),

pages 1 ff. An English translation by Lionel E. Kochan appears in Leo Baeck

Institute Year Book, volume 2 (1957), pages 201-203 (reprinted in

Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World, pages 194-199).

Immanuel Wolf (the pseudonym of Immanuel Wohlwill, 1799-1829), a

student of philosophy at the University of Berlin, served as secretary for the

Society for the Culture and Science of the Jews from 1821 to 1822.

'Leopold Zunz, "Etwas uber die Rabbinische Literatur," Gesammehe

Schriften (Berlin, 1875), volume 1, pages 1-31, is cited in the Jewish

Encyclopedia, s.v. "Zunz, Leopold." A translation by A. Schwartz of the article

"On Rabbinic Literature" is reprinted in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, The Jew

in the Modern World, pages 196-204.

4The intense interest in examining and illustrating Jewish customs for

sectarian purposes can be seen, for example, in Johann Christoph Georg

Bodenschatz, Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden sonderlich in

Deutschland (Leipzig, 1748). Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblctt explores the

theme "Theology Sets the Ethnography Agenda" in her essay "Problems in the

Early History of Jewish Folkloristics," Proceedings of the Tenth World

Congress of Jewish Studies, division D, volume 2 (Jerusalem: World Union of

Jewish Studies, 1990), pages 2Iff. I thank Dr. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett for

providing me with the text of her paper.

sWolf, cited in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World,

pages 194-195.

6

Ibid., page 195.

7The term anti-Semitism was coined in Germany in the 1870s to describe

and "scientifically" justify anti-Jewish propaganda (Jonathan Sarna, JPS: The

Americanization of Jewish Culture, 1888-1988 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), page 13).

*•Encyclopedia of Religion, s.v. "Jewish Studies," subsection "Jewish

Studies from 1818 to 1919."

'GalHa Judaica: Dictionnaire geographique de la France apres les sources

rabbiniques (Paris: L. Cerf, 1897). Reprint. Amsterdam: Simon Schwarzfuchs,

1969. Gallia Judaica became the model for Germania Judaica of the

Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaft des Judentums (Society for the

Promotion of the Science of Judaism), established in 1917.
NUMBER 52 15

l0Barbara C. Gilbert, "Anglo-Jewish Art Collectors of the Victorian Period:

Patterns of Collecting" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California,

1986), pages 172ff. According to Gilbert, as a general trend, the type of art

collected by Jews can be viewed as an example of their own acculturation. The

dominant factors contributing to collecting and patronage activities were wealth

and the desire to elevate their standing in English society. The rising bourgeois

class in nineteenth-century England aspired to take on the habits and status of

the former gentry class through education, business, and the acquisition of

material property.

"Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "Problems in the Early History of Jewish

Folkloristics," page 29. In this paper, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett traces the

development of the discipline of Jewish folklore and analyzes this field in

relation to ethnographic and anthropological studies.

l2Ibid., page 30.

1

 information on early use of the camera for ethnographic study is surveyed

in Lucjan Dobroszycki and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Image Before My

Eyes: A Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland, 1863-1939 (New

York: Schocken, 1977), pages 13-19. S. An-sky (Shlomo Zainwil Rapoport

(1863-1920)) was an author and folkloristbest known for his play The Dybbuk.

See Rivka Gonen, ed., Back to the Shtetl: An-sky and the Jewish Ethnographic

Expedition, 1912-1914 (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1994).

l4Surveys of the history of Jewish museums are found in Universal Jewish

Encyclopedia, s.v. "Museums," and in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v.

"Museums." See also Joseph Gutmann, "Foreword," in Grace Cohen

Grossman, The Maurice Sperms Museum of Judaica: An Illustrated Catalog of

Selected Objects (Chicago: Spertus College of Judaica Press, 1974). For an

analysis of the development of Jewish museums in Europe, see Richard I.

Cohen, "Self-Image Through Objects: Toward a Social History of Jewish Art

Collecting and Jewish Museums," in Jack Wertheimer, ed., The Uses of

Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), pages 203-242.

Grossman has summarized some of the history of collections of Jewish art in

the introduction to her book Jewish Art (Southport, CT: Hugh Levin Lauter

Associates, 1995), pages 7-17.

lf'Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Oppenheim, Moritz Daniel." See also

Elisheva Cohen, "Moritz Daniel Oppenheim," Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts,

volume 16-17 (1977-1978), pages 42-74; Elisheva Cohen, "Moritz Oppenheim, 'The First Jewish Painter,'" Israel Museum News, volume 14 (1978),

pages 86-93; E. Cohen, "Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: His Life and Art," in

Elisheva Cohen, ed., Moritz Oppenheim: The First Jewish Painter (Jerusalem:

Israel Museum, 1983), pages 7-29.

l6Oppenheim's work is analyzed from this perspective in Ismar Schorsch,

"Art as Social History: Oppenheim and the German Jewish Vision of

Emancipation," in Cohen, Moritz Oppenheim: The First Jewish Painter, pages

31-61. This theme, as demonstrated in both art and literature, is surveyed in

Richard I. Cohen, "Nostalgia and 'Return to the Ghetto': A Cultural

Phenomenon in Western and Central Europe," in Jonathan Frankel and Steven

J. Zipperstein, eds., Assimilation and Community: The Jews in Nineteenthcentury Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). The

differences in approach of Moritz Oppenheim and Alphonse Levy are explored

in Norman L. Kleeblatt, "Illustrating Jewish Lifestyles on Opposite Banks of

the Rhine: Alphonse Levy's Alsatian Peasants and Moritz Daniel Oppenheim's

Frankfurt Burghers," Jewish An, volume 16/17 (1990-1991), pages 53-63.

See also the comparison by Alfred Werner, "Oppenheim and Kaufmann: Fine

Genre Painters," in Families and Feasts: Paintings by Oppenheim and

Kaufmann (New York: Yeshiva University Museum, 1977).

l7Schorsch, "Art as Social History," page 38. Rome's Jewish community was

confined to a ghetto by a papal bull in 1555; Jews were not liberated from

ghetto life until 1870.

l8The painting is in the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York. See

Norman L. Kleeblatt and Vivian B. Mann, Treasures of the Jewish Museum

(New York: Universe Books, 1986), page 148.

"Cohen, "Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: His Life and Art," page 27, discussed

the possible political intent of this painting.

20Through Gabriel Riesser (1806-1863), Oppenheim met with many

personalities of the German Jewish Reform movement and obtained

commissions from them. In addition to portraits, Oppenheim also painted a

series of paintings reflecting the confrontation of Jews with modernity. For

example, in 1856 he painted "Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn,"

which was a portrayal of the challenge to Mendelssohn (1729-1786) by Johann

Caspar Lavater (1741-1801), a Swiss clergyman and expert on physiognomy,

to convert to Christianity. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. dramatist, critic, and

author of Nathan the Wise, which rejected the possibility that any religion

represented absolute truth, stood by Mendelssohn and urged his friend not to

succumb. The painting is in the collection of the Judah L. Magnes Memorial

Museum in Berkeley, California. For the catalog entry and illustration, see

Cohen, Moritz Oppenheim: The First Jewish Painter, page 20 (Hebrew

section).

2

'This quote is from Gabriel Riesser's Gesammeile Schriften, volume 4, page

719, and is cited in Schorsch, "Art as Social History," page 39, note 39.

22Schorsch, "Art as Social History," pages 39ff.

23When published in an English edition, the title of this series of paintings

appeared as "Family Scenes from Jewish Life of Former Days." Graphics of the

Oppenheim "Bilder" series were among the first items acquired by the

Smithsonian (NMAH 154569, gift of Simon Dalsheimer, 1892), and they were

displayed as contextual material at the World's Columbian Exposition (Board

of Control and Management, World's Columbian Exposition, Official

Catalogue, United States Government Building, Part XVI (Chicago: W.B.

Conkley, 1893), page 142). The introduction to the exhibition on religious

ceremonials indicates that "special regard" was given to the ceremonies, as

these form "the starting point for a comparative study of religions." Adler

selected this sentimental portrayal to characterize Jewish celebration.

24Cohen, Moritz Oppenheim: The First Jewish Painter, page 27.

25Schorsch, "Art as Social History," page 31.

26Ibid., page 51.

27This observation was made by Alain Erlande-Grandenburg in his

introduction to the catalog of the Cluny collection, "Les collections d'objets de

culte juif du Musee de Cluny," in Victor Klagsbald, Catalogue raisonne de la

collection juive du Musee de Cluny (Paris: Editions de la Reunion des musees

nationaux, 1981), page 8. On "nostalgic yearning for a vanishing Jewish

world," see also Cohen, "Self-Image Through Objects," pages 212ff.

28M. Straus, Description des objets religieux hebraiques exposes dans les

galeries du Trocadero it VExposition Universelle de 1878 (Poissy, 1878). The

earliest known collection of Jewish ceremonial objects was formed in the

eighteenth century by Alexander David (1687-1765), a court Jew in

Brunswick. His collection was later displayed in his synagogue (Cecil Roth,

"Introduction," in R.D. Barnett, ed.. Catalogue of the Permanent and Loan

Collections of the Jewish Museum, London (London: Harvey Miller, 1974),

pagexiii).

29This point is made in Cohen, "Self-Image Through Objects." page 213.

30The Strauss Collection was loaned for an exhibition organized by Stephen

Kayser at the Jewish Museum in New York in the 1950s and was exhibited in

Paris and Jerusalem in 1981. It was at that time that Victor Klagsbald prepared

a catalogue raisonne of the collection. Selected objects from the Strauss

Collection were also lent to major exhibitions in Germany: "Synagoga"

(Recklinghausen) in 1961, "Monumenta Judaica" (Cologne) in 1964, and

"Judische Lebenswelten" (Berlin) in 1991.

3lFounded in New York City in 1843, B'nai B'rith is the oldest Jewish

fraternal organization in the United States. It was begun as a mutual aid

society, social service agency, and philanthropic organization to unite all

"Israelites" regardless of their "dogma and ceremonial custom." In 1885, the

first of the European B'nai B'rith Lodges was estabished in Germany, and

eventually membership grew to lodges in 45 countries. Menorah Monthly,

published by B'nai B'rith, was first issued in 1886. See Jewish Encyclopedia,

s.v. "B'nai B'rith, or Sons of Covenant," and Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v.

"B'nai B'rith."

32Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Wolf, Simon," and Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v.

"Wolf, Simon." A necrology for Wolf by M.J. Kohler appeared in Publications

of the American Jewish Historical Society, volume 29 (1925), pages 198-206,
16 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

and was reprinted in Selected Addresses and Papers of Simon Wolf: A

Memorial Volume, Together with a Biographical Sketch (Cincinnati: Union of

American Hebrew Congregations, 1926).

33The Board of Delegates of American Israelites, founded in 1859, was the

first national organization of Jewish congregations in the United States. Its

primary purpose was anti-defamation. In 1878 the Board merged with the

Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), although its own board,

which had changed its name to the Board of Delegates of Civil and Religious

Rights, functioned independently within the UAHC until 1925. See Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Board of Delegates of American Israelites."

34Wolf, Selected Addresses, pages 277-280.

"Letter dated 8 October 1906, sent from Ezekiel to Wolf on the occasion of

his 70th birthday (Wolf, Selected Addresses, page 279).

36Joseph Gutmann and Stanley F. Chyet, eds., Moses Jacob Ezekiel:

Memoirs from the Baths of Diocletian (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,

1975), page 164. It is not clear whether Ezekiel was contacted in 1873 or 1874.

It is certainly possible that the proposal for the sculpture commission was

already a fait accompli when it was presented at the B'nai B'rith convention.

37Ibid., page 168. As indicated by Gutmann and Chyet, the claim of his

lineage is unsubstantiated.

38J.S. Ingram, The Centennial Exposition Described and Illustrated

(Philadelphia: Hubbard Bros., 1876), page 711 (cited in National Museum of

American Jewish History, Ezekiel's Vision: Moses Jacob Ezekiel and the

Classical Tradition (Philadelphia: NMAJH, 1985), pages 16-17).

39Gutmann and Chyet, Moses Jacob Ezekiel, page 21. Among Ezekiel's

many sculptures of historical figures was a commission for the World's

Columbian Exposition. In this instance, he had the honor of sculpting the

bronze statue of Christopher Columbus, which was sited in a prominent

position above the doorway of the Columbus Memorial building (ibid., pages

44_45). The statue was laterplaced in Vernon Park in Chicago (ibid., page 71).

40The sculpture was relocated in 1985 to the grounds of the National Museum

of American Jewish History.

"'Letter dated 26 June 1876 (cited in Wolf, Selected Addresses, page 278).

42Letter dated 28 June 1876 (cited in Wolf, Selected Addresses, page 278).

Grant's message demonstrates that he was still trying to live down his General

Order 11 of 1862.

43Lucien Wolf, "Origin of the Jewish Historical Society of England,"

Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, volume 7

(1911-1914), pages 211-212. Lucien Wolf (1857-1930) was an AngloJewish historian and publicist. Alfred A. Newman (1851-1887) was a collector

of Anglo-Jewish books, pamphlets, and portraits. He died shortly before the

exhibition opened, but his collection was on display. The portraits and prints

from the Newman Collection are numbers 1121 a—1250 in Joseph Jacobs and

Lucien Wolf, Catalogue of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, 1887,

Royal Albert Hall (London: Office of the Jewish Chronicle, 1888).

44Built in 1700-1701, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue was built in a

style resembling the English Protestant meeting houses of the time.

45Jacobs and Wolf, Catalogue of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition,

page vii.

46The Israel Solomons Manuscript Collection (1601-1918), Box 2, Folder 2,

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Klau Library, Cincinnati,

Ohio (cited in Gilbert. "Anglo-Jewish Art Collectors," page 213). Part of the

Israel Solomons Collection is also at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New

York.

47Reuben Sassoon was one of the eight sons of David Sassoon, who

established a business of international scope in Bombay and was a great

philanthropist. Reuben Sassoon, who lived in London, was not much involved

in the family's business. He became prominent in the court circle of Edward VII

and was a traveling companion of the Prince of Wales (Encyclopaedia Judaica,

s.v. "Sassoon").

48Barnett, Catalogue of the Jewish Museum, London, page xiii.

"'Jewish Chronicle (London), 1 April 1887, page 12.

50Jewish Chronicle (London). 8 April 1887, pages 9-10.

5

' Hermann Adler (born in Hanover in 1839; died in London in 1911) served

as the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire.

He served at Bayswater from 1864 while continuing his affiliation with Jews

College (Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Adler, Hermann").

"Hermann Adler, "The Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition: A Discourse

Preached at the Bayswater Synagogue by the Rev. Dr. H. Adler, on the Seventh

Day of Passover, 5647 (April 15, 1887)," Jewish Chronicle. 22 April 1887,

page 9.

"Ibid.

54The story is recounted in Cohen, "Self-Image Through Objects," page 229.

"Cohen, "Self-Image Through Objects," page 230, notes the collection in the

Hamburg Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe and the acquisition of Jewish

artifacts from Alsace-Lorraine in the Strasbourg Museum.

56The Baron Carl von Rothschild Public Library was established in the

Rothschild Palais in 1894 by Hannah Louise von Rothschild. See Georg

Heuberger, "A New Start in an Old Tradition: The Aims and Composition of

the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt am Main," in Judisches Museum Frankfurt am

Main (Frankfurt am Main: Judisches Museum, 1988), pages 22-27.

"Kirschstein's description is cited in Joseph Gutmann, "The Kirschstein

Museum of Berlin,' 'JewishArt, volume 16/17 (1990-1991), pages 172-176.

SSH. Simon, Das Berliner Jiidische Museum in der Oranienburgerstrasse:

Geschichte einer zerstorten Kulturstdtte (Berlin: Berlin Jewish Museum,

1988), pages 13-14 (cited in Gutmann, "The Kirschstein Museum," page 176).

59Thc history of the Prague museum is discussed in Linda A. Altshuler and

Anna R. Cohn, "The Precious Legacy," in David Altshuler, ed.. The Precious

Legacy (New York: Summit Books, 1983), pages 19ff.

'"Elizabeth Cats, "Lesser Gieldzinski," in Vivian Mann, ed., Danzig 1939:

Treasures of a Destroyed Jewish Community (New York: Jewish Museum,

1980), pages 43-45.

6lJoy Ungerleider-Mayerson, "Preface," in Vivian Mann, ed., Danzig 1939:

Treasures of a Destroyed Jewish Community (New York: Jewish Museum,

1980), page 9.

62Cited in A. Werner, "Boris Schatz: Father of an Israeli Art," Herzl

Yearbook, volume 7 (1971), page 404.

63The history of Bezalel is discussed in Gideon Ofrat-Friedlander, "The

Periods of Bezalel: The 'Founding Years' (1903-1907)," in Nurit Shilo-Cohen,

ed., Bezalel, 1906-1929, translated by E. Cohen (Jerusalem: Israel Museum,

1983), pages 31-54.

MAdIer first traveled to Europe and the Near East in 1890-1991 on behalf of

the World's Columbian Exposition. In 1894 and 1898, Adler accompanied

Secretary Samuel Langley on trips to Europe. As described by Naomi W.

Cohen, he "seized the opportunity to meet with European intellectuals and sow

the seeds for lasting friendship" (Naomi W. Cohen, "Introduction," in Ira

Robinson, ed., Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication

Society, 1985), volume 1, page xxvii). Cohen also cites Adler's admiration for

what he termed a "cultural renascence" in England and his call in 1894 for

similar efforts in America. See also Adler's "A Jewish Renaissance,"American

Hebrew, volume 56 (1894), page 25.

"Because of his emphasis on ritual practice, Adler's focus did not parallel

the efforts of the organizers of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition to use

the historical record in order to demonstrate Jewish allegiance to England. The

American Jewish Historical Society, which Adler was instrumental in founding

in 1892, would address the "patriotic" issues through its collections.

66N.W. Cohen, "Introduction," page xxviii.

67It is possible that Cyrus Adler's work had an impact on the developments

in Europe. Documents in the Smithsonian Institution Archives record that

copies of United States National Museum publications were sent by the

Smithsonian to Max Grunwald (memorandum dated 21 February 1898) and to

the Gesellschaft fur Sammlung und Konservierung von Kunst und historischen

Denkmalern des Judentums in Vienna (memorandum dated 5 July 1899). The

Order for Publications indicates that it covered both publications on Oriental

antiquities already issued and future publications relating to this subject (SIA,

RU 201, Box 20, Folder 14). Adler also received copies of Griinwald's

Mitteilungen der Besellschaft fur jiidische Volkskunde, two issues of which,

dated 1898 and 1899, remained in the Judaica Reference Files and have now

been transferred to the Dibner Library at the National Museum of American

History.
2. The United States National Museum

The Smithsonian Institution was established as the result of

a bequest in 1829 to the United States from James Smithson, an

Englishman. The stipulation in his will, the meaning of which

would be subject to intense debate, was that the funds be

utilized for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among

men."1 Notification of the bequest to United States officials

was not forthcoming until 1835, and even then, because of legal

complications, the monies were not made available until 1838.

It took nearly another decade for Congress to decide among the

various proposals and legislate how the terms of the will should

be met. Former President John Quincy Adams, then serving as

a member of Congress from Massachusetts, led the effort

necessary even for the gift's acceptance. Adams, who had been

unsuccessful as President in his attempts to elicit support for

government sponsorship of cultural affairs, saw the Smithson

bequest as a unique opportunity to underwrite privately what

was not funded as a matter of public policy.2

In August 1846 an act was finally passed founding the

Smithsonian Institution. Congress mandated that a museum,

library, gallery of art, and lecture room be established.

Furthermore, the Smithsonian was designated as the repository

of the collection of "curiosities" that was owned by the

government. The governing body was to be a board of regents

composed of representatives from the three branches of

government, as well as a number of private citizens. The new

institution was to be administered by a secretary selected by the

regents.

Although the congressional act did not specifically provide

for the support of original research, the selection by the board

of regents of Joseph Henry (1797-1878) as the first secretary

suggests the expectation that the Smithsonian Institution was to

be a major research center. Henry, a pioneer in the study of

electromagnetism, aimed to establish the Smithsonian as an

institution that would advance the scientific character of the

nation through its research and publications. He adamantly

maintained that it was in the best interest of American science,

and indeed was crucial for the very well-being of the nation,

that the Smithson monies not be squandered on "bricks and

mortar" or other projects that would not increase knowledge.3

In September of 1846, just a month after the congressional

vote, Henry was asked for his opinion on the meaning of the

Smithson bequest, and he responded as follows:

There are at this time thousands of institutions actively engaged in the diffusion

of knowledge in our country, but not a single one which gives direct support to

its increase. Knowledge such as that contemplated by the testator can only be

increased by original research which requires patient thought and laborious and

often expensive experiments. There is no civilized country in the world in

which less encouragement is given than in our own to original investigations

and consequently no country of the same means has done and is doing so little

in this line.4

Once he became secretary, Henry delineated his cultural model

in the "Programme of Organization of the Smithsonian

Institution," which he reprinted in each annual report during his

administration.5 The board of regents approved most of the

plan in December 1847. However, Henry's approach was

opposed by Charles Coffin Jewett (1816-1868), an innovative

librarian, whom Congress appointed his deputy in 1847.

Jewett's aim was to focus on the "diffusion" provision of

Smithson's bequest by establishing a national library.

Henry tried assiduously to avoid establishing a museum. It

was not that he was against objects per se. Henry was sensitive

to what could be learned through observation: "It is in the study

of objects, considered trivial and unworthy of notice by the

casual observer, that genius finds the most important and

interesting phenomena."6 However, he opposed museum

collections that were not formed specifically for the "increase

of knowledge." Still, the board of regents prevailed upon him to

develop a museum and permitted him to select an assistant

secretary to manage it. In July 1850 Henry chose Spencer

Fullerton Baird (1823-1887), a naturalist, to fill the position.

From Henry's perspective, a scientist such as Baird was the

best possible choice. At least Baird's collecting activities were

acceptable in Henry's estimation, though his methodology was

"descriptive, taxonomic, systematic investigation," as opposed

to the analytic, theoretical research that characterized Henry's

own work.7 Although Henry's post as secretary enabled him to

continue to promote his own views, the appointment of Baird,

a professional scientist, to the post of director marked the first

step in striking a compromise between professional science and

popular education.

This compromise was to become the hallmark of American

museums.8 Because of the philosophy that any hard-working

individual could "make it" in America, support for public

education grew. Also, the new nation had reached the stage of

heightened awareness of the importance of historical study and

preservation, which had an impact on the museum world.

Moreover, the museum as a vehicle of popular education was

promoted by the phenomenon of international expositions, the

first of which was held at the Crystal Palace in London in 1851.

Such expositions represented a monumental prototype for

institutions that would illustrate the great advancements of

modernity (made possible through scientific study) and make

them accessible to all.9

In the next two decades, three factors convinced even Joseph

17
18 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Henry that popular education also should become a priority of

the Smithsonian. The first was a protracted struggle with

Jewett, finally resolved in 1855 by the dismissal of Jewett after

a bitter public battle, which even entailed investigations by

both houses of Congress. In 1866 the major part of the

Smithsonian's library holdings were transferred to the Library

of Congress. Baird, who had initially been an informal

supporter of Jewett, reverted to Henry's camp. In order to

assure his continued allegiance, Henry made a deal with Baird

that he could begin to work toward building a major museum.

The second factor was the transfer to the Smithsonian of the

Patent Office collections in 1857. A $4,000 annual government

appropriation was to support the care of the objects. Though

Henry had no choice but to accept the decision, he continued to

push for more adequate funding, both to ensure the preservation of the enormous collection and to ensure public access to

the materials through exhibitions. Because Henry equated the

forms of display common at the time with garishness, which he

felt would diminish the dignity of the Smithsonian, he relied on

Baird's expertise in developing exhibitions that would be

educational. As a result, the Smithsonian moved ever further

toward becoming a research-oriented museum.

The Civil War was another cause of change. During the war

years great numbers of visitors, both civilians and soldiers,

passed through Washington, and many came to see the

museum. This had a great impact on Henry, who came to the

realization that the museum could indeed be a tremendous

educational resource. In the 1865 annual report he wrote that

museums were "'of great importance as a means of intellectual

improvement, of rational enjoyment, and as receptacles of

interesting materials for the use of the student in any branch of

learning."10 By 1870 Henry had made a complete about-face.

Now he considered popular education to be the cultural

imperative of the nation, and he revised his original cultural

model for the Smithsonian so that scientific investigation and

public education would be coequal.

In the years following the Civil War, the role of the

Smithsonian as a resource grew as Washington became an

intellectual center of consequence and the government was

increasingly a major force in the scientific field. During this

time, a great diversity of forums for discussion emerged,

including the philosophical, literary, anthropological, and

biological societies of Washington."

The post-Civil War era found the United States at a spiritual

crossroads. Technology and the progress it wrought created a

paradox. The technological advances of the first half of the

nineteenth century had profoundly influenced the emerging

nation and were the catalyst for tremendous growth and

westward expansion. After the Civil War, there was to be a

further dramatic change in American society as a result of

industrialization. In the process, there developed a sense that

civilization was no longer the master of its own works. To meet

the demand for labor, great numbers of people from rural areas

flocked to the cities. In addition, there were now large numbers

of immigrants arriving, which contributed to overcrowded

conditions in the rapidly growing urban centers. There was a

growing disparity between the rich and the poor, and discontent

led to the demand for reform. In this time of uncertainty, there

were those who saw the potential for museums, along with

public schools, to play an important role in the education and

socialization of the masses, a role that had moral and political

implications.

It was in this environment that the United States National

Museum embarked on an era of growth that would long shape

its development. Despite his acceptance of the role of a national

museum, Joseph Henry was never sanguine about the Smithsonian serving in that capacity. Even in his final annual report

in 1877 Henry wrote, "The functions of the Institution and the

Museum are entirely different The support of such an

establishment [a museum] must, of necessity, be derived from

Congress and no part of the income of the Smithson fund

should be devoted to this purpose."12 However, Henry was

never able to realize his goal of separating the United States

National Museum from the Smithsonian Institution.

Spencer F. Baird was appointed secretary in 1878, after

Henry's death. Many changes had already been instituted since

1850, when Baird had become assistant secretary in charge of

publications and the museum. No longer constrained by Henry,

Baird was now free to promote his own agenda, which

emphasized popular education by making the collections more

accessible to the public. During his tenure as secretary, it was

necessary for Baird to devote the majority of his efforts to

administrative management, for he wanted to keep operational

matters under his personal supervision. He had little time for

his own research.

Fortunately, Baird had capable assistants as directors of two

of the major facets of the Smithsonian. Under the enterprising

and imaginative guidance of George Brown Goode, the United

States National Museum achieved new stature. In addition, a

new allied entity, the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE),

came under the aegis of the Smithsonian Institution in 1879.

The BAE was the agency established to be responsible for all of

the anthropological work of the four major surveys of the

trans-Mississippi region. Though the surveys had already been

consolidated into one bureau, the United States Geological

Survey, which was administered by the Department of the

Interior, the BAE was created to avoid the problem of political

pressures influencing scientific investigation. Major John

Wesley Powell, who conducted one of the surveys, was

appointed director of the BAE.13

George Brown Goode: Theoretician for Change

The theoretician—the conceptual model-maker—of a new,

holistic philosophy that would indeed lay the foundations for

the Smithsonian as it exists today was George Brown Goode.

Largely because of his inspiration, the Smithsonian assumed a

leadership role at a time of great museum expansion in the
NUMBER 52

19

FIGURE 6.—George Brown Goode. (Smithsonian Institution Archives)

United States. The evolution in museums in this period is

linked to what has been termed the American Renaissance,

which flowered in the late nineteenth century and is apparent in

the creation and advancement of other public institutions, such

as libraries, universities, and orchestras, and in the numerous

commemorative monuments, industrial fairs, and expositions

that celebrated America's progress.14 This movement reflects a

postbellum intensification of nationalism and the need to

reunite the war-divided country. Goode believed that museums

could play a major role in the education and enlightenment of

the general public.

George Brown Goode (1851-1896) was the scion of a

family of old-stock Virginians and New Englanders. Goode

was tutored at home and then entered Wesleyan College at age

fifteen. After graduating in 1870 he studied briefly under Louis

Agassiz at Harvard at the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
20 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

When he initially came to Washington, Goode was involved

with the United States Fish Commission. In 1871 he began

working at the Smithsonian as a volunteer and almost

immediately became the protege of Spencer F. Baird.15

In 1875 Baird asked Goode to take responsibility for the

organization of the zoological display at the Centennial

Exposition in Philadelphia. Baird's plan was to acquire as

many specimens as possible from the fair in order to have

leverage to pressure Congress for monies for a new building for

the National Museum. Baird's plan was successful, and some

48 freight cars of objects came to Washington after the

Centennial.16 In 1878 Congress authorized funds for a

"fire-proof' building for the use of the National Museum.

When Baird became secretary, Goode was appointed assistant

secretary of the museum and took over the day-to-day tasks of

overseeing the collections.

Also at this juncture, an act of Congress in June of 1880

clarified and bolstered the relationship between the "increase of

knowledge," as represented by research, and the "diffusion of

knowledge," as manifested in museum exhibitions, publications, and public programs. It was legislated that the material

findings related to research should be saved.

All collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history,

archaeology, and ethnology, made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the

Geological Survey, or by any other parties for the government of the United

States, when no longer needed for investigations in progress, shall be deposited

in the National Museum."

These "treasures" were to be preserved in perpetuity and the

collections maintained properly in order "to render them of the

highest service to research and education."18 Thus the

Smithsonian became known as both the "nation's attic" and as

a significant source of technical expertise in a wide range of

fields.

During the time the museum building was under construction, Goode was sent to Berlin to represent the United States at

the Berlin Fisheries Exhibition of 1880. While in Europe,

Goode investigated the museums of Germany as well as those

of other countries and returned to the United States with

information about the most current methods of exhibition

installation, labeling, and storage.19

It is significant that Goode emphasized European models, for

from the perspective of the Smithsonian, as represented by

Goode, there had been no museums in the colonial period and

there was really no museum movement in America.20 In fact,

however, as early as 1740 the Library Company of Philadelphia

had begun to collect objects. Yet Goode identified Charles

Wilson Peale's museum, which opened in Philadelphia in

1785, as being the first American public museum. Goode was

not familiar with primary sources on early museum efforts, and

he criticized those early museums en bloc as being merely

"cabinets of curiosities." In Goode's estimation, serious

museum work did not begin until the Civil War era. This led

him to write:

The Museum-idea is much broader than it was fifty or even twenty-five years

ago. The museum of today is no longer a chance assemblage of curiosities, but

rather a series of objects selected with reference to their value to investigators,

or their possibilities for public enlightenment. The museum of the future may

be made one of the chief agencies of higher civilization.21

In his first official report as assistant director, which coincided

with the 1881 opening of the Arts and Industries Building to

house the museum, Goode outlined a new kind of National

Museum. According to Goode, the three aspects of the museum

were: "Museums for Record, Research and for Education.

These three, cooperative and mutually helpful as they are, are

essential to the development of any comprehensive and

philosophically organized Museum."22

He articulated his new theory in the context of the evolution

of the National Museum since the inception of the Smithsonian

in 1847. He divided the history of the museum into three

periods:

1847-1857 Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry and Scientific Research ... during which time specimens were collected purely

and solely to serve as materials for research, no special efforts being made to

exhibit them to the public except as a foundation for scientific description and

theory.

1857-1876 Museum of Record and Research... from 1857 when the

Institution assumed the custody of the "National Cabinet of Curiosities," (and

the Patent Office Collection) to 1876. During this period the Museum became

a place of deposit for scientific material, which had already been studied, this

material, so far as convenient, being exhibited to the public, and so far as

practicable, made to serve an educational purpose.

Since 1876 Growth of Idea of Popular Education ... in which interval the

Museum has entered upon a career of active work, in gathering collections and

exhibiting them on account of their educational value.23

The two driving forces of Goode's philosophy were a firm

belief in the lightness of scientific method and the sense that the

museum's mission was to serve as a vehicle for the

enlightenment and education of the masses. The concern was to

find ways to use the collections to "influence, inspire, refine,

awe and instruct their visitors."24

A treatise on this philosophy was delivered by Goode in a

lecture entitled "The Museums of the Future" at the Brooklyn

Institute on 28 February 1889. Goode argued for the

importance of the study of objects for learning:

In this busy, critical, and skeptical age, each man is seeking to know all things,

and life is too short for many words. The eye is used more and more, the ear less

and less, and in the use of the eye, descriptive writing is set aside for pictures,

and pictures in their turn are replaced by actual objects. In the school-room the

diagram, the blackboard and the object-lesson, unknown thirty years ago, are

universally employed.... The local fair of old has grown into the great

exposition, often international and always under some governmental patronage,

and thousands of such have taken place within forty years, from Japan to

Tasmania, and from Norway to Brazil.

Goode further expressed the educational role of museums:

The museum of the future must stand side by side with the library and the

laboratory, as a part of the teaching equipment of the college and university, and

in the great cities co-operate with the public library as one of the principal

agencies for the enlightenment of the people.25

The people's museum should be much more than a house full of specimens
NUMBER 52 21

in glass cases. It should be a house full of ideas, arranged with the strictest

attention to system.

1 once tried to express this thought by saying "An efficient educational

museum may be described as a collection of instructive labels, each illustrated

by a well-selected specimen."

The museum, let me add, should be more than a collection of specimens well

arranged and well labeled. Like the library, it should be under the constant

supervision of one or more men well informed, scholarly and withal practical,

and fitted by tastes and training to aid in the educational work.26

In his report on the museums of the future, Goode also set out

an organizational plan based on a philosophical system of

classification that encompassed as broad a range of topics as

could be compiled at that point in time. The United States

National Museum, in Goode's view, was to be a museum of

cultural history as well as natural history and should include

topics in history, anthropology, and art as well as geology,

botany, and zoology.27

Goode was also very aware of the influence of cultural

politics in the shaping of cultural models. Another of his

addresses, "Origin of the National Scientific and Educational

Institutions of the United States," presented at a meeting of the

American Historical Association, discussed the political dimensions of developing these organizations as well as their

formal origins. He acknowledged the element of political savvy

on the part of those promoting particular types of organizations

that would make it possible for them to achieve their cultural

goals. He also emphasized that government sponsorship was

more effective than informal advocacy by voluntary associations or individual citizens. Goode recognized that people were

looking to the government—and in this instance to the United

States National Museum, as the government's representative—

for leadership.

In 1885 Goode assumed the position of director of the

museum. Sadly, this brilliant, multitalented man was to die at

age 45 in 1896. Nonetheless, his innovative methods had left

their mark. As reported in the 50th-anniversary volume of the

Smithsonian, his goal of educating the populace at large

through the cultural model he had conceived had become the

official mission of the museum:

By the arrangement of its collections, by its labels, its hand-books and other

publications, and its lectures, [its goal is] to impart instruction of a definite

character and in definite lines. It assembles great collections of natural objects

and treasures of art not merely to satisfy idle curiosity, but to diffuse knowledge

among men. Thus it allies itself to the university and the library and must be

counted among the chief agencies for the spread of culture.28

Otis T. Mason: Introducing Cultural History to the USNM

The first official curator of anthropology at the United States

National Museum was Otis T. Mason (1838-1908), who came

to Washington in 1856 to study at Columbian (now George

Washington) University.29 At the university, under the tutelage

of its president, the Reverend George W. Samson, Mason

concentrated his studies on the cultural history of the peoples of

the eastern Mediterranean. A gifted teacher, Mason stayed on at

Columbian as the principal of the preparatory department of the

college, a position he held for 23 years, during which time he

also earned a Ph.D. The enthusiasm Mason was to express for

Cyrus Adler's offer to form a collection of casts of Near Eastern

antiquities for the National Museum was prompted by his

professional interest in broadening the scope of the museum's

holdings in cultural history and his involvement in the study of

Oriental antiquities when he was a university student.

Interestingly enough, Mason's own association with the

Smithsonian also began with a chance encounter. As Mason

would recount, one day in the early 1870s he arrived at the

museum to examine some Semitic inscriptions. Mason was

warmly welcomed by Spencer F. Baird, who indicated that

these items had "waited for him'' for six months. They were

joined by Secretary Henry, and Mason proceeded to interpret

the inscriptions as best he could. When he was done and about

to leave, Baird made what was to Mason a rather astonishing

recommendation:

Now I want you to give all this up. If you devote your life to such a subject as

this, you will have to take the leavings of European workers. It will not be

possible for you here in America to obtain the material for important

researches; but—I give you the two Americas!

Mason reported that he was "born again that day" and described

his critical meeting with Baird as having "opened the Western

Hemisphere to my mind and changed the current of my life."30

In 1872 Mason joined the corps of "resident collaborators,"

his term for museum volunteers. For 12 years he spent every

spare moment studying the ethnology collections at the

museum. With Baird as his mentor, Mason became the

Smithsonian's anthropology expert.

The anthropologists at the Smithsonian felt they had to take

on the essential task of reclaiming the past as a step in shaping

the future. Otis T. Mason explained in 1883 that the

anthropologist was involved in "vital affairs" as a participant in

the universal quest for the "secrets of man's origin, progress

and destiny."31 Their approach was a type of evolutionary

anthropology. The organization of exhibits stressed developmental progress, demonstrating a particular aspect of human

activity from the most primitive to the most advanced. As

described by Goode, "the series should begin with the simplest

types and close with the most perfect and elaborate objects of

the same class which human effort has produced."32

However, for Mason, and for Goode as well, their scientific

investigation was definitely linked to God's hand in the world.

Man, through the unfolding of his own intellectual powers, was

slowly but surely "approaching a God-like destiny."33 In

writing about cultural history, Mason waxed eloquent about

progress in the nineteenth century as a "series of ever perfecting

thoughts," which were moving closer to a condition approaching "most nearly to the mind and life of the Creator."34

Thus, Darwinism may have had an impact on the study of the

natural sciences at the Smithsonian, and even on taxonomy in

natural history, but not on their religious sensibilities. As
22

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

'.?/, . 'i' •

F %

FIGURE 7.—Otis T. Mason. (Smithsonian Institution Archives)

Mason described his concept of the unfolding of culture, the

process was not chaotic at all but rather slowly worked out by

people with the guidance of "some pilot with his hand upon the

helm in the industrial history of the globe... steering toward a

light with which he was perfectly familiar."35 Though the "age

of science" was a time of religious questioning, the early

anthropologists at the Smithsonian were not scientific explorers; rather, they were classifiers. "By displaying order in the

tangible works of man through all ages and places, they would

confirm cosmic purpose.... [They] sought to contain the world

within walls and categories; they sought old verities, not new

truths."36
NUMBER 52 23

Mason focused his efforts on preparing a catalog of the

collections. His scheme for museum classification was derived

from the system of Gustav Klemm at the Museum of Ethnology

in Leipzig. Introducing this methodology marked the United

States National Museum's formal introduction to the field of

cultural history.37 Later in life, Mason would point to the

importance of using "acceptable terminology" in an attempt to

insure scientific respectability for the ethnologists.38

Ultimately, in organizing the Bureau of Ethnology and

structuring its studies on Native Americans, Mason and Goode

decided to combine two systems of classification in order to

address the issues of both classification by evolutionary

development and comparative analysis. Objects were classified

by developmental association and function alike. At Baird's

request, Mason developed an exhibition of the collections when

the new museum building opened in 1881. Goode determined

that the exhibit cases should be mounted on casters, so that the

actual display could be maneuvered about as needed in order to

focus on one or the other system.39

In 1884 Mason assumed the position of curator of the

Division of Ethnology. Though he had been working at the

museum as a volunteer for over a decade, it was not until he

became curator that he had an overview of the general status of

the heterogeneous collections that composed the division. He

set out to organize the disparate materials. Drawing upon his

own experience, he enlisted the aid of volunteers. Among those

who joined the staff of the museum as honorary curators were

collectors and others who were assigned or invited to organize

collections about which they had a particular knowledge. One

of those specialists was Cyrus Adler.

In 1889 Mason traveled to Europe for three months. He

visited museums in Germany, France, Denmark, and Holland

to study anthropology collections and museum methods. He

also attended the International Congress of Anthropology and

Prehistoric Archaeology and went to the 1889 Exposition

Universelle in Paris. For Mason, the experience was a

revelation. He was profoundly impressed by developments in

European museums. As he wrote to his wife: "How my heart

rejoices when I see the men whose thoughts have moved the

world. I ought to have taken this trip thirty years ago. My

intellectual life has been in a bag."40 Mason returned to his

work at the Smithsonian with renewed vigor and sought to

implement aspects of the European models in his future work.

He was immensely influenced by the "models of habitation"

presented at the Paris Exposition. The popular success of this

anthropological presentation had a lasting effect on Mason's

thought. One of the major changes in his approach was

replacing cabinets of comparative material with ethnic "lifegroups."41

 Mason's first major task when he returned was the

planning for the World's Columbian Exhibition, which would

consume his time for the next three years.

It is noteworthy that his return coincided with Cyrus Adler's

interest in developing a department focusing on comparative

religion. Mason's experience visiting museums with similar

collections in Europe helped make him a supporter of Adler's

efforts. Moreover, the dual methodology decided upon by

Goode and Mason with regard to the material in the BAE laid

the groundwork for the department that would eventually be

organized by Cyrus Adler. A comparative system was worked

out, so that items representing similar aspects of ceremony

from different religions were to be collected and were to be

displayed in that fashion. However, there was a very clear

understanding that this collection was only about "historic"

religions and did not include "prehistoric cults" or the

ceremonial objects of "semicivilized or barbarous tribes." In

later publications describing the collection, Adler, stressing his

own cultural politics, explained that within the "historic"

religions, it was determined that the three religions to be given

attention were Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism,

"in order of their respective establishments."42 He explained

the decision to focus on "nations inhabiting the Mediterranean

basin" by saying it was there that the "seat of civilization of the

modern western world" was found.43

Samuel Pierpont Langley: Steward for the New Era

Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906) was an astronomer,

physicist, and aviation pioneer who became secretary of the

Smithsonian in 1887.44 He was a descendant of a family that

had come to Massachusetts in the early part of the seventeenth

century. Langley did not attend college but trained as a civil

engineer, and for some years he worked in Chicago and St.

Louis. In 1864 he embarked with his brother on a European

tour for more than a year. When he returned to Boston, he

briefly worked as an assistant to Joseph Winlock at the Harvard

College Observatory. In 1866 Langley took a position as

assistant professor of mathematics at the U.S. Naval Academy

at Annapolis, but his primary duty was reorganizing the

observatory. The following year Langley joined the faculty of

the Western University of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh. During

his 20-year tenure there, he served as professor of astronomy

and physics and was director of the Allegheny Observatory.

Langley was recruited by Spencer Baird to join the Smithsonian staff as assistant secretary in charge of the library and

exchanges. In offering the position, Baird had apparently

established the tacit understanding that Langley would become

his successor.45 Upon Baird's death, in 1887, Langley was

designated secretary.

Langley was interested in continuing his own scientific

work, and this was made possible by the establishment of the

Astrophysical Observatory under the direction of the Smithsonian. Langley was very much involved in the administrative

work of the Institution, but he was a very reticent public

speaker and liked to avoid involvement with any committees.

Moreover, for several years, following the deaths of George

Brown Goode and Winlock Crawford Winlock (Joseph

Winlock's son and an astronomer who was one of Langley's

principal assistants at the Astrophysical Observatory), Langley
24

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

FIGURE 8.—Samuel P. Langley. (Smithsonian Institution Archives)

was depressed and unable to do much research. He did resume

his astrophysical work in 1898 and continued efforts to build a

flying machine large enough for a pilot. The failure of his

experimental prototype in 1903 was another serious setback for

him, though he persisted in believing that the future of aerial

navigation lay in the airplane.

Cyrus Adler was appointed librarian of the Smithsonian by

Langley in 1892. Adler became Langley's confidant, and the

secretary depended upon him, even inviting Adler to accompany him on his daily drives. Adler drafted many of the

secretary's letters and represented him in dealings with many

other members of the museum staff.46 Adler was even asked to
NUMBER 52

25

FIGURE 9.—Langley and the aerodrome experiment. (Smithsonian Institution Archives)

be Langley's spokesman at times, making appearances before

the congressional committee in charge of appropriations for the

museum.47

Because of his close personal relationship with Langley,

Cyrus Adler became involved with many projects at the

museum that were well beyond the scope of his official position

as librarian and curator. These activities included, for example,

corresponding with Frederick Law Olmsted about designing

the layout of the National Zoological Garden in 1890;

arranging for Alexander Graham Bell to lecture at the museum

in 1903; suggesting possible images for a medal in honor of the

1906 Benjamin Franklin Celebration; chairing the committee to

reorganize the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1903; creating

an official seal for the Smithsonian Institution; and representing Langley at a meeting at the White House with President

Theodore Roosevelt about accepting the gift of the Freer

Collection for the nation in 1905.48

Beginning in 1902 Adler began dividing his time between

the Smithsonian and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New

York. As part of the plan to reorganize the seminary, Adler

agreed that he would become president of the board of trustees,

in effect the executive administrator, if he could arrange to

maintain his "scientific connection with the National Museum."49

 Secretary Langley not only agreed to the plan but also

still had so much confidence in Adler that he would later

appoint him to the position of assistant secretary.50 When

Langley died, in 1906, it was clear to Adler that under the new

secretary, Charles D. Walcott, he would not continue to play a

substantial role in museum affairs.51 Adler took the next

possible opportunity to move on, and in 1908 he became the

founding president of Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate

Learning in Philadelphia.
26 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Adler was, of course, very cordial in his leave-taking, which

kept the door open for him to be a voice of authority in matters

pertaining to the Judaica collection. In his letter of resignation

Adler wrote:

It is hard for me to break off a connection which in one way or another has

existed for more than twenty years: and I wish to assure you and my friends here

of my deep appreciation of the kindness and consideration which have been

accorded me, beginning as I did in a very minor capacity and coming to hold an

office for which I have the highest respect and which I believe to be far beyond

my deserts.52

Museum officials would continue to seek Adler's advice on

issues related to the Judaica collection, but nothing else, until

the late 1920s.

Notes

'The early history of the Smithsonian is detailed in a number of sources, the

primary source being the official 50th-anniversary volume. See Goode,

Smithsonian Institution, 1846-1896: The History of the First Half Century.

Among other sources, the early ideological struggles are discussed in Wilcomb

E. Washburn, "Joseph Henry's Conception of the Purpose of the Smithsonian

Institution," in Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., et al., A Cabinet of Curiosities: Five

Episodes in the Evolution of American Museums (Charlottesville: University

Press of Virginia, 1967), pages 106-166. An analysis of the Smithsonian

Institution in the context of other American museums is found in Joel J. Orosz,

Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740-1870

(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990).

2Washbum, "Joseph Henry's Conception of the Purpose of the Smithsonian

Institution," page 107.

3

Ibid., page 117.

4Quoted from a letter to Alexander Dallas Bache, a friend of Henry's and a

Smithsonian regent, in Washburn, "Joseph Henry's Conception of the Purpose

of the Smithsonian Institution," page 109.

5

Ibid., page 108.

6

From Joseph Henry's Annual Report for 1853, page 229 (cited in

Washburn, "Joseph Henry's Conception of the Purpose of the Smithsonian

Institution," page 133).

'Washburn, "Joseph Henry's Conception of the Purpose of the Smithsonian

Institution," pages 146-147.

8

In his chapter "The American Compromise, 1850-1870: The Synthesis of

Popular Education and Professionalism." Orosz details what was to become the

characteristic cultural model for museums in the United States and discusses the

Smithsonian Institution as a prime example of this methodology (Orosz,

Curators and Culture, pages 201-212).

9The expositions brought together examples of cultures from around the

world, thus both introducing European (and later American) audiences to and

reinforcing the notion of the supremacy of "advanced" peoples.

'"Joseph Henry's Annual Report for 1865. page 60 (cited in Orosz, Curators

and Culture, page 209).

1

 'Curtis M. Hinsley, Jr., Savages and Scientists: The Smithsonian Institution

and the Development of American Anthropology, 1846-1910 (Washington,

D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), page 262.

l2Cited in Washburn, "Joseph Henry's Conception of the Purpose of the

Smithsonian Institution," pages 143-144.

13E.F. Rivinus and E.M. Youssef, Spencer Baird of the Smithsonian

(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), pages 130-131.

14This theme is explored, for example, in the 1979 Brooklyn Museum

exhibition The American Renaissance: 1876-1917.

l5Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, "History in a Natural History Museum: George

Brown Goode and the Smithsonian Institution," The Public Historian, volume

10, number 2 (spring 1988), pages 7-26. See also Hinsley, Savages and

Scientists, pages 92-94. A chapter is devoted to Goode in Edward P.

Alexander, Museum Masters: Their Museums and Their Influence (Nashville:

American Association for State and Local History, 1983), pages 282-309.

''Alexander, Museum Masters, page 8. Joseph Henry, of course, saw this

very differently. He considered the new acquisitions as creating a crisis for the

Smithsonian and as an indication of why the United States National Museum

and the Smithsonian Institution should become two separate entities (Washburn, "Joseph Henry's Conception of the Purpose of the Smithsonian

Institution," page 144).

"The Act of June 30, 1880 of the Statutes, United States Forty-Fifth

Congress, third session, chapter 182, page 394 (cited in Goode, The

Smithsonian Institution, page 334).

l8Goode, The Smithsonian Institution, page 335.

"Goode, The Smithsonian Institution, page 330. Twenty-five years later,

European museums were still seen as important models for the Smithsonian. As

plans were underway for the new museum building, William Henry Holmes

conducted a very thorough survey of European museums. Holmes visited 53

museums and extensively documented his findings as to exhibition spaces, the

construction and grouping of cases, the interior arrangement of artifacts in the

cases, and lighting. Holmes made drawings, included vintage postcards of

museum installations, and even included a sample of wall covering from the

Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin with the report. In addition to the technical

information, Holmes included a lengthy list of objects of which casts might be

obtained in exchange. A report on the museum of Leiden, Holland, was

prepared by S. Miller, Jr. See SIA, RU 55, Box 15, "Report of Studies of

European Museums, 1904 William Henry Holmes."

20Orosz surveys the early history of museums in America in Curators and

Culture. See also: W.T. Alderson, ed., Mermaids, Mummies and Mastodons:

The Emergence of the American Museum (Washington, D.C.: American

Association of Museums, 1992); W.J. Bell, Jr., et al., A Cabinet of Curiosities:

Five Episodes in the Evolution of American Museums (Charlottesville:

University Press of Virginia, 1967); and Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig,

eds., History Museums in the United States: A Critical Assessment (Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 1989).

2

'Goode, cited in Orosz, Curators and Culture, page 241. In his prologue,

Orosz makes the point that, ironically, two very different critiques have been

expressed about the early efforts to establish museums in America: they were

seen either as popular "sideshows" or as elitist enclaves. According to Orosz,

the historical record demonstrates that these museums, most of which were

owned by single proprietors, were neither. What is significant is the pervading

concept of the role of museums. The founders of these early museums had a

common goal: They viewed their collections and installations as being cultural

centers. The cultural model they developed was shaped by their cultural

politics—the perceived need for the intellectual and moral improvement of the

visiting public. Moreover, they were developed "by Americans, in response to

American cultural needs, and developed according to the imperatives of the

changing American culture" (Orosz, Curators and Culture, page 9).

22Goode's detailed description of the museum as an educational institution is

summarized in his Report of the Assistant Director of the United States

National Museum for the Year 1881 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government

Printing Office, 1882), pages 81-98.

23Ibid., page 81. For a history of the development of the philosophy of the

Smithsonian, see the chapter "The American Compromise, 1850-1870: The

Synthesis of Popular Education and Professionalism," in Orosz, Curators and

Culture, pages 180-237.

24Neil Harris, "A Century of Debate," J. Paul Getty Trust Bulletin, volume

5, number 2 (spring/summer 1990), page 3.

2sGoode, "The Museums of the Future," page 427.

26Ibid., pages 433ff.

27Goode categorized religion under the rubric "intellectual occupation of

man." It is clear, simply by virtue of the placement of religion in Goode's

classification scheme, that the presentation of religion too was to be made

through a scientific approach.

28Goode, Smithsonian Institution, page 335.
NUMBER 52 27

MA necrology for Otis Tufton Mason was published in the American

Anthropologist, volume 10, number 4 (October-December 1908), and can be

found in SIA, RU 7098, "Biographical Information File," Box 12. See also

Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, pages 84-91.

30T.D.A. Cockerell, "Spencer Fullerton Baird," Popular Science Monthly,

volume 68 (1906), pages 79-80 (cited in Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page

85, and in Rivinus and Youssef, Spencer Baird of the Smithsonian, page 188).

3lOtis T. Mason, "What Is Anthropology?" (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian

Saturday Lectures, 1883), page 5 (cited in Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page

84). In a similar vein, in a letter to the editor of the Jewish Messenger dated 4

March 1894, Cyrus Adler wrote on his approach to historical Judaism in the

modern world, "The true prophet has ever been the one who saw the future

through the light of the past" (cited in Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters.

volume 1, page 62).

32United States National Museum Annual Report for 1884, page 54 (cited in

Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page 94).

33Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page 92.

34O.T. Mason, "Culture History," manuscript in the National Anthropology

Archives, unnumbered (cited in Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page 89).

35O.T. Mason, "Culture History" (cited in Hinsley, Savages and Scientists.

page 91).

!6Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page 84.

"Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page 87. Mason wrote an article on the

influence of Klemm's theory, "The Educational Aspect of the United States

National Museum," Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and

Political Science (1890), pages 505-519 (cited in Hinsley, Savages and

Scientists, page 119, note 33).

38A different cultural model was expressed by Franz Boas. Whereas Mason

stressed system and unity. Boas was already projecting an approach that

emphasized cultural relativism and pluralism (Hinsley, Savages and Scientists.

page 100).

39Kohlstedt, "History in a Natural History Museum," pages 13-14.

40Mason's reports of his trip are found in SIA, "Letters from Europe. Written

by O.T Mason to Dr. Goode and the Mason Family, July 17-October 7 1889"

(cited in Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page 109), and SIA, RU 158,

"Curator's Annual Reports," Box 3.

4

'Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page 100.

42Cyrus Adler and I.M. Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial

Objects in the United States National Museum," Proceedings of the United

States National Museum, volume 34, number 1630 (1908), pages 701-746.

43Cyrus Adler, "Museum Collections to Illustrate Religious History and

Ceremonials," United States National Museum Annual Report for 1892-1893

(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), page 761.

44A necrology of Samuel Pierpont Langley was written by Cyrus Adler. It

was read before the Philosophical Society of Washington on 24 November

1906 and published in the Bulletin of the society (volume 15, pages 1-26). It

is reprinted in Cyrus Adler, Lectures. Selected Papers, Addresses by Cyrus

Adler (Philadelphia, 1933), pages 1-26. This volume was compiled by Adler's

colleagues in honor of his seventieth birthday. Grossman is grateful to Cyrus

Adler's daughter, Sally Adler Wolfinsohn, for the loan of her personal copy.

45Rivinus and Youssef, Spencer Baird of the Smithsonian, page 181.

46S1A, RU 31 ."Office of the Secretary, 1891-1906, Incoming Correspondence."

"Interview with Sally Adler Wolfinsohn, December 1991. The close

relationship between Langley and Adler was described by his daughter. Mrs.

Wolfinsohn quipped that it was in this way that her father learned to ask for

money, something he continued throughout his entire career. But those political

contacts were also important to him for lobbying for the interests and needs of

the Jewish community in the United States and abroad. Adler's interest in

politics is also reflected in his article, "Jews in the Diplomatic Correspondence

of the United States," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society,

volume 15(1906), pages 1-117.

48Bell: SIA, RU 31, Box 3; Olmsted: SIA, RU 31, Box 3. Folder 4; Franklin:

SIA, RU 55, "Assistant Secretary in Charge of the Museum (Richard Rathbun),

1897-1918," Box 1, Folder 2; BAE: SIA, RU 31, Box 3 (cited in Hinsley,

Savages and Scientists, pages 265ff); seal: undated memorandum. SIA, RU 31,

Box 3, Folder 4; Freer: SIA, RU 31, and RU 55, Box 1. Folder 5.

49Adler's terms are outlined in a letter to Adolphus Simeon Solomons, who

was the acting president of the Jewish Theological Seminary Board of Trustees

(cited in Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 87).

50Letters from Adler dated 18 June 1901 and 8 January 1902 regarding his

proposal plan are in SIA, RU 31, Box 3. The January letter is also cited in

Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, pages 96-99.

5lAccording to Adler's daughter, it was her father's sense of his diminished

position in the new administration that was the motivation for him to leave the

Smithsonian.

52Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 145. On 1

October 1908 Adler wrote to Secretary Charles D. Walcott to notify him

formally that his impending duties in Philadelphia would necessitate his

leaving the Smithsonian. Walcott, a geologist, was formerly the director of the

U.S. Geological Survey and had succeeded Goode as director of the United

States National Museum in 1897.
3. Cyrus Adler, Activist Scholar

Cyrus Adler was born in Van Buren, Arkansas, in 1863. His

experience in the South was short-lived, however; his father,

Samuel Adler, passed away in 1867, and his mother, Sarah

Sulzberger Adler, relocated with her three young children to

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to live with her brother, David

Sulzberger.1 Thus the young Adler was brought into the sphere

of influence of the very active German Jewish elite. Adler's

family were members of the venerable Mikveh Israel Congregation, one of the oldest in the United States. Mikveh Israel,

established as a Sephardic synagogue by early Jewish

immigrants to America, represented a link to the most

cultivated and aristocratic stratum of American Jews.2 The

Reverend Sabato Morais, rabbi of Mikveh Israel, was to be a

major influence in Cyrus Adler's life, and he played a decisive

role in shaping Adler's lifelong traditionally observant practice

of Judaism.3

Adler attended elementary school at the Hebrew Education

Society,4 where the curriculum included both secular and

religious studies; German was taught as well as English and

Hebrew. Adler, along with a few other boys, received

additional special instruction from Sabato Morais and two

other prominent Philadelphia rabbis, Samuel Hirsch and

Marcus Jastrow.5 Each of them was an intellectual leader in the

Jewish community, but they were very different in their

approaches to Judaism and Wissenschaft des Judentums. Adler

began public high school at the age of 11 and then attended the

University of Pennsylvania. He was only 16 when he

completed his studies at the university.

The First American Ph.D. in Scmitics

It was anticipated that Adler would pursue a career as a

lawyer, as had his uncle David and his older cousin, the

eminent judge Mayer Sulzberger.6 It was quite unexpected that

he would pursue an academic career. Adler was 20 when he

learned that the Johns Hopkins University was establishing a

graduate department in Semitic studies. In September 1883

Adler became the first person to enroll in the new program.

Semitic languages were the primary focus of the curriculum,

developed under Professor Paul Haupt, who had come to Johns

Hopkins to head the department, having just completed his own

training in Gottingen. Adler, who was already proficient in

Hebrew, now studied Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Assyrian,

and he chose Assyriology as his specialty. Years later, at the

celebration of the 25th anniversary of the seminary, he would

nostalgically describe those heady days when he and the small

group of his fellow students "sat day after day, drinking in the

new knowledge with feverish haste and anxiety, studying,

memorizing, copying texts, dreaming, almost, the Semitic

languages."7

In February 1887 he completed his doctoral studies and was

awarded the first Ph.D. in Semitics from an American

university. After graduating, he received an appointment as an

instructor in Semitics at Johns Hopkins, a position he held until

1892, when he became librarian of the Smithsonian Institution.

It has been suggested that Adler pursued the opportunities at

the Smithsonian because he was unable to find a secure

academic post. Indeed, his efforts to obtain faculty appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of

Chicago failed, and Johns Hopkins did not have funding to give

him a permanent position.8 Considering the encouragement he

received from Samuel P. Langley and George Brown Goode to

maintain relationships with academia and specifically with

Johns Hopkins, it seems likely that Adler felt that he would be

able to continue to bridge both worlds. In fact, the prestige of

the Smithsonian afforded Adler the opportunity to pursue many

important contacts both as a Semitics scholar and as an activist

on behalf of Jewish issues.9 It should be emphasized that

Adler's position was significantly enhanced by his relationship

with Langley. Essentially serving as Langley's chief of staff

and confidant as well as his public representative, Adler had a

role quite distinct from that of the typical Smithsonian curator.

Most curators did not, for example, attend meetings at the

White House, as Adler did on Langley's behalf. Although

possibly apocryphal, the story has been recounted that once in

1904 when it was necessary for Adler to confer with President

Theodore Roosevelt on a problem affecting the Jewish

community, Adler informed the President's secretary that he

could not meet with Roosevelt on the Jewish Sabbath. Shortly

thereafter the President himself telephoned to apologize and to

reschedule the appointment.10

Communal Activist

Cyrus Adler came of age in a period of many changes for

Jews worldwide. Though Jews in western Europe had benefited

greatly from the political emancipation that began in the

eighteenth century, a climate of discrimination still prevailed

and was, in fact, worsening. In Germany, shortly after receiving

full civil emancipation in 1870, the Jews were confronted with

an abrupt wave of anti-Jewish hostility." Pogroms in Russia

beginning in 1881 marked a turning point in the way Jews in

eastern Europe saw their future.12 In the 1880s 200,000 Jews

from eastern Europe came to the United States, doubling the

28
NUMBER 52 29

Jewish population there. In the 1890s the Jewish population

would double once again. All told, over two million Jews

emigrated from eastern Europe to the United States before

immigration was radically curtailed in the 1920s.

Even the United States, though a haven for Jews fleeing

persecution and seeking economic opportunity, was not free of

prejudice. Here too anti-Semitic sentiment could be found,

depicting the degenerate, disloyal Jew and the corruptive forces

of Jewish money and power as a dangerous threat to Christian

civilization.13 Although not on a par with the violence in

eastern Europe and not organized in the form of political

parties, there was a "pervasive social anti-Semitism"14 that was

part of a growing sense that the new Jewish, Catholic, and

Orthodox immigrants from southern and eastern Europe,

flocking to urban centers, would subvert the Protestant

character of American life. Spurred also by concern about

growing secularization and the social and economic displacements newly wrought by the industrialization of what had been

a primarily agrarian and mercantile America, militant Protestants took a number of measures in an attempt to maintain the

status quo.15 These efforts included seeking legislation to

achieve what they believed was the safeguarding of Christian

morality, but which would have, in fact, compromised civil

rights.16

What resulted from the influx of new immigrants was an

incredible period of activity and the formation of a myriad of

organizations and institutions to meet the needs (cultural,

economic, and political) of the growing American Jewish

community. A not insignificant aspect of the frenzy of social

action was the pressure urgently felt by Jews already

established in the United States, in response to the forces of

anti-Semitism, to Americanize the new immigrants and to

demonstrate the loyalty of all Jews to the United States.17

Among the highly motivated and energized individuals who

were responsible for many of these changes was Cyrus Adler,

who was involved in the establishment of numerous organizations and institutions.

In several respects Adler was not the equal of the men in the

leadership group. They tended to be older, wealthier, and more

powerful.18 But Adler was aman sure of his principles. He, like

many others, asserted that the ignorance and bigotry that linked

all Jew-haters could be combated by the forces of education,

enlightenment, and democracy.19 His special position was that

he was both a scholar and an activist. In the spirit of

Wissenschaft des Judentums, Adler stalwartly adhered to the

position that the "authentic" study of Judaism according to the

principles of modern scholarship would counteract prejudice

against Jews. The leadership could depend on him as an

academic resource and on his willingness to take action and

implement the programs they wanted to initiate. In return, they

were supportive of the cultural activities he promoted.20

During the two decades Adler served in a professional

FIGURE 10.—"Was Costen": Anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews often focused on their avarice and dishonesty in

business. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, NMAH Archives Center. (Negative number 92-13050)
30 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

capacity at the Smithsonian, he also played a major role in a

number of American Jewish institutions.21 His cultural involvements included the formation of the Jewish Publication

Society, 1888; the establishment of the American Jewish

Historical Society, 1892; serving as editor of the first seven

volumes of the American Jewish Yearbook, 1899-1905; and

serving as a departmental editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia,

1901-1906. When Adier took over the presidency of the board

of trustees of the newly reorganized Jewish Theological

Seminary (JTS), he began dividing his time between the JTS

and the Smithsonian, spending half the week in New York and

half in Washington.22

Adler's activities were not limited to the cultural sphere. In

general, the power elite of American Jewry had multiple

agendas; Adier, for example, was also a founder of the

American Jewish Committee, which would become the major

Jewish defense organization in the United States. In fact, it was

Adier who, in a letter published in American Hebrew in January

1906, first publicly introduced the idea of creating one

representative, authoritative body to speak for American Jewry

on national and international affairs.23

Curator as Activist

What is particularly remarkable about Adler's experience at

the Smithsonian is that he was single-handedly responsible for

creating a Jewish presence at the United States National

Museum. There were no advisory boards or executive

committees at that time; the theory and practice were

essentially his alone, though he acted in concert with the

Smithsonian professional staff.24 Adier, as a scholar following

a scientific approach, was able to express his cultural politics

through the cultural model he developed at the Smithsonian, as

reflected in the objects he acquired for the collection and the

exhibitions he organized. In the spirit of the Wissenschaft des

Judentums movement, Adier proceeded as if it were selfevident that the study of Jews and Judaism was no different

from any other academic subject; he also assumed that through

such an approach negative stereotypes would be dispelled. He

would later describe his accomplishments as appropriately

representing Jewish ceremonial and art objects "in a beautiful

and dignified" way in the nation's capital, the pinnacle of

secular American society.25

Notes

'David Sulzberger was born in Heidelsheim, Baden, Germany, in 1838 and

died in Philadelphia in 1910. Sulzberger devoted much time to Jewish

communal needs, including serving as secretary of the Hebrew Educational

Society for 34 years. He was also a founder of the American Jewish Historical

Society (Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Sulzberger").

2N.W Cohen, "Introduction," page xxvi.

3

Sabato Morais (1823-1897) was born in Livorno, Italy. In 1846 he

became assistant hazzan (clergyman) at the Bevis Marks Congregation in

London. Morais came to the United States in 1851, assuming the position of

hazzan in Philadelphia at Mikveh Israel, where he was to serve for 47 years.

Morais was instrumental in the establishment of the Jewish Theological

Seminary in New York in 1887 and was president of the faculty until his death

(Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Morais, Sabato").

"Adler's early history is excerpted from Abraham A. Neuman, "Cyrus

Adier: A Biographical Sketch," American Jewish Year Book, volume 43

(1941-1942), pages 23-28.

5

Samuel Hirsch (1815-1889) was a pioneer of the Jewish Reform

movement in Germany and the United States and of the Wissenschaft des

Judentums movement. He served in Dessau (1839-1841) and then as chief

rabbi of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (1843-1866) before emigrating to

the United States. Hirsch led Congregation Kenesseth Israel in Philadelphia

until 1888. During the last year of his life, he lived in Chicago with his son

Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch (1851-1923), a leading figure in the radical wing of the

Reform movement (Encyclopaedia Judaica. s.v. "Hirsch, Samuel" and

"Hirsch, Emil"). Marcus M. Jastrow (1829-1903) was a rabbi and lexicographer who became a leader of the historical school in the United States, which

developed into Conservative Judaism. Jastrow served as rabbi in Warsaw and

Worms before emigrating in 1866 to the United States, where he served as rabbi

of Congregation Rodeph Shalom until 1892. He also taught Jewish philosophy,

history, and Bible at Maimonides College from 1867 until it closed in 1875.

Although Jastrow was willing to introduce some reforms into the synagogue, he

was against the radical Reform movement and opposed the formation of the

Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Hebrew Union College. His

son, Morris Jastrow (1861-1922), became an Orientalist scholar (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Jastrow").

6Mayer Sulzberger (1843-1923), a prominent Philadelphia lawyer and

jurist, was active in numerous Jewish causes. Among his philanthropic acts was

a major donation of Hebrew books and manuscripts to the Jewish Theological

Seminary, including the founding presentation of 25 objects (S501-S526,

Registrar's Card Files, Jewish Museum), which he hoped would encourage the

seminary to form a museum (Alexander Marx, "The Library," in Cyrus Adier,

ed., The Jewish Theological Seminary of America: Semi-Centennial Volume

(New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1939), pages 89-92).

7

"The History of the Semitics Seminary of Johns Hopkins University," in

Adier, Lectures, page 166.

8Adler was not a full-time faculty member at Hopkins, and for fifteen

months he was abroad working on behalf of the World's Columbian Exposition

(Ira Robinson, "Cyrus Adier and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America:

Image and Reality," American Jewish History, volume 78 (1989), page 367).

'According to Louis Finkelstein, Adier indicated in a private conversation

that he viewed his decision to accept the appointment at the Smithsonian as a

deliberate change of his life's plan. He said he made the choice because he felt

he could better serve American and world Jewry not as a biblical scholar but as

a builder of institutions that would develop many scholars (Louis Finkelstein,

"Preface," in Robinson, Cyrus Adier: Selected Letters, volume 1, page xix).

10Ibid., page xviii. Whether this specific story is true or not, the fact is that at

that time the secretariat of the Smithsonian was a cabinet-level position. By

virtue of his work for Langley, Adier served in a very influential post. Another

meeting with the President is recorded in Robinson, Cyrus Adier: Selected

Letters, volume I, pages 146-147. In a letter to his wife, Racie Adier, dated 15

October 1908, Adier wrote that when he went to see the President, "having no

appointment, I had to wait for half an hour but when 1 got in he gave me quite

a lot of time."

"Naomi W. Cohen, "American Jewish Reactions to Anti-Semitism in

Western Europe, 1875-1900," Proceedings of the American Academy for

Jewish Research, volume 45 (1978), pages 29-65, assesses the situation in

Europe from the American perspective.

12On 15 April 1881 a pogrom broke out in Elizavetgrad, Russia, raging for

several days before armed forces finally intervened. Subsequently over two

hundred Jewish communities were attacked and ravaged in the Ukraine, White

Russia, and Bessarabia.

l3An annotated listing of major sources on anti-Semitism in America during
NUMBER 52 31

this period is found in Naomi W. Cohen's article "Anti-Semitism in the Gilded

Age: The Jewish View," Jewish Social Studies, volume 41 (1979), page 205.

For a fuller discussion on issues related to Jewish-Christian relations in the

postbellum era, see N.W. Cohen, Jews in Christian America: The Pursuit of

Religious Equality (New York: Oxford University Press. 1992), pages 67-92.

I4N.W. Cohen, Jews in Christian America, page 67. Philip Cowen, editor of

American Hebrew, took the unusual step of soliciting a large number of

prominent Christian academics, clergy, journalists, and politicians to express

their views on prejudice against the Jews in order to facilitate a rapprochement

between Jews and Gentiles. The answers were first published in American

Hebrew in April 1890 and later as a separate volume, Prejudice Against the

Jew: Its Nature. Its Causes and Remedies (New York: Philip Cowen, 1928).

15John Higham discusses three groups that "harbored anti-Jewish feelings

that went beyond mere social discrimination": some agrarian radicals involved

in the Populist movement, certain patrician intellectuals on the East Coast, and

many of the poor living in urban centers. See John Higham, "Anti-Semitism in

the Gilded Age: A Reinterpretation," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 43

(1957), pages 572-575.

16N.W. Cohen, "Anti-Semitism in the Gilded Age," pages 195ff. Though the

immigrants were a very visible target, especially because of their physical

appearance, heavily accented speech, and concentration in poor areas, the

acculturated Jew was a scapegoat as well because of the money-power problem.

For example, Cohen recounts the famous story of banker Jesse Seligman being

excluded from the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga in 1877 (page 188). It was

not unusual for advertisements for work or for apartments to indicate

"Christians only" or "no Hebrews." Jews, as well as other disdained ethnic

groups, were satirized in music, vaudeville, and the print media. For examples

of caricatures, see J. and S. Appel, Jews in American Graphic, Satire, and

Humor (Cincinnati: American Jewish Archives, 1984). For a discussion of

anti-Semitism in popular literature, see "From Reconstruction to 1900," part

four of L. Harap, The Image of the Jew in American Literature: From Early

Republic to Mass Immigration (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,

1974).

17N.W. Cohen, "Anti-Semitism in the Gilded Age," page 204. Yet, as Cohen

points out, self-improvement and patriotism were never enough, and Jews

failed to recognize or ignored other variables that had an impact on

anti-Semitism. See also Cohen, "American Jewish Reactions to AntiSemitism," pages 37-40, for a discussion of other causes of anti-Semitism:

religious prejudice, envy of Jews' material success and prominence, political

motives, and nationalist and antiforeign sentiments. She points out that

American Jews were reluctant to acknowledge race and religion as a

component.

l8An analysis of Adler's relationship to the "stewards" is developed in

Cohen, "Introduction," page xxxii.

"Ibid.

20N.W. Cohen, "Introduction," pages xxviii-xxx. Adler pursued cultural

activities on three levels: training of Jewish scholars; educating rabbis and

teachers; and fostering community education (Naomi W. Cohen, Encounter

With Emancipation: The German Jews in the United States, 1830-1914

(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1984), pages 203-210).

21The details of Adler's involvement in Jewish organizations are to be found

in numerous sources. An excellent survey of Adler's involvement is in Jonathan

D. Sarna, "Cyrus Adler and the Development of American Jewish Culture: The

'Scholar-Doer' as a Jewish Communal Leader," American Jewish History,

volume 78 (1989), pages 382-394. In exploring the themes of Adler's

involvement in the Americanization and professionalization of American

Jewish scholarship, Sarna demonstrates that Adler was involved in practically

every American Jewish cultural project during the half century between 1888

and 1938.

22Adler wrote to Secretary Langley on 18 June 1901, apprising him of the

fact that the negotiations in New York, about which he had previously informed

him, were about to be concluded. He asked for a decision to be made about his

dividing his time, "to which plan I understand I have your assent." Adler adds

a recommendation that Paul Brockett be named assistant librarian and take over

some of his duties (SIA, RU 31, Box 3, "Office of the Secretary, 1891-1906,

Incoming Correspondence"). Adler wrote to Langley again on 8 January 1902

to try to finalize his plans and Brockett's appointment (SIA, ibid., and quoted

in Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume I, pages 96-97).

23Naomi W. Cohen, Not Free to Desist: The American Jewish Committee,

1906-1966 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1972), pages 8-9.

24This latitude was apparently not that unusual among the inner circle at the

Smithsonian. G. Brown Goode, for example, had few consultants in science or

history while he was developing a new Department of Arts and Industries,

which was to emphasize "human enterprise in the context of the natural

environment as well as political and economic events" (Kohlstedt, "History in

a Natural History Museum," pages 23-24).

"Excerpted from a letter from Adler to Jacob H. Schiff, 7 April 1912 (cited

in Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 210).
4. Accreditation of Semitic Study

Adler's own academic field of Semitics provides a clear

example of the phenomenon of cultural politics meshing with

cultural model. Though the study of Semitics was certainly not

equivalent to the study of Judaism, Adler himself did link the

study of Semitics, and specifically the study of the Bible, to the

scientific study of Judaism.' His position, in terms of cultural

politics, was that the scientific study of Judaism would

"discredit higher critics whose findings disparaged the contributions of pre-Christian Israel to Western culture."2

 The

cultural model he constructed emphasized the direct links

between the biblical period and contemporary Jewish life. This

sort of presentation, Adler felt, would help to counteract

stereotypes of Jews.

For this reason, Cyrus Adler's Ph.D. in Semitics not only

was a major source of pride for him personally but also

empowered him to promote the importance of this field

professionally. The Johns Hopkins University, after all, was a

secular institution of higher learning and not a rabbinic school.

Earlier in the nineteenth century, the study of religion had been

the province of theological seminaries and divinity schools,

though of course some of these were aligned with major

institutions of higher education. Because many faculty members of these schools had studied in Germany, they were very

much influenced by German biblical scholarship.3 There were

intense differences among the theologians as to the validity of

the new scientific methods of biblical criticism, but ultimately

what united these faculty members, themselves all Christians,

was their emphasis on Christian piety.4 Moreover, though

Hebrew, the language of the Bible, had been taught at many

American colleges since their inception, it was at Johns

Hopkins that Hebrew, like the other Semitic subjects, was first

taught on a "comprehensive, scientific basis."5

Political and social as well as academic factors influenced

the establishment of departments of Semitics in American

universities in the late nineteenth century, for the evolution of

the study of Semitics also meant the entry of Jewish learning

into the academic world. At Hopkins, the position accorded to

Semitics was on a par, in terms of scholarship, with all other

subjects. Adler recognized that the person responsible for this

status was Daniel C. Gilman, the first president of Johns

Hopkins, who organized the university at a time when "the

natural and physical sciences were threatening to obliterate the

ancient learning."6

For Gilman, Semitics was not just a subject that should be of

interest to the "cultivated man"; he also appreciated Semitic

"science." Apparently Gilman, who had previously served as

president of the University of California, advocated establishing a chair for Hebrew and other Semitic languages as early as

1872. Gilman often expressed the opinion that Semitic science

was advancing with the exciting discoveries of cuneiform

tablets and with progress in the study of Semitic languages,

especially Assyrian.

Adler also paid tribute to Paul Haupt, the director of the

seminary and his teacher. Haupt was an Assyriologist and was

considered to be the best in his field. The young scholar was

just 25 when he arrived in America in 1883 to assume a

professorship at Johns Hopkins. According to Adler, Haupt's

talent was not limited to his achievements in Assyriology:

Comparative Semitic grammar and phonetics seemed for the first time to have

arrested the attention of a man versed in classical and modern languages, and

determined to form a new science upon the traditions of his predecessors

coupled with the originality and daring of genius.7

Furthermore, in citing Haupt's accomplishments Adler highlighted his critical text of the Hebrew Bible, his papers

"illuminating" the Scriptures, and his writings on Assyriology

and comparative religion. Having Haupt as his mentor was

more than a source of academic distinction for Adler: Haupt

brought with him the aura of the esteemed German university

life,8 but here in America, as Adler viewed it, there was no

difference between the Jewish student and his classmates, and

the scientific approach would eliminate the old stereotypes.9 In

Adler's opinion, Gilman's vision was the most enlightened

pedagogical approach and Haupt's instruction the most

objective.

Semitics Curriculum: Philology as Politics

Besides Johns Hopkins and the University of California, the

field of Semitics became well developed at four other

universities: Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Chicago. Some courses in the subject

were offered at about ten other universities and several

theological schools as well.10 In the late nineteenth century, the

curriculum in Semitics focused on philology. This emphasis

proved to be an excellent compromise for both the liberal

Protestants who administered the universities and the local

Jewish communities whose support they hoped to attract." By

including Semitics, the universities could demonstrate that they

were no longer tied to a specific denomination and could

therefore attract Jewish sponsors. This representation in the

world of higher education conferred on Judaism a recognition

and legitimacy that the Jewish community deeply prized. For

32
NUMBER 52 33

both liberal Jews and liberal Protestants, the specific concentration on philology meant the avoidance of their common

"intellectual enemies"12—the extreme forms of higher biblical

criticism, on the one hand, and the fervent fundamentalism

found among many Bible students, on the other.

Semitics at Harvard

The political factor in Semitic studies was perhaps most

pronounced at Harvard University, where Jacob Schiff became

the financial patron of the Semitic Languages and History

Department for two decades, beginning in 1888.13 Schiffs

subvention supported the faculty salaries, an expedition to

Palestine, and the establishment of the Semitic Museum in

1903. Though Schiffs association with the university was

nurtured by Harvard's president, Charles William Eliot, he did

not require much encouragement. Schiff, who was born in

Frankfurt am Main in 1847, immigrated to the United States as

a young man and became a powerful force in the realm of

international finance. His involvement in philanthropy was

legendary.14 Yet Harvard could bestow upon him something

that all of his great wealth could not: legitimacy in the highest

sphere of American life, at the most prestigious university in

America.

In 1891, when the first collection Schiff purchased for

Harvard was installed at the Peabody Museum, he was very

clear about his motive for wanting to establish a Semitic

museum. He said that a primary purpose of the museum must

be to repudiate and combat "anti-Semitism in Europe [and]

social prejudice and ostracism in free America" by creating

opportunities "for a more thorough study and a better

knowledge of Semitic history and civilization, so that the world

shall better understand and acknowledge the debt it owes to the

Semitic people."15

Moreover, at the official opening of the Semitic Museum at

Harvard in 1903, Schiff began his remarks with a quote from

Goethe and a tribute, albeit oblique, to the Jewish people.

Though he took care to note that other peoples had played roles

in the development of Semitic civilization, Schiffs point was

that the "Hebrew" was the "largest contributor:"

"Wohl dem, der seiner Ahnen gem gedenkt. Happy he who in gladness

remembers those he sprang from." With a deep attachment to my race, proud of

its past achievements, sensible of its continuing responsibilities, pondering over

its development, the question has at times presented itself to me, Where did the

history of my people begin? ... Unrolled before our vista, since the Patriarch's

days lie centuries of Semitic history and development.... Indeed, the history

and activities of almost all of the various branches of what is generally known

as the Semitic race have furnished so tempting a field for study and research

that scholar and layman alike have for decades been vying with each other for

the prized treasures brought forth from below and found above the surface in

the countries in which have been made the history and displayed the activities

of the Semitic peoples.16

Here is an example of cultural politics at work: in the context of

a positive statement about Jews' contribution to cultural

history, Schiff quoted from a poet and philosopher who

embodied German culture, which typically contained elements

of anti-Semitism.

Cyrus Adler also spoke at the inauguration of the Semitic

Museum at Harvard, and he too stressed the importance of

Semitic studies:

It is coming to be more and more recognized that in everything which makes for

the higher life the modern man derives directly from a few groups of peoples

that lived about the Mediterranean, and that a knowledge of their civilization is

essential to an understanding of the history of human thought.17

By 1903 Adler had been involved in museum work for 15

years, and he was committed to increasing the contribution of

museums to popular education. So it was fitting that in his

remarks at the Semitic Museum he stressed that it was the

museum's mandate to convey the relevance of the exhibit to the

visitor: "It is the business of museum officials to make

mummies live."

Schiff and Adler's dream, however, was to be dispelled once

Abbott Lawrence Lowell assumed the presidency of Harvard in

1909. Lowell was antagonistic to the Semitic Languages and

History Department, and it became increasingly more marginal

within the university. Schiffs contributions stopped, and the

Semitic Museum fell into a lengthy period of dormancy.18 The

optimistic view that knowledge would counter anti-Semitism,

a view that Schiff and Adler both held, was blatantly

counteracted by the actions of Lowell, who both feared Jews

and was hostile to them.19

Semitics: The University and the Museum

For Adler, the success of Semitic studies at the university

level was also manifest in the establishment of two new

departments at the United States National Museum, the

Department of Historic Archaeology and the Department of

Historic Religions. This achievement, he felt, was due "entirely

to the influence of members of the Semitic Seminary of this

[Johns Hopkins] University." What this meant in terms of

power and prestige was quite momentous: "The greater

representation of the government and of American institutions

generally, at Oriental and allied congresses abroad, had its chief

impulse here."20 Through these departments, Adler achieved

his goal of creating a cultural model at the Smithsonian that

reflected his cultural politics.

The fate of these departments was, however, also tied to

political and social realities. Adler created and developed these

departments while he served under the patronage of Secretary

Langley; during this time he increasingly gained greater

prominence in the Smithsonian Institution. Following Langley's death, Adler lost his stature, though he certainly could

have retained his post as assistant secretary. When Adler left

the museum, it was essentially the end of an era for the

disciplines he had established. The growth thenceforth was to

be in the Bureau of American Ethnology. By the late 1920s,

except for the presence of Judaica in the exhibition hall as an
34 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

ongoing accommodation to Bible students, the fields of biblical

archaeology and comparative religion were ignored, and no

curator took an interest in their development. The Department

of Historic Archaeology and the Department of Historic

Religions simply fell into oblivion because there was no

advocate for their study or development.

The Peabody Model

Although Adler's connection with both the Johns Hopkins

University and the United States National Museum allowed

him to promote a model of Semitic studies that drew on both

resources, his was not the only museum model to be linked to

academics. Interestingly enough, while Adler was encouraging

Jacob Schiff to support a Semitics museum at Harvard, another

very different type of collection on religion was being

developed by Francis Greenwood Peabody (1847-1936), a

professor at the Harvard Divinity School.21

Peabody's model would have corresponded well with

Goode's philosophy and his commitment to moral education in

museums. Peabody was the theologian par excellence of the

Social Gospel, the late-nineteenth-century social reform movement that was the product of social action theology. The

movement's adherents advocated the application of the

message of Christian salvation to secular social improvement.22

Its scientific character was manifest in a preoccupation with the

"social experiment" nature of the projects undertaken by the

practitioners of Social Gospel at places such as Hull House in

Chicago. Peabody's advocacy led to the inclusion of a course in

social reform at the Harvard Divinity School in 1883, the

founding of a social ethics department at Harvard in 1906, and

beginning in 1903 the formation of a museum collection as

well. In a letter dated 29 October 1904, Peabody wrote to

Governor Bates of Massachusetts, "I am charged with

establishing here in Emerson Hall, now under construction, a

'Social Museum,' to represent graphically the movement of

philanthropic, social and industrial progress."23 Thus for a time

Harvard simultaneously reaped the benefits of both Adler's

cultural model and Peabody's. Adler, at the Smithsonian, was

in the right place at the right time to actuate his own agenda.24

Notes

'Adler was not alone in making the link between the study of the Bible and

Semitics. The groundwork for Jewish Bible scholarship in America was thus

established, "albeit through the backdoor and under the guise of a more

acceptable rubric" (J. Sarna and N.M. Sarna, "Jewish Bible Scholarship and

Translations in the United States," in E.S. Frerichs, ed.. The Bible and Bibles in

America (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), page 97).

2Naomi W. Cohen, "Introduction," volume 1, page xxix. As regards the

Jewish community, Adler hoped that the scientific study of Judaism would

reinvigorate traditional Judaism and counter the spread of Reform Judaism.

See, for example, Adler's letter of 24 February 1903 to Isaac Kauffman Funk,

who represented Funk and Wagnalls, publisher of the Jewish Encyclopedia, on

the problems of partisanship of the Reform Jews on the editorial board

(Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, pages 99-100). Scientific

Judaism, as represented by the Jewish Encyclopedia, was not intended to be

partisan. For a fuller discussion of Adler's problems with Reform influence on

the encyclopedia, see references to Adler in Shuly Rubin Schwartz, The

Emergence of Jewish Scholarship in America: The Publication of the Jewish

Encyclopedia (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1991).

3On the influence of German biblical scholarship in America in the

nineteenth century, see Jurgen Herbst, The German Historical School in

American Scholarship: A Study in the Transfer of Culture (Ithaca, N.Y.:

Cornell University Press, 1965), chapter four. Herbst gives a succinct

description of German biblical critics, whose main preoccupation was God's

word as given in Scripture. The "lower" critics, who focused on philology,

hoped to arrive at the "original wording" by eliminating later accretions to the

text. The "higher" critics, using historical criticism, "then applied the findings

of literary and historical scholars to an interpretation of the biblical text" (pages

76-77).

4

For a contemporaneous discussion of biblical criticism in the American

Jewish press, see C.A. Briggs, "What is Modern Biblical Criticism," American

Hebrew, volume LIV, number 4 (23 November 1893), pages 137-141, and

volume LIV, number 5 (30 November 1893), pages 155-159. For a discussion

of the situation in England, see C. Montefiore, "Some Notes on the Effect of

Biblical Criticism upon the Jewish Religion," Jewish Quarterly Review,

volume 4 (1892), pages 293-306.

5Adler, Lectures, pages 162-171. A contemporaneous history of the studies

of Semitics at institutions of higher learning is surveyed by Rabbi William

Rosenau in "Semitic Studies in American Colleges," a paper presented before

the Central Conference of American Rabbis in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1896.

He traces the origins of Semitic studies to the seventeenth century, beginning

with instruction in Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac at Harvard, where a chair in

Semitics was established in 1640. Rosenau's paper was reprinted in the Reform

Advocate and as a separate pamphlet (now archived at the American Jewish

Historical Society). William Rosenau was a student with Adler at Johns

Hopkins and later taught there in addition to serving as a pulpit rabbi (Jewish

Encyclopedia, s.v. "Rosenau, William").

6Adler, Lectures, pages 162ff.

7

Ibid., page 165.

sWilliam Rosenau agreed with Adler's assessment. He referred to Haupt's

arrival in America as the beginning of an "eventful epoch" because it was he

"who transplanted the new scientific methods of Semitic research upon

American soil and thus inaugurated here the era of Semitic philology"

(Rosenau, "Semitic Studies in American Colleges").

9

 As Rosenau wrote on the scientific method, "It is by virtue of it that so

much error has been dispelled and so much truth established" (ibid.).

l0By 1896, of the 16 colleges and universities with Semitics departments,

Johns Hopkins ranked as the largest, with 35 students enrolled in the

1894-1895 academic year (ibid.).

"An overview of the history of Semitic studies in American universities is

presented in Harold S. Wechsler, "Anti-Semitism in the Academy: Jewish

Learning in American Universities, 1914-1939," American Jewish Archives,

volume XLII (1990), pages 7-21.

l2Ibid. Wechsler cites the term "common intellectual enemies" from Richard

Storr, Harper's University: The Beginnings (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1966), pages 39-40.

l3Schiff s association with Harvard is said to have begun with a suggestion

by his brother-in-law James Loeb, then a Harvard undergraduate, that Professor

David Lyon contact Schiff to support the acquisition of some inscriptions for

the Department of Semitic Languages and History (Janet Tassel, "The Semitic

Museum Rises Again," Harvard Magazine, March-April 1982, page 41).

Interestingly, Loeb, who graduated from Harvard in 1888, went on to fund the

Loeb Classical Library at Harvard, which publishes Greek and Latin texts in the

original with an English translation. Inspired by this endeavor, Jacob Schiff

endowed the Schiff Library of Jewish Classics, to be published by the Jewish

Publication Society. According to an anecdote reported by Cyrus Adler,

Therese Loeb Schiff asked her husband, "Why couldn't you do for the Jewish
NUMBER 52 35

classics what Jimmie is doing for the Greek and Roman?" (Cyrus Adler, Jacob

H. Schiff: His Life and Letters (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1928), volume

2, page 64, cited in Jonathan Sarna, JPS: The Americanization of Jewish

Culture, page 120).

'"Jacob H. Schiff (1847-1920) emigrated to the United States at the age of

18. Schiff, who had apprenticed in the banking business in Germany, became

one of the most powerful investment bankers in the United States. Schiff and

his firm, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, were incredibly influential in fostering the

rapid industrialization of the American economy in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries. A devoted Jew, Schiff was truly the Maecenas of the

American Jewish community (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Schiff, Jacob

Henry." See also Adler, Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters, and Cyrus Adler,

Jacob Henry Schiff: A Biographical Sketch (New York: American Jewish

Committee, 1921)).

lsTassel, "The Semitic Museum Rises Again," page 41.

l6The Semitic Museum of Harvard University: Addresses Delivered at the

Formal Opening of the Museum on Thursday, February 5, 1903 (Cambridge:

Harvard University, 1903), pages 21-24.

l7Ibid., pages 14-18.

lsIt is noteworthy that in 1901 a Germanic Museum was established at

Harvard "to recall the singular importance of Germany as an educational model

and source for American university development during the last decades of the

nineteenth century (G. Goldman, A History of the Germanic Museum at

Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.: Minda de Gunzberg Center for

European Studies, Harvard University, 1989), page 1). The Germanic Museum

Association included Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis. In 1927 the

tremendous sum of $150,000 was raised from the German-American Jewish

community to establish a chair in Germanic studies at Harvard, named in honor

of Harvard professor Kuno Francke. The contributors included Judge Julian

Mack, Julius Rosenwald, and the Warburgs (ibid., page 49).

"From a diary entry of David Gordon Lyon after he visited former President

Eliot of Harvard to inform him about Lowell's negativity (Wechsler,

"Anti-Semitism in the Academy," page 12). See also Nitza Rosovsky, "Harvard

and the Jewish Problem," in The Jewish Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), pages 8-12. A major difference

between the two Harvard presidents was their view on immigration. Regarding

Jewish immigrants. President Eliot was quoted as saying, "if ever any race

came hither in search of liberty and equality before the law, and of the safety

and prosperity which industry and virtue can win in a fresh land under just

conditions, it is the Jews who have come to the United States since 1880" (E.J.

James, ed., The Immigrant Jew in America (New York: B.F. Buck, 1907), page

4). Lowell opposed immigration, fearing it would lead to an erosion of

American values. So vehement was he in his position that he became the

vice-president of the Immigration Restrictive League in 1912.

20Adler, Lectures, page 168.

2

'The description of Peabody is found in Herbst, The German Historical

School in American Scholarship, pages 94-96. Documentation of Peabody's

formation of a "social museum" at Harvard is found in the Harvard

University Archives, Boxes HUG 1676.582 and HUG 1676.582.2, "Letters to

and Letters from Francis Greenwood Peabody Concerning the Social Science

Exhibit, 1903-1906." Additional information is found in UAV 800.157,

"Social Ethics Department, Social Museum" (two boxes). As evidenced in his

correspondence, Peabody was well aware of similar efforts in Europe, and he

acquired exhibits (from both European government departments and private

agencies) that had been on display at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St.

Louis in 1904.

22Ibid. As Herbst described what Social Gospel meant to Peabody, "For him

that gospel was the natural result of the fusion of piety, science, and the

reforming urge, and German Wissenschaft had made the 'will to do good'

intellectually respectable."

"HUG 1676.582.2.

24It is likely that Adler was aware of Peabody's work as well as that of

Herbert Baxter Adams, a Baltimore theologian. Adams wrote on the relation of

religion to culture: "As in ancient Jewish and early Christian society, so in the

modern world the ministers of religion have also been exponents of culture"

("The Church and Popular Education," in H.B. Adams, ed., Johns Hopkins

University Studies in Historical and Political Science, series 18 (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1908), pages 7-84.
5. Oriental Antiquities and Jewish Ceremonial Objects

Cyrus Adler's offer to help the United States National

Museum form a collection of casts of Near Eastern antiquities

was followed by a proposal sent on 28 March 1887 by Paul

Haupt, director of the Semitics Seminary at the Johns Hopkins

University, to Spencer F. Baird, the secretary of the Smithsonian. It is noteworthy that Adler, having volunteered his

services, deferred to Haupt, his mentor, for the formalities.1

Haupt's letter, which is likely to have been drafted by Adler,

recommended that the museum add a section of Oriental

archaeology to its "numerous departments of study and

research" and offered the expertise of the Semitics faculty at

Johns Hopkins.2 The Haupt letter stressed both the scientific

and educational value of such a collection and the primary

importance of these antiquities for the study of the Bible. These

two objectives were certainly in consonance with those of the

National Museum. Otis T. Mason particularly welcomed the

proposed new section, which he viewed as promising "an

entirely new and extremely valuable set of collaborators."3

Though the plan was accepted in principle, the official

organization of the Section of Oriental Antiquities was delayed

nearly a year, until 2 February 1888, because of the illness and

then the death of Baird. In the interim some work did proceed,

and an official call for objects was issued at the October 1887

meeting of the American Oriental Society. The announcement

indicated that the National Museum had undertaken the

formation of the collection of casts in association with Johns

Hopkins and that the museum was ready to make facsimiles.4

The appointments to the new section were made by the new

Smithsonian secretary, Samuel P. Langley. Paul Haupt became

honorary curator of the Section of Oriental Antiquities and

Cyrus Adler the assistant honorary curator.

Biblical Archaeology Exhibition at the Centennial

Exposition of the Ohio Valley

The first exhibition to be developed by the Section of

Oriental Antiquities was an installation of biblical archaeology

at the Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley, held in

Cincinnati in 1888.5 The exposition was mounted as a

commemoration of the organization of the Northwest Territory

in 1787. The objective of the exposition, an indicator of the

bold and positive outlook of the times, was

to present a panorama of the Nation's resources and present state of progressive

development by an exhibition of the products of agriculture, of the various

industries and fine arts; also the results of the advancement made in the

sciences; the whole illustrating the opportunities secured to and the possibilities

which wait upon the citizens of this Republic.6

The exhibition on biblical archaeology, prepared by Cyrus

Adler, was a pioneering venture for the Smithsonian. According to their reports, the impetus for the Smithsonian's decision

to mount an exhibition with a biblical theme was the

tremendous Protestant religious revival in the United States.

The exhibition was viewed as an opportunity to achieve the

museum's mission of popular education, interpreting the

research of the museum scientists to the public. As George

Brown Goode explained in his annual report for 1889:

Owing to the wide-spread interest in biblical studies. Dr. Cyrus Adler, Assistant

Curator of the Section of Oriental Antiquities, was called upon to prepare an

exhibit which should enable Bible students (of whom it is estimated that there

are already more than four millions in the Sunday-schools of the United States)

to see something of the results of the work of the numerous specialists who have

devoted their time and energies to the people of Bible lands, and to become

familiar with some of the interesting objects which have been collected and

studied, with a view to a better understanding of the language, history, art,

social life, and religion of these people.7

It is of interest that the four million figure came from Adler's

report on the exhibition. In the draft of the report there is a

question mark next to the number; both the source of the

number and the identity of the person who queried it are

unknown. Whatever the origin, the "fact" of this large number

of people interested in Bible studies became the rationale for

ongoing development of the section and more exhibitions on

biblical archaeology.8 In Adler's report on the planning of the

exhibition, he took care to stress its scientific aspects,

distancing the work of the museum curator from that of the

theologian:

This study is not a part of dogmatic theology; its results can command the same

acceptance accorded to a new fact reported from a physical laboratory; its

problems should be faced in the same spirit of fearless investigation into the

truth as obtains in other departments of scientific research.9

Despite his disclaimer, it should be noted that Adler was

himself very much involved in the efforts to produce an English

translation of the Bible under Jewish auspices. Isaac Leeserwas

the first American Jew to publish an English Bible translation.10

 But Leeser's Bible (as the translation was known),

which appeared in 1854, was considered to be problematic. In

fact, it was quite polemical in its approach, refuting Christian

interpretations and justifying the Jewish understanding of

Scripture. Isaac Mayer Wise spearheaded an effort to undertake

a new Bible translation, especially when the new Protestant

English-language revised edition appeared in 1885;" however,

the project was never realized. In 1892 the Jewish Publication

Society determined that a new Bible translation was vital, and

36
NUMBER 52 37

when a special subcommittee was established for the purpose in

1893, Cyrus Adler became its secretary and played a highly

significant role in developing the guidelines for its development. Though the translation was not completed until 1917,

this project continued to preoccupy Adler throughout his tenure

at the Smithsonian.12

Contemporary Practice as Living Archaeology

Adler was interested in providing a historical context for the

study of the Bible, so as to gain insight into biblical

civilization.13 A further comment of Adler's about the state of

research of biblical study provides an insight into what was his

really rather unscientific link between those who lived in the

"Bible lands" in his own time and their ancient Semitic

ancestors. The contemporary practices of the area's inhabitants

were treated as "living archaeology," as if the way of life in

those areas had survived without change since antiquity and

therefore could be treated as if it were directly linked to ancient

times.

Nor are these investigations entirely confined to the ancient world. Owing to the

intense conservatism of oriental peoples, a careful study of the modern

inhabitants of Western Asia may exhibit in a new aspect the manners and

customs of former times.... Even religious practices have persisted in the East

through thousands of years. As there may be some objection to the application

of the term archaeology to so broad a field, it might perhaps be better if the

more comprehensive term Biblical Science were employed to designate this

study.'4

The concept of this unbroken continuity of practice would

subsequently become Adler's rationale for using Jewish

ceremonial objects of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in

an exhibition of biblical archaeology.

Adler was also rather broad-based in his geographic

designation:

Nor is the area covered less extensive than the period of time. Roughly

speaking, it would require that one point of a compass be placed in Jerusalem,

and a radius of a thousand miles be selected, to describe a circle which would

include all of the peoples with whom the Israelites came into contact during the

national existence.15

Redefining the Scope of the Section of Oriental Antiquities

The designation of the section as being concerned with

Oriental antiquities became a question of semantics. Otis T.

Mason had actually referred to the section as a department of

biblical archaeology in his report for 1888, never using the term

Oriental. In his annual report for 1889, Adler quotes the

American Oriental Society's and the Royal Asiatic Society's

definition of Oriental, which encompasses a vast area ranging

from China to Palestine. In the 1889 report, Adler more

narrowly delineates the work of the section as being devoted

only to biblical archaeology because of limitations of scope and

fiscal resources. The revised mandate of the section was to be

the study of "the history, archaeology, languages, arts and

religions of the peoples of western Asia and Egypt. Material is

chosen which especially illustrates Biblical history and labels

are prepared from this point of view."16

Adler in Charge of the Section

At this point, Adler's museum activities were still ancillary

to his teaching responsibilities at Johns Hopkins. Yet during the

course of the year, as described in the 1889 annual report,

considerable progress was made toward establishing the

scientific credentials of the Section of Oriental Antiquities. The

authorship of the annual report makes it clear that Adler was

responsible for the advances. Because Haupt was the honorary

curator, it would have been expected that he would have a

larger role in determining the direction of the section. However,

not only is the document written in Cyrus Adler's hand, but it

is evident that he was reporting on his own accomplishments;

Haupt's involvement was limited to his European activities

(described later in this chapter). Mason's annual report for 1889

acknowledges the situation, indicating that the section was

created in order "to interest a large number of scholars not

hitherto specially attached to the institution" and was formed

"under the patronage of Dr. Paul Haupt and in charge of Dr.

Cyrus Adler."17

Adler's efforts were focused on "arranging, labeling and

putting on exhibition" those "specimens" already acquired. The

importance of labeling was particularly stressed by Adler.

Although the entire collection was labeled, only about half of

the collection of approximately 850 items was actually placed

on exhibit, so Adler's use of the word labeling is actually

equivalent to the term cataloging. The labels reflect a scientific

approach, with scientific being defined as descriptive and not

interpretive. Labels were also prepared for the approximately

150 photographs used as auxiliary materials to establish the

context for the objects. Adler remarked that the study of the

objects as part of this process was undertaken with a "view to

future publication" as well. As described by Adler, the labels

included "a statement of the material of the original when

known, a history of the original, translation of the inscription,

and signification of the representation where it could be

determined."18

In summarizing his activities Adler also stressed his

professional associations. He worked to increase the collection

and to establish a network of correspondents, and in so doing he

also welcomed "accredited Orientalists" who visited Washington. Paul Haupt, who spent the summer of 1888 abroad,

similarly made contacts for the museum overseas, and he

purchased a number of casts from the Royal Museum of Berlin,

which included representative examples from the Berlin

collection as well as the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in

Turin, the Louvre, the Boulak Museum in Cairo, and the British

Museum.

In addition, Adler noted that he authored a report on the

"Progress of Oriental Science in America During 1888" and
38 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

"transacted business" connected to the Eighth International

Congress of Orientalists at Stockholm. During the course of

that year, Adler also established a working library for the

section. The library was given some prominence by the

decision of the acting secretary to make the Smithsonian a

depository of papers and manuscripts "sent to this country to

further the prosecution of the work."19

Apparently not everyone was completely supportive of

Adler's work. In a response to F.W. True, whom Adler

addressed as "Curator-in-Charge, U.S. National Museum,"

Adler wrote a defense of his publishing the "Progress of

Oriental Science in America During 1888" as an official

Smithsonian document. True had indicated to Adler that the

material collected for the report could be used for a private

publication. Adler answered that it was likely that he could find

a place to have the report privately printed, but that the

reputation of the Smithsonian was a critical factor in his ability

to compile future reports. Adler wrote:

1 do not believe that I could so successfully gather the material if I were not able

to do so in the name of the Smithsonian. Moreover, the principal object that I

have had in mind was to place the oriental interest of the Museum before the

Orientalists of this country.... It has already resulted in securing a number of

additions to the Library, although the report has not yet been printed.20

Adler was clearly determined to take what he believed was the

right and necessary action.

First Exhibition of Oriental Antiquities at the United States

National Museum

In February 1889 exhibition space was assigned to the

Section of Oriental Antiquities, and on 2 March the inaugural

exhibition was installed. It was a very exciting time at the

museum because the opening of the first exhibition of the

Section of Oriental Antiquities was set to coincide with the

inauguration of President Harrison. As described in a biography of Cyrus Adler, "the curators worked late into the night

attending to the last minute details, for soon the crowds would

be arriving."21 The crowds certainly did come, and the final

tally of visitors for 2-5 March 1889, as recorded in the annual

report of the museum, was over 100,000, an incredible number

even by today's blockbuster standards.22

Among the items on display were several items of Judaica,

including a shofar, the ram's horn used on the Jewish High

Holy Days, that had belonged to Cyrus Adler's grandfather,

Leopold Sulzberger.23 The shofar was actually the perfect

object for Adler to use to demonstrate the link between the

Bible and contemporary Jewish ritual practice, because its form

is the same as it was in antiquity.

An early Adler article follows this approach as well. In a

letter to Rabbi Sabato Morais dated 17 November 1889, Adler

wrote about a study he was preparing on the shofar as a

ceremonial object, which was published as "The Shofar: Its Use

and Origin" in the Annual Report of the United States National

Museum, 1891-92.2*

The Early Judaica Acquisitions

Many of the first objects acquired for the museum were

obtained from Adler's relatives and associates, including his

uncle David Sulzberger, who had donated Leopold Sulzberger's shofar, and his cousin Mayer Sulzberger. Then, too, there

were the acquisitions from the Friedenwalds of Baltimore,

Maryland (the family of his future wife, Racie). Henrietta

Szold, who later founded the Hadassah Women's Zionist

Organization of America and who was a friend and colleague of

Adler's, donated a photograph of the Oheb Shalom Synagogue

in Baltimore, where her father, Benjamin Szold, was rabbi.25

The earliest private collection of Judaica to be formed in the

United States was that of Henry Sonneborn, an immigrant from

Germany who became a major clothing manufacturer in

Baltimore. Sonneborn presented his collection, which included

a number of family heirlooms, to the Johns Hopkins University

around the turn of the century.26 It is rather surprising that

Adler did not obtain the Sonneborn collection for the

Smithsonian and did not even request that it be exhibited on

loan; it is unknown why Adler did not do this. A catalog of the

collection was compiled by William Rosenau, who became

rabbi at Oheb Shalom in 1892.27

Adler began serious efforts to collect Judaica in the fall of

1889. The earliest mention of an attempt to purchase Jewish

ceremonial objects for the Smithsonian was in a letter to Dr.

Harry Friedenwald, which was drafted by Cyrus Adler on 16

September 1889 and sent by George Brown Goode. Friedenwald, who also had studied at Johns Hopkins and was a friend

of Adler's, had gone to Europe in April 1887 to continue his

medical studies in ophthalmology in Germany. The letter was

sent in care of Dr. Karl Hirschberger at the Universities

Augenklinik in Munich:

The National Museum is desirous of securing a collection to illustrate Jewish

ceremonial. The objects for this collection are difficult to obtain in this country.

Dr. Cyrus Adler, a member of our scientific staff, has suggested that you would

be willing to undertake some commissions for us in this direction and that your

interest in the subject, as well as your connections in Europe would be of much

assistance to us in this matter. We should like to have, for example, a kiddush

cup, a spice box used in the ceremony of Havdalah, photographs of old or

famous European synagogues etc. We should also be glad to get good

photographs of the arch of Titus. Possibly it might be best if I told you what we

have already secured, viz: a talith, phylacteries, meiuzah, Esther roll,

slaughtering knife and lamp for the Feast of Dedication. We expect shortly to

receive a Sepher Torah and its accompaniments but should be glad to hear of a

good example. It is quite likely that you will think of some things which I have

not mentioned. We have a shofar, but would be glad to have an old one curled

in the Italian style.28

This letter does underscore the research aspect of the collection,

which was central to the Smithsonian's approach. Friedenwald

was told, "In each case we should like to have the history which

attaches to the object." Though only $50 was allocated for the

acquisitions, Friedenwald was able to make a number of

purchases with the help of Sigmund Feuchtwanger, a collector

of Jewish ceremonial objects, who took him to various

antiquarian shops in quest of the items for the Smithsonian.29
NUMBER 52 39

Friedenwald did obtain photographs of synagogues in Europe.

These historic photographs are still maintained in the reference

files of the Division of Community Life at the National

Museum of American History.30

A request to facilitate Friedenwald's efforts was sent by

Adler to Sabato Morais on 24 November 1889. Adler wrote:

Dr. Harry Friedenwald who is now in Europe will shortly take a trip through

Italy. He goes of course to see the hospitals but in addition he has a commission

from the Smithsonian for the purchase of objects of Jewish ceremonial. A few

letters from you to friends at Leghorn or Padua would no doubt assist in making

his stay pleasant and further the object in view.31

As had been requested in the Smithsonian letter, Friedenwald

did buy a shofar in Rome, and it is indeed "curled in the Italian

style."32

In September 1889 Adler had also written to Rabbi Bernhard

Felsenthal of Zion Congregation in Chicago and clearly stated

his intentions:

I am now attempting, in pursuance of a general plan in the Ethnological

department of the Museum, to set up an exhibit of Jewish Ecclesiastical art

which will ultimately grow into a collection of the implements of Jewish

ceremonial. I shall be very grateful to you for any suggestion as to the scope of

such a collection and the best places to secure the objects. As you may imagine

they are hard to get in this country in good examples. I succeeded in securing

a fair collection in New York some weeks ago and have made arrangements to

get some from Europe.33

Despite his letter to Felsenthal, Adler worked completely

autonomously in conceptualizing the plan for the new section.

Felsenthal was one of the early protagonists of the Reform

movement, and his approach to the study of Judaism,

specifically the Bible, and religious observance was antithetical

to that of Adler, who was traditional in his own practice. In

1859 Felsenthal published a pamphlet entitled Kol Kore

Bamidbar, in which he expressed his philosophy that the Bible

was the product of Judaism and not the source of it.

Furthermore, he emphasized the independence of the individual

and the individual synagogue in determining religious rites.34

The Smithsonian's accession records are quite good, and the

objects purchased by Adler in New York are clearly identifiable. In saying that he had secured a "fair collection," he was

exaggerating, as his finds were not very substantial.35 It is

likely that Adler initiated the proposal to Friedenwald and

enlisted Felsenthal's aid because he was anxious to find

more-important items for the Judaica collection; however, no

acquisitions are recorded from Felsenthal.

Adler continued his efforts, and according to the 1890-1891

annual report for the Section of Oriental Antiquities, Adler

spent much of the next year forming a collection of Jewish

ceremonial objects. These were indeed considered to be

cognate to the work of the Section. As the acquisitions grew,

the Jewish ceremonial objects were separately installed in the

exhibition.36

Harry Friedenwald, who returned to the United States in

March 1890, was delighted to read the following notice in the

newspaper:

There was recently placed on exhibition in the lecture hall of the United States

National Museum at Washington a case of objects intended to illustrate Jewish

ceremonial and worship. ... The objects are accompanied by descriptive labels

and the exhibit is attracting much attention.37

The inclusion of Jewish ceremonial objects in the exhibition of

Oriental antiquities was the first evidence of the beginning of a

"Collection to Illustrate the Comparative History of Religion."

Under that heading, the Annual Report of the Board of Regents

of the Smithsonian Institution for the Year Ending June 30,

1890, includes the following: "A collection of objects used in

connection with the public and private ceremonies of the Jews

is being formed under the supervision of Dr. Cyrus Adler."38

There is no mention of ceremonial objects of any other

religion or of future acquisition plans regarding other religions.

The annual report further includes nearly four pages describing

basic Jewish celebrations and the ceremonial objects used for

the rituals. Nevertheless, the fact that the Judaica collection was

the first step in the inception of the Section of Religious

Ceremonials, which was established following the World's

Columbian Exposition, was later confirmed in Goode's Annual

Report for 1893:

Since 1889, objects of religious ceremonial have been exhibited in connection

with the collection of Oriental antiquities. A beginning was made by the

formation of an exhibit to illustrate the Jewish religion, but the scope has since

been widened.39

Notes

'Adler's motivation for having Haupt become the official spokesman is not

certain. Perhaps he was being politically sensitive: it is also conceivable that he

had second thoughts and realized he was not yet sufficiently prepared to take on

the position. In his autobiography Adler wrote that although he had already

agreed to take on the work, he later demurred: "I felt I was too young and not

sufficiently well known to accept it" (Adler, I Have Considered the Days, pages

67ff).

2The letter is in SIA, RU 201, Box 11, Folder 8. It begins, 'it has recently

occurred to me that the National Museum might be enriched, at no great cost,

in a department of archaeology hitherto almost entirely neglected."

'Mason's annual reports are in SfA, RU 158, United States National

Museum, 1881-1964, Curators' Annual Reports, Box 3.

4C. Adler, "Report on the Section of Oriental Antiquities for the Year

Ending June 30, 1888." The draft is found in SIA, RU 158, Box 5, Folder I; the

report is published in G. Brown Goode, "Report of the Assistant Secretary,"

Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888

(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1890), pages 93-95.

5

"Report upon the Exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution, Including the U.S.

National Museum, at the Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley and Central

States, Held at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1888," pages 154ff. The report, authored by

R. Edward Earll, was published as appendix A in G. Brown Goode, "Report of

the Assistant Secretary," Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the

Smithsonian Institution, 1889 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,

1891).

6

Ibid., page 159. This is also found in SIA, RU 55, "Assistant Secretary in

Charge of the U.S. National Museum (Richard Rathbun)," Box 19, Folder 8.

The exhibition was held from 4 July to 8 November 1888. The general files on

the exposition, including those of the biblical archaeology installation, are in

SIA, RU 70, "Exposition Records of the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S.

National Museum, 1873-1929," Boxes 28 and 29. The total exhibition space
40 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

was 12,000 square feet, of which biblical archaeology occupied 280 square feet.

7G. Brown Goode, "Report of the Assistant Secretary," Annual Report of

the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. 1889 (Washington, D.C.:

Government Printing Office), page 165.

sAdler's draft is in SIA, RU 70, Box 28.

'Adler's first draft of this position is found in SIA, RU 70, Box 28. The

revised draft is found in "Report of the Section of Oriental Antiquities for the

Year Ending June 30, 1888," page 7 (SIA, RU 158, Box 5, Folder 1). It was

published in G. Brown Goode, "Report of the Assistant Secretary," Annual

Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888

(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1890), page 94.

l0Isaac Leeser (1806-1868) was born in Westphalia (then Prussia) and

studied in Minister. He immigrated to the United States when he was 17,

coming to live with an uncle in Richmond, Virginia. Publication in a New York

newspaper of an article he wrote in defense of Judaism brought him to the

attention of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, and he became hazzan

there in 1829. Preaching in English was his innovation. He founded The

Occident in 1843, which became a successful newspaper covering topics of

interest to the Jewish community. He established the first Jewish Publication

Society of America, which issued a number of important volumes, including

school textbooks. He was an institution builder as well, founding the first

Hebrew high school (1849), the Board of Delegates of American Israelites to

defend Jewish interests (1859), and Maimonides College, which was the first

rabbinic school in America (1867). He was a traditionalist in his approach to

Judaism (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Leeser, Isaac").

1

' Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900) was born in Bohemia and emigrated to the

United States in 1846. He served in congregations in Albany, New York, and

Charleston, South Carolina, before becoming the rabbi of Congregation B'nai

Jeshurun in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he remained from 1854 until his death.

Wise, the founding father of the Reform movement in America, was the first

president of Hebrew Union College, which was established in 1875

(Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Wise, Isaac Mayer").

'•For a complete discussion of the history of the Jewish Publication Society's

Bible project, see J.D. Sarna, JPS: The Americanization of Jewish Culture,

pages 95-116.

l3Adler most fully realized this goal at the 1895 exhibition of biblical

antiquities at the Cotton States International Exposition in Atlanta. The

categories of items exhibited represented » wide spectrum of topics, from

geology to flora and fauna, dress, tools, musical instruments, and language.

Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hittite antiquities were also included, as

these ancient peoples were mentioned in the Bible. However, celebration of

customs and ceremonies was completely limited to the "Hebrews" and was

represented by Jewish ceremonial objects. Cyrus Adler and I.M. Casanowicz,

"Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit at the Cotton States

International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," United States National Museum

Annual Report for 1896 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,

1898), pages 943-1023.

l4Cyrus Adler, "Report on the Section of Oriental Antiquities for the Year

Ending June 30, 1888," pages 8ff. (SIA, RU 158, Box 5, Folder I). This

statement also appears in Adler's description of the Ohio exhibition in "The

Contribution of the Section of Oriental Antiquities to the Ohio Valley

Centennial Exhibition" (SIA, RU 70, Box 29).

l5Ibid., pages 9ff. In Otis T. Mason's 1889 annual report (page 3), he

amended this to an 800-mile radius (SIA, RU 158, Box 3).

l6Cyrus Adler, "Report of the Section of Oriental Antiquities for the Year

Ending June 30, 1889" (SIA, RU 158, Box 5, Folder 2).

"SIA, RU 158, Box 3.

18SIA. RU 158. Box 5, Folder 2.

"Ibid.

20SIA, RU 201, Box 11. He was making the same point that Goode did in his

paper "Origin of the National Scientific and Educational Institutions of the

United States," that informal advocacy was not as useful as government

sponsorship (cited in Kohlstedt, "History in a Natural History Museum," page

18).

2

'Abraham A. Neuman, Cyrus Adler: A Biographical Sketch (New York:

American Jewish Committee, 1942), page 31. The plan for where the Oriental

antiquities were to be assigned was actually determined earlier. In the "Report

of the Assistant Director" in the "Report of the U.S. National Museum," as

printed in the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian

Institution for the Year Ending June 30. 1988, it is noted that the Oriental

antiquities were to be exhibited in the West Hall, just off the Rotunda, with the

ethnological exhibits (page 26).

"Publications of the United States National Museum Bulletin (Washington,

D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1889), page 5. The tally during the

inauguration season was 106,075.

23Although Adler's biographer, Abraham A. Neuman, said that the shofar

(catalog number NMAH 95142) had been donated prior to Adler's association

with the museum, according to the registration records it was given in 1889.

Leopold Sulzberger, who arrived in the United States from Germany in 1838,

died in 1881 (Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Sulzberger").

24Cyrus Adler, "The Shofar: Its Use and Origin," in Annual Report of the

United States National Museum, 1891-92 (Washington, D.C.: Government

Printing Office, 1894), pages 437-450. The letter is cited in Robinson, Cyrus

Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 18.

2SHenrietta Szold (1860-1945) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the eldest

of five daughters. Szold not only excelled in her secular education but also was

privately tutored by her father in Judaic studies. In addition, she learned

German, Hebrew, and French. An activist from her youth, Szold pioneered a

night school for eastern European immigrants that became a model for the

Americanization of immigrants. She was an ardent Zionist. Among her many

achievements, Szold was coeditor with Adler of the American Jewish Year

Book and was actively involved as an editor and translator for the Jewish

Publication Society (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Szold, Henrietta"). The

photograph she donated to the Smithsonian is cataloged as NMAH 158469. Her

father, Benjamin Szold (1829-1902), was born in Hungary and trained in

Pressburg, Vienna, and Breslau. He arrived in the United States in 1859 and

immediately took the position at Oheb Shalom, which became a leading

synagogue during his tenure as rabbi. He was a Bible scholar and was active in

communal affairs, especially those aiding new immigrants (Encyclopaedia

Judaica, s.v. "Szold, Benjamin").

26The gift is documented in the Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Baltimore."

27The catalog listed 92 items, making it a very significant collection. See

William Rosenau, Jewish Ceremonial Institutions and Customs, fourth edition

(New York: Bloch, 1929). For many years the collection was on loan to the

Baltimore Hebrew College; since 1983, it has been on exhibit at Temple Oheb

Shalom in Baltimore. I am grateful to Jesse B. Harris, temple administrator at

Oheb Shalom, for making a photocopy of the catalog available to me. I also

thank Henry Sonneborn III for sending me a biography of his grandfather.

28SIA, RU 201, Box 11.

"Information about Karl Hirschberger and Sigmund Feuchtwanger is found

in Alexandra Lee Levin, Vision: A Biography of Dr. Harry Friedenwald of

Baltimore (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1964), page

127. The objects accessioned from Friedenwald include a tray from Turkey

(NMNH 130291), a spice container (NMAH 130297), a Sabbath lamp (NMNH

130298), and a seder plate from Germany (NMAH 130299).

30The photographs NMAH 154419-154432 were entered in the registration

records as a museum purchase on 18 November 1892. Included are the

photographs from the following cities: Berlin, Bonn, Budapest, Florence,

Frankfurt, Paris, Prague, Vienna, Wiesbaden, and Worms. The division, created

in 1969 by Richard Ahlborn to emphasize ethnic and religious collections in the

museum, was absorbed into the newly reorganized Division of Cultural History

in 1995.

31Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 10. According to

Robinson, the date on the Adler letter to Morais is 24 November 1887. This is

apparently an error; the letter was almost certainly sent in 1889. According to

Friedenwald's biography, he went to Italy after his stay in Munich.

"Levin, Vision, page 127. The shofar is NMAH 154402.
NUMBER 52 41

"Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 17.

34Bernhard Felsenthal (1822-1908) was born in Munchweile, Germany, and

emigrated to the United States in 1854. Felsenthal was a founder of the Chicago

Judisches Reformverein, which developed into the Sinai Congregation. In 1864

he became rabbi of the newly formed Zion Congregation, which he served until

his retirement in 1887. Felsenthal was also a founder of the Jewish Publication

Society and the American Jewish Historical Society, and he was involved with

Adler through those organizations. In contrast to most others in the Reform

movement, he identified with the Zionist movement and placed emphasis on

Jewish peoplehood (Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Felsenthal, Bernhard").

Institutionally, Felsenthal was aligned with Hebrew Union College, which

awarded him the degree of doctor of divinity in 1902; Adler was affiliated with

Sabato Morais and the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), which he later

served as president. JTS was established in 1887 as a response to the radical

Pittsburgh Platform, adopted by the Reform movement in 1885. In his later

years, Felsenthal moved closer to Conservative Judaism. The title of his

pamphlet, Kol Kore Bamidbar, means "a voice rings out in the desert" and is a

quotation from Isaiah 40:3.

"According to the registration records, there are only five Judaica items

listed as having been purchased by Adler during September 1889: a Sabbath

lamp, NMAH 130294; a Hanukkah lamp, NMAH 130295; a print of "Ancient

Jewish Scholars," NMAH 154454; a relief map of Palestine, accession no.

22351; and a print of the Tabernacle, accession no. 22480. The Sabbath lamp

and Hanukkah lamp were published in three U.S. National Museum catalogs:

the Annual Report of the U.S. National Museum, 1898, Proceedings of the U.S.

National Museum, 1908; and U.S. National Museum Bulletin 148, 1929.

36SIA, RU 158, Box 5, Folder 4.

"Levin, Vision, pages 132ff.

"Report of the U.S. National Museum. 1891, page 19.

39G. Brown Goode, "Report of the Assistant Secretary," Report of the U.S.

National Museum, 1893 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,

1895), page 136.
6. The World's Columbian Exposition

Returning from his 1889 European trip, which included a

visit to the Exposition Universelle in Paris, Otis T. Mason was

enthusiastic about the possibilities for the World's Columbian

Exposition, scheduled to be held in Chicago in 1892. George

Brown Goode was given the opportunity to develop a plan for

the fair, and in 1890 he prepared a "First Draft of a System of

Classification for the World's Columbian Exposition." Goode

repeated the theme he had expressed in "Museums of the

Future," written in 1889:

The exhibition of the future will be an exhibition of ideas rather than of objects,

and nothing will be deemed worthy of admission to its halls which has not some

living, inspiring thought behind it, and which is not capable of teaching some

valuable lesson.1

The central message was progress, and the fair would portray

"the steps of progress of civilization and its arts in successive

centuries, and in all lands up to the present time" and become

"an illustrated encyclopedia of civilization."2 Goode particularly wanted to demonstrate the advances made by the United

States:

The exposition should be not merely a show, a fair, or a colossal shop, but also

and preeminently, an exposition of the principles which underlie our national

and individual welfare, of our material, intellectual and moral status; of the

elements of our weakness and our strength, of the progress we have made, the

plane on which we live and the ways in which we shall rise higher. It should be

an exposition of knowledge, illustrated by the material objects shown. It should

teach not only to our people, but to the world, what a young republic, with all

the crudeness of youth, but heir to the experience of the ages, has done in its

brief past, is doing in the present, and hopes to do in the greater future for its

people and for mankind.3

Inherent in this theme, however, was the presumption of the

preeminence of "civilization" over "primitive societies,"

reinforcing the supposition of the superiority of Euro-American

culture. This attitude has been described by Robert Rydell as

"politically and culturally correct by the standards of an age

characterized by the relentless search for overseas empire."4

The disparity was to be manifest at the fair in the ethnographic

exhibitions on the Midway.

"Living" Ethnographic Exhibitions

The participation of the United States government at the fair

was actually mandated by the act of Congress that created the

exposition. What that meant in practical terms was that

Congress was to pay all costs of administration, construction

and care of buildings, and exhibit preparation.5 In the course of

the next two years, there were to be extensive preparations at

the Smithsonian for the major event. However, the Smithsonian's involvement was just one element in a much larger

enterprise that included influential commercial investors.6 This

was certainly the case with regard to the anthropology exhibits.

Frederick Ward Putnam, director and curator of the Peabody

Museum at Harvard, was appointed in 1891 as the head of the

Department of Ethnology and Archaeology for the fair.7 For

two years Putnam, with his chief assistant, Franz Boas,

collected materials from sites throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Anthropology Building was constructed specially

to house the collections of ethnography, archaeology, and

physical anthropology, and there were several outdoor displays

as well.8

In addition, there were ethnology exhibits, organized by Otis

Mason, at the U.S. Government Building. Mason wrote about

the planning for the exhibits in his annual report for the fiscal

year 1890-1891. In his report, Mason cited previous presentations at the "great Expositions" and stressed the importance of

the plan for the World's Columbian Exposition as demonstrating, and thus validating, the contributions of a century of

research in the field of ethnography. Although the plan reflects

the care that would be taken in portraying the lifestyle of the

"natives" prior to contact with European civilization, the

authenticity sought by the researchers would also serve the

purpose of demonstrating that the "native" life reflected a

"primitive" society. The proposed plan, according to Mason,

was

to show at Chicago, as accurately as possible the aboriginal life of North

America at the time the natives were first visited by the Whites and before they

were changed by contact with our civilization. Such an exhibit has never been

attempted for any continent before because the means were not at hand to carry

it out. It is true that in all the great Expositions much attention has been paid to

primitive arts. The Paris Exposition of 1889 had a section devoted to the French

Colonies in Africa and in South-eastern Asia, and there was a most interesting

series of structures illustrative of human habitations in all grades of

culture.... AH of these efforts were successful in their way and it is now

designed to follow them up with a comprehensive display which will enable the

spectator to see the Continent as it appeared to the first explorers. At the same

time the Exposition will furnish an appropriate culmination of a series of

investigations which have been prosecuted for a century.... The World's

Exposition furnishes the happy occasion of crowning the distinguished scholars

who have for a hundred years been doing their best to make a great historic and

ethnographic exhibit possible.'

But Thomas W. Palmer, president of the national commission

for the fair, also had been to Paris. He wanted to replicate the

villages he had seen at the Paris Exposition with native groups

living on the Midway Plaisance, the mile-long area of the fair

set aside for amusements and sideshows. Although many of

Putnam's materials did get displayed, more attention was

42
NUMBER 52 43

afforded to the commercial and industrial exhibits. A compromise was reached about the Midway Plaisance, and Putnam

was put in charge of those exhibits as well. Sol Bloom, then 21

years old, was made supervisor of the installation of the

Midway exhibits as a member of Daniel Burnham's Division of

Works. Bloom, who became a real-estate developer, later

gained prominence as a member of Congress and one of those

who drafted the United Nations charter. He too had been to

Paris and was quite surprised that Putnam was responsible for

the Midway exhibits. The enterprising Bloom had actually

signed a contract while still in Paris to bring the Algerian

village to Chicago. In his autobiography he would recount that

having Putnam in charge was like making "Albert Einstein

manager of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey

Circus."10

Unfortunately, contrary to Putnam's intention, what had

been intended to be pedagogic became essentially commercial,

for visitors had to pay an entrance fee to each attraction.

Furthermore, rather than educating visitors about other cultures

and showing other peoples in a positive light, the Midway's

carnival-like atmosphere reinforced the stereotypes of the

primitive, foreign, nonwhite "other." The issue of race also

emerged in the exhibitions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and

the Bureau of American Ethnology; its portrayal of the

primitiveness of Native Americans was opposed by Richard

Henry Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian School in

Pennsylvania." Similarly, the lack of African-Americans on

the National Commission and other de facto obstacles to the

presentation of exhibitions about African-Americans was

decried by Frederick Douglass, who essentially described as a

sham America's posture as a "highly liberal and civilized

nation" while at the same time, "as if to shame the Negro, the

Dahomians [an African ethnic group exhibited on the Midway]

are also here to exhibit the Negro as a repulsive savage."12

As perhaps the quintessential example of the exotic and

forbidden being transformed into a commodity,13 the Midway

probably became best known for Oriental dancing and certainly

not for the historic cultures from which the dance traditions

came.14 What is extraordinary, considering how the Street in

Cairo developed, is that it was the academic Cyrus Adler who

negotiated the arrangements for this "exhibit."

Adler's Planning Excursion to the Near East

Adler shared the eagerness of his Smithsonian colleagues to

teach the general public through expositions. After all, the 1888

Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley in Cincinnati had

been a very positive experience for him. Adler too was to have

a role in the ethnography exhibits at the World's Columbian

Exposition, although his historical perspective, as recounted by

him decades later, seems more than a bit grandiose. In 1890,

according to his autobiography, it was Adler who presented to

Congress the concept of inviting foreign governments to

participate in the fair to be held in Chicago. Adler describes

how a chance encounter on a train with a newspaperman,

William Elroy Curtis, and a great Chicago merchant, James W.

Ellsworth, led to Adler's recommendation not only that the

exposition gather together the products of the world, as did the

Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, but also that "they

ought to go one step further and try to gather together the

peoples of the world and show them at their work."15 The

model Adler claimed to have proposed was the Rue du Caire at

the Paris exposition of 1889, and he suggested that the Chicago

exposition could similarly represent the entire Orient with

ethnographic villages. It was likely Mason's description of the

Paris fair that Adler used for reference.

It is important to note that the Midway was not exclusively

devoted to the Near Eastern attractions, nor was it devoted

entirely to "primitive" peoples. There was, of course, the Ferris

wheel. In addition, there were several European peoples

represented. However, the presentation of white European

ethnic groups was markedly different. For example, Rydell

describes the German village, which was operated by the

immigration agent for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe

Railroad, as an apparent display of the ability of German

immigrants to assimilate into American society.16

Among the "exotic" cultures, there was a particular

fascination—both among the organizers and among the people

who visited the fair—with the exhibits from the Near East.17 In

Europe there was a great interest in Islam and an obsession with

Orientalism, which had begun with Napoleon's Egyptian

campaign in the late eighteenth century and persisted until

World War I. The enchantment with the Near East was

heightened by such events as the conquest of Algeria by France

in 1830 and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Moreover,

the ever-expanding network of railroads facilitated travel,

making access to these faraway, romantic places much easier.

Orientalism (the term was coined in France), one of the many

schools (or styles) that developed in the nineteenth century,

was originally used to identify the painters and paintings of the

Near East. However, the captivation with the mysterious,

evocative subject matter of the Near East was reflected in other

arts as well, and Orientalism became widespread in Europe and

even the United States. Yet there was an ambivalence: on the

one hand, Near Eastern peoples and their cultures were

intriguing, but on the other, these peoples, when encountered,

were still "inscrutable Orientals."18

Representation of different countries was an integral element

of world's fairs from the very outset. Though the emphasis was

on the achievements of the colonial powers, there is certainly

evidence that these installations were elaborately developed

and presented with dignity. For example, a contemporary

source indicates that the Turkish section at the landmark 1851

Crystal Palace Exhibition

was arranged with infinite taste; the whole resembling the Turkish bazaars,

where goods are displayed after the Eastern fashion. Those persons who had

previously visited the famous shops of Adrianople, of Constantinople, and of

Smyrna, were not prepared to see the variety and the richness of the

articles.19
44 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Islam was introduced at the 1867 and 1889 expositions in Paris.

The political agenda of the sponsoring countries was to

represent a national identity for Islam to the European audience

through large and extravagant installations.20 The fame of the

Street in Cairo had clearly spread, and now the commercial

enterprise was clearly linked to the exotic and to the

entertainment factor.

When the plan to include living ethnographic exhibits from

the Near East at the World's Columbian Exposition was

approved, Adler became a special commissioner and spent

fifteen months in Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and

Morocco making the necessary arrangements.21 For Adler, the

student of Semitics, it was a rare opportunity, though the

lessons he ultimately would learn were more about economics

and realpolitik than about the ancient Near East. Most of his

letters were written to his mother, and although he recorded

much factual data, the missives are also informal and provide

an interesting personal glimpse into his experiences.

A letter written from London at the start of his trip hints at

things to come. For example, though he was to meet routinely

with members of the Jewish community wherever he went, he

took care to separate his Jewish interests from his assigned task

of negotiating for the World's Columbian Exposition.22 For

instance, he noted that he was not going to seek out Baron de

Hirsch or the Sassoons, as they "farm the revenues of the

Turkish and Persian governments and are unpopular in official

circles."23

In the same letter, he also mentioned that the Times of

London had reported a "serious row" at the U.S. government

committee meeting in Chicago, putting the entire exposition in

jeopardy. This was the first of several problems and delays

from Chicago, causing Adler to fear that his efforts would be

compromised. Regarding the possible cancellation, he goodnaturedly wrote to his mother, "I don't believe it, but am going

to hurry on as I should rather be recalled from Constantinople

than London."24

Adler gained insight into the political aspect of his activities

when he met Brusch Bey in Berlin. Brusch Bey was in

government service in Turkey for over twenty years; he

represented the Egyptian government at the Philadelphia

Centennial Exposition in 1876 and served as German minister

to Persia for some time.25 Brusch Bey's advice about

negotiations with Egypt was that Adler must meet with the

khedive for appearances, even though the ruler was powerless;

the British really controlled Egypt, and Adler would need to

deal with the British government. Brusch Bey cautioned him

that he must "rely absolutely on the American minister and use

only government channels; not... attempt to do anything by the

influence of a private person,"26 and Adler's experiences in

Egypt in March and April of 1891 would prove that Brusch

Bey's advice was well taken. Brusch Bey also gave Adler a

letter of introduction to the Persian minister in Berlin.

Adler took the opportunity on his European stops to visit a

number of museums. He kept a diary in which he jotted down

his evaluations of the several museums he visited. Even these

private notes reflect his striving to be professional in his

comments as to the technical aspects of the museum

installations and in assessing how scientific they were in their

approach to the material on display, as well as the quality of the

collections. Yet there was also the element of sheer excitement

in actually seeing these museums. The dichotomy is exemplified in a letter describing the British Museum:

Friday evening we spent at the British Museum, the wonders of which it is

simply impossible to describe. I do not think that for the ancient world their

collections can ever be duplicated. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the

Smithsonian is in better hands and that from a scientific point of view, and in

matter of arrangement, we are far ahead of our English cousins.27

During the month of December 1890 he also visited museums

in Paris, Cologne, Berlin, and Vienna. Of the Oriental Museum

in Vienna, which was located above the stock exchange, he

wrote that it had a good collection, but that it was "miserably

arranged, not a decent label, and very dark."

After a 45-hour train ride on the Orient Express, Adler

arrived in Constantinople. He was immediately struck by the

cosmopolitanism of the city, with its Turks, Arabs, Armenians,

Greeks, French, English, and Americans. The mystique of

Orientalism also captivated him quickly; just two days after his

arrival he participated in the weekly pomp and circumstance of

the sultan's trip from his palace to the mosque. Adler wrote,

"Today is a great day in Constantinople and I have seen a great

sight.... My travels thus far have taught me one thing, and that

is that words do not describe No spectacle I have ever seen

can in any way compare with this in brilliancy."28

When he arrived in Constantinople, Adler was concerned

because his initial meeting with the American representative in

Turkey, Solomon Hirsch (1839-1902), was not as warm and

cordial as he had hoped. As he confided to his mother, "I have

no doubt we shall get along well together, but my impression

was a man to be handled gingerly—not the hail fellow,

well-met style. Hang it all, I wish Straus were minister."29

Adler apparently felt that his connections with the German

Jewish elite would have stood him in good stead with the

previous U.S. representative, Oscar Straus. However, the Straus

connection did benefit him after all, as Adler soon met Robert

Levy, a Turkish Jewish merchant of whom Straus had spoken.

Adler immediately admired Levy and described his bazaar as

the "handsomest I have seen."30 Levy sent kosher food to

Adler's hotel room and invited him to spend Shabbat at his

home.

As Adler rightly suspected from their very first meeting,

Levy's cordiality was not without ulterior motive: "I think he is

hospitable by nature and besides I have very strong reasons for

supposing that he suspects my business here and that he wants

to do a big thing at Chicago—get a monopoly for a

Constantinople exhibit."31 Levy became Adler's contact to the

Jewish community. Ultimately, Levy's company, Souhami,

Sadullah and Co., would get a contract to represent Turkey at

the World's Columbian Exposition.32
NUMBER 52 45

Adler continued to meet with merchants and felt sure that if

the Turkish government agreed to be represented at the fair,

there would be no problem finding dealers, as they all seemed

interested. However, he was quickly becoming schooled in the

modus operandi of the streets. Adler wrote in his diary that

there was a Turkish proverb that struck him as particularly

appropriate:

"Bal tootan parmaghini jalar," He who handles honey licks his fingers. This like

most Turkish proverbs has a business application. It means that a man who acts

as intermediary to secure a good position or concession must get something for

it.33

He was also learning that the bureaucracy of the World's

Columbian Exposition was going to cause delays as well. In a

letter to his uncle David Sulzberger on 11 January 1891, Adler

expressed his concerns:

I hope the official proclamation [from the President] will soon come. I may be

delayed here a whole month yet. I can hardly blame the Turks for being slow

when our government is ditto and Mr. Hirsch declines to present the matter at

the Palace until he gets his instructions from the Department of State. In view

of the condition of affairs I quite agree with him but it is aggravating just the

same. Fortunately for me I have oriental blood in my veins and know how to

wait. I should have a fever if I didn't. It would be very hard for me to be here

and not be able to go to Baghdad or Persia but I shall of course let business take

precedence of longings. Egypt is most important for me after this place while

Persia is safe in the hands of our minister there.34

While he was waiting for the official approval, Adler continued

his efforts to make the acquaintance of potential participants in

the fair. Besides the commercial contacts, he had several

meetings with Hamdi Bey, who was the director of the Imperial

Museum, a museum of archaeology. The collection there

included Greek, Assyrian, Egyptian, and Palmyran antiquities.

Among the treasures of the museum was the jewelry found by

Schliemann at Troy.35 Adler attributed the fact that the Imperial

Museum was not very "scientific" in its orientation to the

director's position being largely a post of honor. By 6 February

Adler was happy to report that he had secured permission to

make any casts he wished and that copies could be made for the

University of Pennsylvania as well. The sweetening of the deal

for Hamdi Bey was Adler's assurance that no matter what

happened with the government, Hamdi Bey himself could

exhibit as an artist. Adler noted that Hirsch had helped him out

by announcing a diplomatic dinner to which the museum

director was to be invited and that "it is the little things that turn

the scales."36

Adler also met with Tewfik Bey Ebuzia, director of the

Museum of Janissaries. Adler was extremely impressed with

this museum and noted in one of his letters that its Turkish

name meant "ancient costume." He felt that the labels, which

were written in Turkish, French, Greek, and Armenian, were

particularly noteworthy. He wrote in his diary, "The labels are

good and many a European Museum of more scientific

pretensions would be well if its labels were so good."37 During

a visit on 22 February, Tewfik Bey reiterated his promise to

send a collection of costumes to America and told Adler that he

really wanted to go along. He told Adler that even if he was not

appointed a commissioner, he would finance his own trip.38

In early February Adler was apparently beginning to feel the

pressure of time, and he made the decision to go on to Egypt

even though things were not settled in Turkey. However, by the

time he sailed, things were beginning to fall into place. In a

report to the United States National Museum dated 24

February, written en route to Alexandria, Adler summarized his

accomplishments. In addition to the commitments by Hamdi

Bey and Tewfik Bey, Adler wrote that he had secured promises

of exhibits from some artists and schools, met with the grand

vizier and the minister of foreign affairs, and, pending approval

from Chicago, negotiated an agreement with the merchants for

an exhibit replicating part of a bazaar.

They agree to erect a bazaar with forty shops each one containing a native at

work. A Mosque, ten Turkish houses and to erect a square of Constantinople at

Chicago (the ancient Hippodrome) with facsimiles of the monuments still

standing. They will put up buildings etc. at their own expense in exchange for

a restaurant and sale privileges. I hope it will be ratified as it would be a fine

exhibit.35

When he arrived in Egypt, the situation there seemed

unpromising. On 8 March he wrote facetiously:

The Exposition business here is in lovely condition. The Department of State

has sent the Consul General no instructions so he is not able to act. I telegraphed

to Constantinople and Mr. Grant in Washington. If the Department manages all

business as it does the Exposition, it isn't anything to be proud of.40

His spirits lifted somewhat when he visited the Gizeh Museum,

a museum of antiquities. Formerly known as the Boulak

Museum, it had recently moved to a palace in Gizeh and been

renamed. Adler described the building as large and beautiful

and offered the opinion that the Egyptian collection was far

better than those in London and Paris. Also on display were

fifty cuneiform tablets from Tell el-Amarna. Unfortunately,

there were few labels and no catalog.41

Finally, on 24 March, a telegram arrived authorizing Adler to

go ahead with his negotiations, as a formal invitation was in the

mail to the Egyptian government. On 31 March Adler, dressed

in a Prince Albert coat procured for the occasion, paid a

ceremonial visit to the khedive. On 6 April Adler wrote his

uncle David that he was very anxious to get things done before

Ramadan, but he fretted, "It's like trying to make water go

uphill to hurry things up in this part of the world."42 Brusch

Bey's advice proved correct, and Adler recognized the

importance of dealing with the British in his negotiations.43

On 16 April he was finally able to send an optimistic report:

I have gotten a favorable answer from the government, was present at the

meeting of the Commission, they have agreed to put in the report what I want,

and I have received a proposition for an Arab quarter, Egyptian temple, etc., in

fact, a good show. If the Exposition authorities will ratify the arrangement I

think the result will be good.44

By this point, however, he seemed resigned to the fact that the

aims of the "living ethnographic exhibits" were going to be

compromised. The educational environment the anthropolo-
46 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

FIGURE 11.—"In the Cairo Street," World's Columbian Exposition. (The Dream City: A Portfolio of

Photographic Views of the World's Columbian Exposition)

gists wanted to create was becoming a burlesque. It was

difficult to make arrangements that excluded lucrative ventures.45

 Adler's positive letter of 16 April was tempered by the

news that

all this week all sorts of people have been at me with all sorts of

schemes—everybody wants to run a show and charge an entrance fee. As a

matter of fact it is impossible to get the things 1 want from here without some

sort of a side show arrangement. I am against it on principle but the people are

spoiled by the fact that it was permitted in Paris.46

From Cairo Adler traveled to Jerusalem, where he celebrated

Passover, and then went on to Beirut and Damascus before

returning to Constantinople. He found that there were still

problems to be resolved. A major issue was the loss, through

embezzlement and bribes, of a significant sum of money that

the government had allocated for the 1876 Centennial

Exhibition. It was already late May when Adler wrote:

The Grand Vizier seems to be afraid to do anything for fear the money will be

wasted. They appropriated $40,000 for the Philadelphia Exhibition and it all

leaked out on the road. So I got Mr. Hirsch to ask the Grand Vizier to accept and

appoint some one to meet me and we will outline an exhibit and furnish an

estimate. He said he would do this. Then Pangiri Bey, who is the Sultan's

secretary came and told me the same thing—that they were afraid to give any

money for fear it would all go to the devil—just think of such a government.

The Sultan and Grand Vizier are both good able men but they are surrounded

on every side by a horde of bandits.47

Adler's work on behalf of the Exposition was not limited to the

exhibitions. For example, in his autobiography he describes his
NUMBER 52 47

FIGURE 12.—"Turkish Pavilion," World's Columbian Exposition. (The Dream City: A Portfolio of Photographic

Views of the World's Columbian Exposition)

negotiations with the representatives of the grand vizier in

Constantinople:

Days were spent in discussing the question as to whether if a Moslem

workingman should fall ill or have an accident on the grounds of the

Exposition, I could assure him proper hospital treatment, and the possibility of

eating food prepared according to Moslem law, whether a Mosque would be

permitted on the grounds of the Exposition and services could be conducted

there. These and other weighty matters were discussed with the royal

commission, as well as details of the business end with representatives of the

syndicate.48

Given all these concerns, it is interesting to note that it was

asserted, at least according to a description by Isidore Lewi,

that many of those who came to work in the Turkish village

were not Moslems but Jews, which makes sense, given that the

proprietors of the simulated bazaar shops were Jewish. The

implication is that what was represented was indeed more

theater than ethnography. Evidence to this effect is given in

Lewi's report, entitled "Yom Kippur on the Midway," which

provides a fascinating glimpse of the observance of this holiest

of days at the World's Columbian Exposition:

About four-fifths of the inhabitants of the Turkish village on the Midway

Plaisance at the Chicago Exposition were Jews. Merchants, clerks, actors,

servants, musicians, and even the dancing girls, were of the mosaic faith,

though their looks and garb would lead one to believe them Mohammedans. ... The Turkish mosque was so arranged that it could be used as a

Jewish house of worship....

It was in this gorgeously equipped and dimly lighted mosque that the oriental

Jews assembled on Tuesday evening, September 19, 1893, and read the Kol

Nidre services
48 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

They came from all parts of the Orient. Constantinople had the largest

representation, though there were men from Adrianople, Tunis, Tripoli,

Damascus, Smyrna, Bombay, Calcutta, from Algeria and other Eastern points,

and two men from New York. And here it was seen how wise were those who

made Hebrew the language of prayer for the Jews. Coming from lands far apart,

unfamiliar with one another's language, unable to converse with one another in

many instances, still in prayer, by the use of the same language, they were

united.49

After all the earlier promises and the many delays, Adler was

shocked to learn from a newspaper report on 21 June that a

commission to represent Turkish interests at the World's

Columbian Exposition had been established without consulting

him or even informing him of what they planned to do.

Through Hirsch, the grand vizier agreed to have Adler meet

with the minister of public works and a committee from the

chamber of commerce. Adler's response was, "I am now where

I must keep my eyes very wide open—so many intriguers who

think that there is something to be made out of it. I am trying to

be as polite as they are and stick to my guns."50

It became ever clearer to Adler that economics was a critical

factor in his dealings with both sides. The World's Columbian

Exposition Commission saw the Midway as an opportunity to

gain revenue for the exposition's investors. In July of 1891,

while still in Constantinople, Adler received word from

Chicago that the commission was to receive 25 percent of the

gross receipts of all merchandise sold. In a letter dated 14 July

1891 he complained that if that was the case, on top of the stiff

duties charged under the McKinley Tariff of 1890, it would

"keep all the merchants at home." He wrote that he intended to

try to get the decision changed, for if it was not, "I might as well

give up the ship."51 Fortunately, his protestations worked, and

on 24 July he received a telegram saying that the Chicago

exposition commission would agree to liberal terms and that a

representative of the Turkish government commission should

travel to Chicago to execute a contract and arrange the details.

Adler thought Robert Levy would likely go.52

There were a couple of additional surprises that July. He

reported in one of his letters to his uncle David that he had

received a good deal of correspondence from Chicago

questioning the appropriateness of Oriental dancing at the fair.

He said there were many "pros and cons" and he did not want

to make a decision, so he had asked the Chicago commission's

directors to postpone a decision until he returned. In the letter

Adler explained that there was no dancing in public in Turkey;

rather, it was done "in private altogether," and he indicated that

he was going to a party to evaluate the situation. After the

event, his opinion, as expressed to his mother, was that the

dancing "would not shock anyone's notions of propriety." He

also remarked that one of the girls was a Greek who "speaks

eleven languages well and she dances for a couple of hours a

night."53 Clearly he must have been rather naive, and even if he

made any protestations about the authenticity of dancing in

public, they went unheeded. Indeed, these performances

became a highlight of the Midway.54

FIGURE 13.—"Dancing Girl in the Street of Cairo Theater," World's

Columbian Exposition. (The Dream City: A Portfolio of Photographic Views of

the World's Columbian Exposition)

Adler was beginning to make plans to return to the United

States when he received a directive to continue on to Tunis and

await instructions. Although he thought this a bit strange,

apparently he felt that it was an affirmation by the exposition's

organizers of the value of his role, which, he wrote, he was

beginning to doubt.55

September brought yet another bombshell: On 4 September

Adler wrote that there was to be a new grand vizier and that he

feared all of the agreements would be repudiated. Fortunately,

this turned out not to be the case, and by 6 September he felt

confident that both the Turkish and Egyptian plans would go

forward.56 Adler left for Tunis and in October was told to travel

to Algiers and Morocco and then return to Constantinople by 1

November. By December Adler was more than ready to return

home.
NUMBER 52 49

Cyrus Adler, Anglophile

Although Adler did not acquire any Judaica on his trip, his

visit to London en route to the Near East did provide him with

an influential concept for an exhibition on religious ceremonials. He would later write that at the Anglo-Jewish Historical

Exhibition, "the richest collection of Jewish ceremonial objects

ever gotten together was placed on exhibition."57

While in London he made contact with many of the city's

young Jewish intellectuals.58 His high opinion of the AngloJewish scholars was confirmed when he met them, and Adler

became a true Anglophile.59 So impressed was he with the

cultural renaissance in England that later, after a second trip to

Europe and the Near East in 1894, he called for similar efforts

in America.60

Among those who impressed him the most was Lucien Wolf,

who, as described earlier, was one of the major figures in

orchestrating the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition. Adler

mentioned Wolf in a letter to his mother, written from London

on 1 December 1890. He wrote that Wolf had tremendous

collections for a history of the Jews of England and some on the

Jews of Holland. Adler hinted to Wolf that such a collection

was wanted in Washington, but he received no response.

The aims of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition very

much paralleled Adler's own mission. He too wanted to

provide knowledge about Jewish history and ceremony on the

theory that greater knowledge of the Jewish community would

lead to less prejudice. Adler's role in the founding of the

American Jewish Historical Society in 1892 only strengthened

this position. Among the Britons Adler met was Joseph Jacobs,

an eminent literary scholar. Jacobs later came to the United

States and at Adler's behest tried to organize an American

Jewish historical exhibition through the American Jewish

Historical Society, but the plans were never realized.61

In the published version of the paper he delivered at the

anthropology conference at the World's Columbian Exposition, Adler included several appendices, including the "Classification of the Anglo-Jewish Exhibition."62

 Adler purchased

installation photographs of the ceremonial arts exhibits at the

Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition in the summer of 1892

while he was in the midst of planning the exhibition of religious

ceremonial objects at the World's Columbian Exposition.63

Adler Returns to Washington

Adler returned from the Near East in January 1892 and

resumed work at the Smithsonian in March. On his return to the

United States, Adler gave the Jewish Exponent a statement on

his accomplishments that gave no hint of the trials and

tribulations of his work. In his diplomatic way, he completely

avoided any mention of the political nature of his negotiations,

and there was no clue given that the exhibits would be anything

but educational.

In the several countries which I visited, (Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Tunis, Algiers

and Morocco) about $1,200,000 has already been subscribed by merchants and

manufacturers, engaged in the various native industries, for purposes of

representation at Chicago. This sum is exclusive of all governmental grants and

is likely to be further swelled by additional subscriptions. The exhibits wil I take

the form of a series of village streets, reproducing the native architecture, life,

dress, speech and industries of the particular locality. Native artisans will be

seated in front of native shops attired in characteristic costumes, speaking their

native tongue, and working away with native implements at their peculiar

crafts. Nothing will be spared to make the reproduction as realistic and life-like

as possible, and the visitor will have nothing to remove the impression that he

is really in a street in Constantinople, or whatever spot the exhibit may be

designed to reproduce. I estimate that some four hundred natives will come to

this country for the purposes of creating the buildings and of reproducing the

industrial life of the Orient.... The entire Oriental exhibit will probably occupy

some 400,000 square feet, and be a most interesting and attractive feature of the

Exposition.64

Proposal for an Exhibition on Religious Ceremonials

for the Exposition

Once Adler returned to the United States, he was no longer

involved with the Near Eastern ethnographic exhibits, but

rather with creating an exhibition on religion for the fair.

Adler's later recollections, as published in his autobiography,

obscure somewhat the details of how the exhibition's philosophy and timetable were developed. Adler reported in his

autobiography that the decision to mount an exhibition at the

World's Columbian Exposition emanated from the Cincinnati

Exposition:

The idea that the American people were much interested in the Bible and

biblical archaeology, and also in Jewish subjects, as well as the general history

of religion, had gained growth in the mind of Dr. Goode. ... I was encouraged,

therefore to put up a much larger exhibit on these subjects than the first one of

its kind at the smaller Cincinnati Exposition of 18S8.65

However, in an earlier publication, Adler's introduction to the

1908 catalog The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in

the United States National Museum, he noted that it was in

1890 that a formal treatment of the subject of religion was first

developed. He also stated that this work had been initiated in

anticipation of an exhibition on religion at the World's

Columbian Exposition based on a scientific method of

classification.

In 1890 the question was taken up of the possibility of applying such treatment

to religion, a subject of whose importance in the history of humanity there has

never been any question. There was a doubt, however, in the minds of many as

to whether the abstract ideas which group themselves about the word 'religion'

could be adequately or even fairly portrayed through ceremonial objects,

numerous as they might be. Two members of the staff were instructed, while

abroad, to examine into this subject, with the result that, in 1891, it was decided

to secure objects of religious ceremony with the view primarily to exhibit them

at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and ultimately with the

intention of bringing them together for installation in the National Museum.66

It is not clear who these two staff members were. It may be that

Adler was referring to Mason's trip and his own, though, as has

been indicated, he made no such acquisitions during his trip to

the Near East. In retrospect, what Adler was trying to establish

was that his work prior to his Near East trip had laid the

groundwork for an expansion of the scientific study of religion,

as had been projected in the annual report of 1890.67 The
50 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

ultimate result was the same: when Adler returned in 1892, he

did propose organizing an exhibition on religious ceremonials

for the World's Columbian Exposition, and in 1893, after the

fair, the Section of Historic Religious Ceremonials was

established at the Smithsonian Institution.

Establishing a Model for the Study of Religion

One of the stops Adler made on his return trip from the Near

East was Paris, where he visited the Musee Guimet. Though he

critiqued the museum's methods, Adler wrote in his autobiography of its importance as a model for the study of religion at

the Smithsonian:

It was a former visit to the Musee Guimet in Paris, which was devoted

exclusively to the history of religions and later incorporated in the museum

system of France, that helped me and the authorities of the Museum to decide

to put up a collection for the study of the history of religions in the National

Museum.68

The Musee Guimet was established in Lyon in 1879 and moved

to Paris in 1885 to display the collection assembled by Emile

Guimet, who had been sent on a mission by the French Ministry

of Public Instruction to study the religions of the Orient. Goode

was extremely enthusiastic about the Musee Guimet, and

Mason, who visited there in 1889, must have agreed with

Goode's assessment. Goode wrote that the Musee Guimet,

"which is intended to illustrate the history of religious

ceremonial among all races of men," is "most remarkable"

among those museums "which are devoted to some special

field of human thought and interest."69

Whereas Goode's appraisal of the Musee Guimet was a

positive factor in the establishment of a department of religious

ceremonials at the Smithsonian, Adler, though noting the

"splendid character of its collections" and stressing the "great

impetus they have given to scientific research," nonetheless

disagreed with the Parisian approach and indicated that the

Musee Guimet had "serious weaknesses:"

The general classification as well as the special arrangement are defective from

the point of view of a museum of religions....

Geographical considerations have dictated the general classifications, so that

the Chinese, Japanese and Indian Buddhism, for example, are shown out of

relation to one another. ... So strongly has the aesthetic arrangement predominated that I am informed the character of the museum is to be changed, and that

in the future it will be devoted to Oriental art....

The most serious fault of the museum, however, is that it fails to furnish an

intelligent train of thought to the mind of the average visitor. The real method

of popular education consists in imparting the unknown in terms of the

known. ... From the point of view of popular education it is therefore a capital

error that the Musee Guimet has not included the Christian religion, as well as

the Mohammedan and Jewish religions.70

Adler's Model for the Study of Religion

For Adler, Semitic scholar and committed Jew, it was

essential to structure any study of religion in relationship to the

study of the Bible. It was a logical step for him to move from

the study of Oriental antiquities to a focus on biblical

archaeology and then develop the link to Judaism and its

"daughter" religions, Christianity and Islam. This conception

of the relationships among these three religions, with Judaism

as the "mother," demonstrates that Adler held a triumphalist

view of Judaism. The study of these religions would provide a

model for studying other religions that would validate his

cultural politics.

Adler's view was, of course, very different from the dogma

he hoped to counteract, attitudes that were probably unspoken

in his professional relationships at the Museum. As succinctly

described by Naomi Cohen, the typical conviction held by the

American public was directly linked to the outlook that had

been brought from Europe:

Although Christianity recognized the importance of Judaism, the foundation on

which it rested, it taught that the mother faith had been bypassed by the new

revelation. The Jews, the original children of Israel, had rejected the

messiahship of Jesus and crucified him. For that crime, they became a despised

and persecuted people. The settlers of the New World brought these doctrines

with them from Europe, and long before they had actual contacts with Jews

their opinions of "the Jew" were fixed.71

Organizing the Exhibition

Correspondence in the Smithsonian Institution Archives

indicates that plans for an exhibition of religious ceremonials at

the World's Columbian Exposition began as soon as Adler

returned to the United States National Museum in the spring of

1892. The earliest document is a letter dated 14 March 1892

from Adler to Otis T. Mason:

As you are aware, I have for some time been engaged in making collections to

illustrate the ceremonies of the Jews and Mohamedans [sic]. If it is at all

possible, I think it would be most interesting to make a comprehensive exhibit

of objects of religious ceremonial (in outline at least) at the World's Columbian

Exposition. Will you kindly inform me how much material there now exists in

duplicate in your department that might be copied either by photography or

casting for such an exhibit.

Before undertaking to draw up a plan and make a recommendation on the

subject, I should be glad to know whether this exhibit would in any way

interfere with, or duplicate the exhibit you are preparing for the Exposition.72

It was not until 13 May 1892 that Adler submitted to George

Brown Goode his proposal to mount an exhibition on religious

ceremonials at the World's Columbian Exposition. In his letter.

Adler addressed Goode as the "Representative of the Smithsonian Institution and U.S. National Museum at the World's

Columbian Exposition."

In addition to a linguistic exhibit, already proposed, I beg to suggest that there

be installed in the National Museum exhibit at the World's Columbian

Exposition an exhibit of Religious Ceremony illustrating public and private

religious ceremonial.

As a tentative list of the religions to be illustrated I would suggest Judaism,

Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Brahmanism [Hinduism], Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and four North American Indian religions.

It will be necessary that the collections of the National Museum form the

basis of the exhibit and that the cooperation of the various Missionary Boards

be invited.73

These letters not only reveal the late date at which the proposal

was made but also give an indication of the lack of any
NUMBER 52

51

Ji B, /a 2 ..&,IWT,J ^-^ J .

C.C.

FIGURE 14.—"Marriage Ceremony of the German Jews," by Bernard Picart, France. 1725; NMAH 154575-M.

(Negative number 92-13058)

significant organization prior to that point in the development

of the religious ceremonials exhibition. This is underscored by

the memo that accompanied Adlervs letter to Goode regarding

objects already in the collections and his assessment as to what

should be acquired.

The Museum now contains a considerable quantity of material for the

illustration of the Jewish, Buddhist, Brahman and American Indian Religions.

There is little material for the Mohammedan religion. The following objects

would be necessary. A model (3 ft. high) of a pulpit about $100; a mosque lamp

S25; Qoran Stand $50; banners used in feasts $25; photographs of mosques and

fountains $10; series of photographs of the Holy Places of Mecca $15; Costume

of Whirling Dervish and Imam $50; figures of these costumes. I have in my

possession the following objects which 1 shall be glad to lend. A dervish drum

and figures of the Mohammedan attitude in prayer. I think that for the sum of

$400 a most attractive exhibit of the Mohammedan religion could be made.

It is not impossible that some of these objects could be secured in America.

For the Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek religions I would recommend a

series of casts illustrating the pantheons and of photographs to show worship.

To the Jewish collection there should be added a model of the Temple and

Tabernacle as well as illustrations of particular ceremonies, these latter are

accessible in this country.

The Museum now possesses a copy of [Bernard] Picart's great work on

religious ceremonies containing more than 300 illustrations. These should be

mounted.

I expect shortly to visit the cities of New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. It

would be advisable that a decision be reached in order that I might without loss

of time confer with persons connected with Missionary Boards and also

ascertain what material can be purchased in this country.74

It is significant that Adler does not mention any objects of

Christian ceremony, though he does refer to missionary boards

as possible sources of material. The reason for this is unknown,

and it is surprising insofar as Goode had acquired in Italy a

significant number of Catholic ceremonial objects for the

museum. In addition, such an omission calls into question the

philosophy Adler had articulated in the description of the

purpose of the establishment of the Section of Religious

Ceremonials; it had been intended

to interest people in the history of religion by leading them to the unknown, as

it were, in the terms of the known. Accordingly the first three religions to which

attention was given were Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, in the

order of their respective establishments.75

Adler received an appointment as an assistant for the Board of

Management of the U.S. Government Exhibits on 1 July

1892.76 On 8 September 1892 he received authorization to

travel to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and, if

necessary, Andover, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode

Island, "for the purpose of conferring with owners of

collections of religious ceremonial objects with a view to
52 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

acquiring additional specimens for the exhibit of religions to be

made by the Smithsonian and the National Museum at the

World's Columbian Exposition."77

In December 1892 Adler was appointed librarian of the

Smithsonian by Secretary Langley. At that time, according to a

personnel memo, Adler was only "incidentally" doing World's

Fair work.78 Adler would continue to make trips seeking loans

through March 1893, when he left for Chicago to begin

installing the exhibition. As late as 15 March he traveled to

Philadelphia to see the collections of Sabato Morais and Mayer

Sulzberger and to New York to review possible loans from the

collection of N. Taylor Phillips.79

The uncertainty about whether or not Christianity was to be

presented persisted through the planning stages. A letter from

Adler to R. Edward Earll, the overall exhibits manager, on 27

September 1892 reveals that they had not yet started to collect

Christian ceremonial objects:

I secured the gift of one object and the loan of a number of valuable private

collections of Jewish ecclesiastical art. I also secured considerable information

and offers of assistance for a collection of Christian Ecclesiastical Art should

the Museum decide to take up that subject.80

On 29 March 1893 Earll wrote to Adler:

There is in Mr. Goode's room a bone cross obtained by him in Italy. I do not

know whether you have any designs on this for your Chicago exhibit or not, but

mention it so that if you desire to have the specimen you may waylay Mr.

Goodc and get it.81

For an unknown reason, none of the Christian material acquired

by Goode was exhibited at the fair. In fact, not until after

Goode's death, in 1896, were the objects of Christian ceremony

that he had purchased in Italy turned over to the Division of

Historic Religions.82

The Christian religion was represented in the exhibition by a

group of Russian copper icons and crosses of the Eastern

Orthodox Church. These had recently been purchased from a

collection amassed by George Kunz, an expert on gems, who

had traveled to the August 1892 fair in Nizhnii Novgorod,

Russia, to seek out treasures for Tiffany and Company of New

York and his private American clients. In particular, Kunz

sought items that would meet the American interest in Russian

culture, another element of the fascination with Orientalism—

the "exotic East." However, when he returned from his travels,

Kunz offered the Smithsonian the entire group of icons and

crosses he had acquired.83

Judaica at the World's Columbian Exposition

While on his trip to the Near East, Adler limited himself to

the task at hand, and though he traveled widely on behalf of the

exposition, he did not acquire any Judaica or other religious

ceremonial objects from abroad for the Smithsonian. A Torah

shield from the fair's Turkish pavilion was later purchased

from Robert Levy's partner, Mr. Souhami, whom Adler had

met during his trip.84

While in Egypt, however, Adler did purchase from a local

shopkeeper manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah.85 The Cairo

Genizah was a group of fragmentary documents found in the

attic of the ancient Ezra Synagogue, originally built in the ninth

century C.E. These fragments accumulated over a period of

several hundred years because of the prohibition against

destroying any text with God's name in it; thus these

documents were kept in a special area in the synagogue called

the genizah, literally "hidden place." Although the Cairo

Genizah had been identified in the eighteenth century and was

seen in 1864 by Jacob Saphir, the legend that disaster would

befall anyone who disturbed the sacred pages discouraged

removal of the documents. Occasionally some leaves were

removed surreptitiously and sold to visitors, as in Adler's

experience. In another of Adler's autobiographical reminiscences, he recounts how he showed the leaves he had purchased

in Cairo to Dr. Solomon Schechter in 1892 and asserted that he

was "flattered" that his own "accidental purchase" was among

the leads that enabled Schechter to make his famous discovery

of the several hundred thousand pages in the genizah. It was not

until 1896 that Schechter, after long negotiations, was able to

take about half of the 200,000 documents to Cambridge,

England, to begin research.86 Adler later gave the documents he

purchased to Dropsie College; although his finds did not come

to the U.S. National Museum, the Smithsonian did acquire

some fragments from the Cairo Genizah through a purchase by

Charles Freer in 1908.87

The first major group of objects of Judaica acquired by the

Smithsonian was that obtained specifically for the World's

Columbian Exposition. The majority of the Judaica objects for

the Exposition were from sources in the United States. Though

the collection was rather modest at the time, sufficient objects

were assembled to illustrate the basic Jewish ceremonies, and

the Judaica formed the greatest portion of the exhibit of

religious ceremonials.88

There were several purchases from abroad, the most notable

being a Torah ark curtain and a rabbi's costume from Turkey.

The Torah curtain was very much like one Adler had seen in a

synagogue in the Galata district of Constantinople and which

he had earlier described to his mother.89 Though the ecclesiastical objects acquired by Goode in Italy were not displayed,

several illuminated ketubbot (marriage contracts) that he had

purchased in Rome were exhibited.90

In addition to acquisitions, there were also a number of loans

made to the Smithsonian for exhibition at the World's

Columbian Exposition. Sabato Morais lent a havdalah set, used

for the service at the close of the Sabbath, and Gotthard

Deutsch, a professor at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati,

lent a manuscript.91 The Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York

lent two Torah scrolls with "silk cloaks and silverplate." Henry

Cohen,92 a rabbi from Galveston, Texas, lent several texts from

the Jewish community in Bombay, India, written in the Marathi

language, and an interesting program in Hebrew, English, and

Marathi printed in honor of the Jubilee of Queen Victoria.93
2

to

fn

7>

FIGURE 15.—Religious ceremonials installation, World's Columbian Exposition. (Smithsonian Institution

Archives)
54 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

FIGURE 16.—H. Ephraim Benguiat. (Courtesy of The Jewish Museum, New York)

Hadji Ephraim Benguiat Collection

The most important and most substantial loan was the Hadji

Ephraim Benguiat Collection. Ephraim Benguiat was born in

Smyrna (Izmir), Turkey. He lived in Damascus and then moved

to Gibraltar before emigrating to the United States. According

to Benguiat, his family had long been in the business of selling

antiquities, but, as Adler later explained in his autobiography,

"they had made it a practice never to sell an object of Jewish art,

with the result that they had brought together one of the most

notable collections in the world."94

Benguiat's mission to collect Jewish ceremonial objects was

explained by his son Mordecai in an article entitled "The

Jewish Museum in America:"

The Jew could not preserve his treasures because he has always been longing to

have a Country. He has been practically always with a traveling bag on his

shoulders and without knowing where he would have to go the very next day.

Therefore any antiquities saved from the repeated catastrophes and diaspora are

of the greatest value, although they may not all possess the same merit or value

as the antiques of other nations.95
NUMBER 52 55

Benguiat brought his collection to Boston in 1888, where it was

exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts until 1892. Cyrus

Adler approached Benguiat about purchasing the collection;

when told it was not for sale, he requested that it be loaned to

the National Museum for the World's Columbian Exposition.

As later described by his son, Mordecai Benguiat, Ephraim

Benguiat made the decision after "due consultation with his

dear friend, General Charles G. Loring, Director of the Museum

[Boston Museum of Fine Arts]."96

Mordecai Benguiat expressed a certain irony about the

collection being displayed at the exposition:

It may be mere coincidence but it is interesting to observe that for the additional

education and delight of millions of visitors to a World's Fair for the

Celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of this new world by

Columbus and for the Inauguration of which the Duke of Veragua, a descendant

of Columbus was invited as the guest of this Nation, one Spanish Jew, whose

ancestors were expelled in 1492 from Spain should lend the Museum of the

United States Government for Exhibition in the Government building at the

Fair, a Collection of Jewish ceremonials including the original Inquisitors

robes, all to help in the celebration of this free land discovered by Spain.97

Although there is no record of the "Inquisitors robes," there is

documentation of a loan of 44 objects from the Benguiat

Collection for the exposition (catalog numbers 154580 through

154618, accessioned 31 October 1892,98 and catalog numbers

154808 and 154809, accessioned 21 April 1893). The loan

included several decorative items as well as ceremonial objects

for the celebration of various holidays and life-cycle events in

the synagogue and in the home.99

At the close of the exposition, Adler requested that the

collection be sent to Washington as a loan exhibition. In the

ensuing years, Benguiat continued to expand his loans to the

museum. Adler and his associate Immanuel Casanowicz wrote

a catalog of the Benguiat Collection, which was published in

1901 IOO Thi s cata iOg does not reflect all the Benguiat objects at

the National Museum, however, as additional loans were made

as late as 1916.101

The elder Benguiat was quite a flamboyant personality. The

epitaph prepared for his tombstone after his death, in 1918,

gives some sense of his character:

Ephraim Benguiat on account of his business crossed seas, traveled through

deserts and cities. He was revered by the Nobility of Nations, acquired fame

among Royalty and Nobility, Remaining all the while to the last moment of his

life, True to his God and Truthful to his Nation of Israel.102

It had been Adler's hope to acquire the Benguiat Collection for

the Smithsonian, but there were obstacles. In a letter in the

archives dated 30 January 1913, Adler, who had been asked to

consult on the issue, wrote:

1 am very desirous of building up the Jewish Collection in the National Museum

in every way and want to see it one of the great collections of the world. I had

always hoped that the Benguiat collection would at sometime, with the possible

exception of some heirlooms and after the various members of the family died,

be for sale and then I would make a strong effort to have this collection

purchased for the Museum. It probably is best however to keep our hands off

this subject as the Benguiats are ... in litigation.103

The entire collection remained on "deposit" until 1924, but the

Smithsonian never made any serious attempt to purchase it,

although as late as 1921 interest was shown in its acquisition,

as is evident in a letter from Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the

Smithsonian, to A.S.W. Rosenbach, a book dealer who was

president of the American Jewish Historical Society:

The Benguiat Collection of Jewish Antiquities is very highly prized by the

National Museum experts, who tell me that it is of great interest both to students

and the intelligent public. We should regret very much to have it taken away

and hope that there will be some way found to preserve it intact and to have it

retained in the National Museum Collection. It is part of the record of a

wonderful race and deserves a place at the National Capital. If the Smithsonian

Institute [sic] had funds it would very gladly purchase the Collection but

unfortunately we do not have money available for the purpose.104

In fact, the Benguiats apparently wanted the collection to

remain at the Smithsonian. On 5 July 1924 Mordecai Benguiat

had a letter from Stephen S. Wise, a prominent New York rabbi

and a leader in the Reform movement, who had received a

communication from Rosenbach saying that Walcott had

informed him that perhaps the collection would not be

withdrawn.105 However, all the objects were deaccessioned on

17 September 1924.

In 1924, the same year the collection was removed from the

Smithsonian, Cyrus Adler became president of the Jewish

Theological Seminary in New York. In 1925 philanthropist

Felix Warburg made it possible for the seminary to acquire the

Benguiat Collection, and in 1931 the objects became the

centerpiece of the seminary's new Jewish Museum.106 For

Adler, that was apparently sufficient. Ironically, some years

later he wrote a letter to Paul Romanoff, a specialist in ancient

coins who was responsible for the care of the collection, saying,

"[There is] no real place at the Seminary for you," adding that

he "regarded the little Museum as a more or less fixed thing. I

have no desire to build up a great Museum nor have we the

means."107 Although it is possible that the visionary who

pioneered the use of exhibitions of Judaica for education had a

change of heart in his final years, it is more likely that the

financial constraints brought about by the Great Depression of

the 1930s shaped his response.

Museums as Vehicles to Teach Religion

Cyrus Adler was proud of his achievements in establishing

an exhibition on religious ceremonials at the Smithsonian, and

he was afforded the opportunity to present his accomplishments in a paper delivered at the International Congress of

Anthropology in Chicago in 1893, entitled "Museum Collections to Illustrate Religious History and Ceremonials." Adler

discussed his approach to the role of museums in both research

by scholars and education of the general public, and he made

the case for the effectiveness of museums in teaching religion.

In addition to Adler's paper, which was presented as part of the

session on ethnology, Morris Jastrow presented a paper entitled

"The Historical Study of Religions: Its Method and Scope" at

the session on religion.108

Adler's paper demonstrated the feasibility of employing

scientific methods in the study of religion and its application in
56

museumsi. The following are the main points of his paper:

Museum collections perform a double function. They instruct the public and

they furnish material for the investigator....

The study of religious history and ceremonial institutions stands on a footing

different from that of any other branch of knowledge....

An emotion even stronger (than patriotism) is religion; its influence is second

only to that of domestic affection, and sometimes overcomes it; its lessons are

the earliest instilled into the mind; none escapes its influence....

It is obvious, therefore, that if the public is to be taught the history of religion

or religious ceremonies, it will be most advisable to approximate the methods

of those branches of study in which the knowledge is acquired for its own sake,

without thought of professional use or partisan advantage, simply for the

enlargement of the mental horizon of the individual and the increased mental

power thereby attained.

Modern investigation and modem teaching are based upon phenomena.

Science deals with objects and phenomena; it collects them, describes them,

and classifies them. ...

This tendency of investigation to deal with phenomena has reacted upon all

forms and grades of instruction, the higher as well as the popular. It has given

the impulse to and shaped the growth of the highest modern method of popular

instruction, "the most powerful and useful of all systems of teaching by object

lessons"—the educational museum.

Religious history and ceremonial have been the very last to profit by the

awakened impulse acquired through the museum and the general exhibition.109

The paper Adler read at the International Congress of

Anthropology presented a formal outline of the goals of the

exhibition of comparative religion at the World's Columbian

Exposition. Adler discussed the exposition within the context

of a number of museums and exhibitions of religion and

analyzed their systems of presentation. Adler used the

operative definition: "Religion consists in what men believe

concerning the supernatural, and what they do in consequence

of that belief, in creed and cult."110 He noted that because "cult"

readily lends itself to museum exhibition, that would be taken

up first, but he indicated that there were "devices" by which

"creed" could be shown. Included is a description of the

development of the Section of Comparative Religion. Adler

explained that the Smithsonian's installation at the exposition

was, in fact, a "type exhibit" for the department.'''

As cited in Adler's paper and repeated in a later publication

describing the collection, there was a decision to focus on

Western civilization in the organization of the section,

beginning with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This focus

was reflected in the structure of the exhibition as well.112

It was further decided to limit the religions shown to a selection of the nations

inhabiting the Mediterranean basin. This selection had a conscious significance. ... The Mediterranean basin has been the seat of the civilizations of the

modern western world. The art, philosophy, and religion of Europe and

America arose among the ancients of that region, and the highest ideals even of

the moderns are still to be found in the works of art of those ancient

peoples. ... In an attempt therefore, to introduce the study of religions into

universities, or to create departments of religious ceremonial in museums, it

behooves us for the nonce to put aside the American Indian, and the Central

African, and to begin at least with those religions whose history has an interest

for all men of our day, the knowledge of which should really become a part of

general culture."3

Included in the exhibition were Assyro-Babylonian religion,

Judaism, Oriental Christianity, Islam, and Greek and Roman

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

religion. In the published version of the paper, Adler attached

a detailed account of the exhibition that appeared in the New

York Evening Post on 9 September 1894 (reprinted in

Appendix IV herein).

Furthermore, Adler stressed the significance of the Section

of Comparative Religion at the National Museum by noting

that the World's Fair exhibits were to be installed in

Washington after the close of the exposition:

It is expected that in the coming year a collection of religious history and

ceremonial institutions will be installed in the National Museum.... So fully is

the importance of this subject recognized that, in spite of the great pressure for

floor space at the Museum, adequate room will be provided, although it will

require the retiring of some interesting collections."4

Most important, this presentation at a prominent scholarly

forum represented the true realization of Adler's goals for

establishing a department of comparative religion at America's

quintessential secular institution, the U.S. National Museum,

with Judaism as a major component.

The World's Parliament of Religion

Religion came to the fore at the World's Columbian

Exposition with the 17-day World's Parliament of Religions.

The World Congresses of 1893, ancillary events held in

conjunction with the fair, provided a forum for debating

important political and philosophical issues of the day, and the

World's Parliament was called the "crowning event" of the

congresses. As expressed in an editorial in Menorah Monthly:

And if the purpose of the Auxiliary Congress is not expressed in so many words

to be to bring the ideal aspiration of humanity to the surface, it is implied by the

very fact of its calling. To our mind this Auxiliary Congress is even of greater

bearing upon the progress achieved, and more significant of the position taken

by this country in the competition for superiority, than all the precious exhibits

which fill the stately palaces of the World's Fair. This Auxiliary Congress ... takes within its range all the moral, educational, scientific, literary and

artistic labors that have occupied the human mind since the dawning of man's

working spirit. But of all these none is so far-reaching and should be as

beneficent in its effects as the Congress of Religions.'l5

The parliament opened on 11 September 1893, and during the

next few weeks over 150,000 people attended the sessions.116

The underlying theme of the World's Parliament of Religions

was very much in consonance with the message George Brown

Goode had articulated, for beyond demonstrating the "religious

harmonies and unities of humanity" the purpose was to show

that "moral and spiritual agencies are at the root of human

progress."117

Never before have religious teachers from all lands, representing all prominent

faiths, met on one common platform and with absolute freedom and perfect

courtesy presented their varied and often contradictory tenets.... On that

platform sat men of all colors, of all races, from all quarters of the globe, and

of all the faiths that during the ages have dominated the destinies of the human

family. There were Christians—Protestant and Catholic, Roman and Greek;

Jews and Mohammedans; Parsees, Brahmans, and Buddhists; followers of

Confucious, and worshippers of ancestors.... Here gathered they found their

hands clasped in one unbroken circle as their upward gaze centered on one

loving Father.118
NUMBER 52 57

There were, as could be expected, some dissenters.119 Most

prominent among those who did not support the Parliament

were the Sultan of Turkey and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Nonetheless, for the most part the parliament's organizers

managed to accomplish quite an extraordinary feat.

The Jewish "church" was represented on the planning

committee by Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch. There were nine speakers

who presented papers on Jewish topics: for example, Isaac

Mayer Wise spoke about "The Theology of Judaism," and

Henrietta Szold discussed "What Judaism Has Done for

Women."120 Other presentations by Jewish notables focused on

ecumenical issues. Alexander Kohut's topic was "What the

Hebrew Scriptures Have Wrought for Mankind,"121 and

Kaufmann Kohler's message was "Human Brotherhood as

Taught by the Religions Based on the Bible."122

In the spirit of understanding, there was also a landmark

statement made by the Archbishop of Zante, Greece, who

spoke out against a series of recent accusations against Jews.

He was referring to the spate of accusations in Corfu, as well as

in several European countries, that Jews killed Christian

children for use in Passover rites.123 The "protest against a

prevalent calumny" was read on his behalf at a session chaired

by Emil Hirsch. The archbishop's message was strong and

direct:

In the East the belief is current among the ignorant masses of the population that

the Jews use for purposes of religious rites the blood of Christian children, and

in order to procure such blood do not shrink from committing murder. In

consequence of this belief, outbreaks against the Jews are frequent, and

innocent victims are subjected to many indignities and exposed to great danger.

In view of the fact that such erroneous ideas are also current among the ignorant

of other countries, and that during the last decade both Germany and Austria

were the scenes of trials of innocent Jews under the accusation of having

committed such ritual murder, I, as a Christian minister, ask this Congress to

record our conviction that Judaism forbids murder of any kind, and that none of

its sacred authorities and books command or permit murder, or the use of

human blood for ritual practices or religious ceremonies. The circulation of

such slander against the adherents of a monotheistic faith is un-Christian.1'

4

Interestingly, however, no discussion followed, and once the

Archbishop's highly charged statement was delivered, the

session just moved on to the next paper, "International

Obligations to China."

In addition to Jewish participation in the World's Parliament

of Religions, there was also a Jewish Congress125 and a Jewish

Women's Congress.126 Although there appears to have been no

relationship between the exhibition developed by Cyrus Adler

and the World's Parliament of Religions, he was the author of

an introduction to Songs of Zion, a collection of synagogue

melodies that was produced as a souvenir of the Jewish

Women's Congress.127 Although Adler was not on the

program, the topic of comparative religion was. Rabbi Louis

Grossmann of Detroit presented a paper entitled "Judaism and

the Science of Comparative Religions" at the session on 29

August 1893.128 In his paper for the International Congress of

Anthropology, Adler expressed the opinion that the Parliament

was being conducted on "church lines" and would therefore

have a "propagandist^ or philanthropic point of view," yet was

of interest in that it "enables the presentation of many creeds by

their own professors."129

Whereas there may not have been much audience participation in the larger forum, in her introduction to the published

papers of the Jewish Women's Congress, Hannah G. Solomon,130

 who chaired that congress, indicated that there was

much discussion by the overflow crowd.131 In her account of

the sessions she wrote, "The question of religious persecution

was thoroughly discussed, in the manner and spirit hoped for

by the Committee." What was particularly noteworthy was that

"Jews, Catholics and Protestants were animated by the same

desire to battle in the cause of liberty of conscience."132

In his comments on the Jewish Congress, the Reverend Dr.

Joseph Silverman was even more direct in seeing the congress

as a victory for the "scientific study of Judaism" against

anti-Semitism by counteracting age-old stereotypes. In this

international forum Jews and Judaism were presented on an

equal par with all other Americans of every creed. While the

congress was still in the planning stage, Silverman wrote:

For ages Judaism has been misrepresented to the world in every direction.

Jewish history and literature have been distorted—calumnies have been

circulated about Israel and Judaism with impunity. Jewish doctrines have been

perverted into monstrous absurdities.... The want has for a long time been felt

of some tribunal from which to speak to the world on behalf of Judaism.

At last has come an opportunity for Israel to speak to the world. The kings

and princes of Europe will be forced to hear—to read.... The proceedings of

that Parliament of Religions will be printed and preserved in the archives of

nations and churches, in public and private libraries for ages to come. The

Religious Parliament will be a fact; its results will be facts which will forever

stand as a Gibraltar, proof against all the whirling billows of fanaticism and

bigotry.133

Notes

'Annual Report of the United States National Museum, 1891.

2Goode's plan is cited in R. Rydell, AH the World's a Fair: Visions of

Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pages 44-46.

3Goode was citing an unidentified "leader in the educational work of

America," who had written this to him. Goode, First Draft of a System of

Classification for the World's Columbian Exposition, (Chicago: Donohue and

Henneberry, 1891), page xv.

4Robert W. Rydell, "A Cultural Frankenstein? The Chicago World's

Columbian Exposition of 1893," in Grand Illusions: Chicago's World's Fair of

1893 (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1993), page 166. In this article

exploring the theme of the "other" at the fair. Native Americans, AfricanAmericans, and women are included in that category.

5Anonymous, History of the Fair (New York: Rossiter and Johnson, 1897),

page 489.

6

For a discussion on the politics of commercialism as transformed into the

cultural model represented by world's fairs, see Robert W. Rydell, "The

Culture of Imperial Abundance: World's Fairs in the Making of American

Culture," in Simon J. Bronner, ed., Consuming Visions: Accumulation and

Display of Goods in America, 1880-1920 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989),

pages 191-216.

'For a contemporary summary, see Frederick Starr, "Anthropology at the

World's Fair," Popular Science Monthly, volume 43 (September 1893), pages

610-621.

8

Ibid., page 615.

9

SIA, RU 158, Box 3, pages 11-12. The plan to show "models of
58 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

habitations and of costumed figures" that were "so popular and effective in the

recent Paris exposition" is also described in Secretary Langley's presentation to

Congress on the proposed exhibition by the Smithsonian Institution and

National Museum presented on 15 March 1890 (cited in WJ. Rhees, ed., The

Smithsonian Institution: Documents Relative to Its Origin and History,

1835-1899).

l0The history of the anthropology exhibit planning for the fair is developed

from Rydell, All the World's a Fair, pages 62-63, and Curtis M. Hinsley, "The

World as Marketplace," in Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, eds., Exhibiting

Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington, D.C.:

Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), pages 348-349. Bloom's quote is cited

from The Autobiography of Sol Bloom (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1948),

page 119.

"Richard H. Pratt, Battlefield and Classroom: Four Decades with the

American Indian, edited by Robert M. Utley (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 1964), page 303. Cited in R.R. Badger, The Great American Fair: The

World's Columbian Exposition and American Culture (Chicago: Nelson-Hall,

1979), pages 105-106.

1

 Frederick Douglass, The Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the

World's Columbian Exposition, edited by Ida B. Wells (Chicago: Ida B. Wells,

1893), page 9. Douglass was appointed by the Republic of Haiti as a

commissioner to the fair. Douglass's quote is cited in Badger, The Great

American Fair, pages 105-106.

1

'Hinsley, "The World as Marketplace," page 354.

l4The belly dance—or the "danse du ventre," as it was called—was

performed in four theaters on the Midway (Rydell, "A Cultural Frankenstein," pages 164-166). Though the legendary Coney Island nude dancer called

Little Egypt has long been associated with the fair, according to Sol Bloom she

never appeared on the Midway (cited in Badger, The Great American Fair,

page 161).

"Adler, / Have Considered the Days, pages 72ff. See also Neuman, Cyrus

Adler, page 35.

16Rydell, "A Cultural Frankenstein," page 166.

"Ibid., pages 162-163. According to Rydell, "This 'orientalist' structure of

thought that pervaded the Midway crystallized in a cluster of exhibits—the

Street in Cairo, the Algerian Village, the Persian Palace, the Wild East Show,

the Moorish Palace, and the Turkish Theater—that were among the most

popular attractions along the Midway."

18In the United States there was a clear manifestation of the disdain for

"Orientals" in the American opposition to immigration by Jews as well as

non-Jews. German Jews used the term Orientalism to describe the undesirable,

uncivilized traits of the Jews from eastern Europe. Dr. J. Silverman, rabbi of

Temple Emanu-EI in New York, speaking on behalf of the Hebrew Educational

Alliance, decried Orientalism as a "hydra-headed monster" that could only be

counteracted by an "American education ... the weapon with which to fight

Orientalism." Support for the fair, he admonished, "is not Charity, but a matter

of self-preservation. Reason calls for it, Judaism demands it, and American

Patriotism dictates it" ("The Hebrew Educational Fair and Its Bearing on the

Immigrant Question," American Hebrew, volume 41, number 5 (6 December

1889), pages 119-120). In 1909, when the issue of race and the possibility of

Jews being classified as Asiatics came to the fore, Adler, though he had already

left the Smithsonian, used his influence to convince Secretary Walcott that he

should make the case that questions relating to race should be referred from the

Department of Commerce and Labor to the anthropologists at the Smithsonian.

In writing of this to Mayer Sulzberger, Adler indicated that he would write the

plan and "could exercise a direct influence over it and keep it sound and

normal" (Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, pages

176-177).

"C.H. Gibbs-Smith, The Great Exhibition of 1851 (London: Victoria and

Albert Museum, 1981), page 55.

20Glenn Lowry, "Islamic Art and the Politics of Perception: Display and

Interpretation," public lecture, The Getty Center for the History of Art and the

Humanities, 5 March 1991, unpublished.

2

' During his travels, Adler wrote letters home almost daily. Some of these are

cited in Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, pages 27-55.

Adler's wit is evident in the letters; for example, writing on 24 April 1891 to his

mother, he said of the glories of Jerusalem, "None of the books I have ever read

and no city that I have ever seen gives an idea of just how Jerusalem lays. In a

way, Cincinnati approaches it more closely than any other place that I have

seen, but I suppose that comparison would make many people smile" (page 41).

(Hebrew Union College, representing the Reform movement, to which he was

ideologically opposed, was established in Cincinnati in 1875.) Other letters

from his trip are in the collection of Adler's papers in the Library of the Jewish

Theological Seminary, Box 1/17 and Box 1/18. This library will henceforth be

referred to as JTS. Documents from the Library of the Jewish Theological

Seminary have been provided courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological

Seminary of America.

22He did seek out the Jewish communities, and his letters are replete with

details of his encounters. Included are descriptions of synagogues and of the

different customs and celebrations. Initially he visited these synagogues

primarily to pray, but increasingly he described the plight of the Jews. On 21

June 1891 he wrote, "I don't know whether it is realized in America or not, but

it is perfectly plain that the Jews have reached a great crisis in their history. Out

of Russia they must go—and into Palestine many will come. I believe from all

the signs that the Turks will favor their coming and that with money the Jews

of the world can now buy Palestine back" (Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected

Letters, volume 1, page 50). While in Turkey, he sought permission from the

Turkish government for 5,000 Jews per year to immigrate to Palestine

(Finkelstein, "Preface,' volume 1, page xix).

^Letter, 21 November 1890, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18. Baron Maurice de

Hirsch (1831-1896) was a financier whose many business interests included

building the Oriental Railway linking Constantinople to Europe, which was

financed by Turkish lottery bonds in 1869. Baron de Hirsch's host of

philanthropic efforts included major support for the Alliance Israelite to create

schools for needy Oriental Jewish children (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v.

"Hirsch"). Separate from Adler's efforts, there was an exhibition on the work

done by the Alliance Israelite in the Liberal Arts Building at the World's

Columbian Exposition (discussed in American Hebrew, volume 53, number 17

(25 August 1893), pages 532-533). The Sassoon family, originally from

Baghdad, also wielded great influence in the financial arena in the Near East

and India and were great philanthropists (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v.

"Sassoon").

24Letter, 21 November 1890, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

25Wnting from Cairo on April 5, 1891, Adler noted that he had again met

with Brusch Bey, and although Brusch Bey had had his fill of exhibitions at

Philadelphia, he liked America and Americans, and if the Egyptian government

agreed to participate in the exposition, he would do his part (JTS, Adler Papers,

Box 1/18).

26Letter, 10 December 1890, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

"Letter, 30 November 1890, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18. He also remarked

on the efficiency of the British Library and expressed his hopes that the Library

of Congress would be patterned after its organization and arrangement. Writing

to his mother, he could also pridefully comment, "I cannot resist a satisfaction

with my Assyrian training." It is interesting also to note that Adler visited the

museum on a Friday evening. Given that he was an observant Jew, it is

surprising that he would have done so on the Sabbath.

28Letter, 19 December 1890 (cited in Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected

Letters, volume 1, pages 28-29). Another hint of his own fascination with the

beauty of the Near East, reflecting the spirit of Orientalism, is evident in a letter

he wrote from Damascus on 4 May 1891: "As I got in I came to understand why

Damascus is called the pearl, and the eye of the east. It is a very hard and very

dusty ride but an artist who could put even a few of these things to canvas would

make a fortune" (Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 45).

wOscar Straus (1850-1926), who served as secretary of commerce and labor

in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, thus becoming the first Jew to

hold a cabinet post, was minister to Turkey from 1887 to 1889 and then from

1898 to 1900. He was ambassador in 1909 and 1910 (Naomi W. Cohen, A Dual

Heritage: The Public Career of Oscar S. Straus (Philadelphia:' Jewish
NUMBER 52 59

Publication Society, 1969), pages 21-38). Straus, who was an appointee of the

Cleveland administration, resigned his post when Harrison became President.

Cohen makes the point that when he resigned, some influential American Jews

tried to lobby to retain a diplomatic post for a Jew in the new administration.

Straus protested, as he opposed the notion of one "political plum" for the Jews.

Despite his resistance, Solomon Hirsch, a Republican from Oregon, who was

Jewish, received the position (page 38).

30Letter, 24 December 1890, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

3

'Ibid.

32Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 32.

33Diary entry, 29 January 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/17.

34Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, pages 32-33.

35Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) was a businessman turned archaeologist. He was the first to excavate ancient Troy. Adler was an admirer of his and

noted that he thought the labels at the museum were in Schliemann's

handwriting. While in Constantinople, Adler learned that Schliemann had died

in Greece. He wanted to attend the funeral, but when he learned it would take

him some 40 hours to get to Athens, he made the decision not to go (letter, 31

December 1890, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18).

36Letter, 6 February 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

37Diary entry, 2 January 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

38Letter, 22 February 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

"Letter, Adler to Watkins, 24 February 1891, SIA, RU 201, Box 11.

""Letter, 8 March 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

"'Letter, 10 March 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

"

2Letter, 6 April 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18. In this letter he also

reported that he was informed by Hirsch of problems in Turkey, with the

exposition matter being stuck in the Department of Public Works. At this point

he asked that the grand vizier go directly to the sultan to resolve the problem.

43Letter, 9 April 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

""Letter, 16 April 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

45This was not a one-sided issue, but represented the attitude of the Chicago

entrepreneurs as well. See Hinsley, "The World as Marketplace."

"

6Letter, 16 April 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

"'Letter, 21 May 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

"

8Adler, / Have Considered the Days, page 135.

"'Isidore Lewi, "Yom Kippur on the Midway," in Report of the Committee on

Awards of the World's Columbian Exposition, Special Reports upon Special

Subjects or Groups (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1901),

volume 2, page 1693.

50Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 49.

51Ibid., volume 1, page 52.

"Letter, 24 July 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

"Letters, 6 and 10 July 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

5

"There was a crusade by the Board of Lady Managers, led by Bertha Palmer,

and the clergy to close the theaters. In response, George Davis, the director

general of the exposition, issued an ambiguous edict saying that '"interested

concessionaires" must "restrain all future exhibits within the limits of stage

propriety as recognized in this country." Because these theaters were so

lucrative, the efforts failed (Jeanne Madeline Weimann, The Fair Women: The

Story of the Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893

(Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1981), pages 257-258).

55He wrote that the first directive came on 3 July and the second, definitive

charge on 10 July (JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18).

"Letter, 6 September 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18. Unfortunately,

Adler was not happy with the person designated to carry out the Egyptian

scheme.

"Adler, "Museum Collections to Illustrate Religious History and Ceremonials," United States National Museum Annual Report for 1892-1893 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894), page 760.

"Adler, / Have Considered the Days, page 77.

59He expressed these sentiments in a letter to his mother dated 1 December

1890, writing, "I have, as you know always had a high opinion of these

Anglo-Jewish scholars and my impression has been more than confirmed by

meeting them" (Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1, page 24).

Also, Sally Adler Wolfinsohn described her father as a true and complete

Anglophile.

60Naomi W. Cohen, "Introduction," volume 1, page xxix. See also Cyrus

Adler, "A Jewish Renaissance," American Hebrew, volume 56 (9 December

1894), page 181. He focused his proposal on a research center for "Jewish

science" and proposed the establishment of the Jewish Academy of America.

The Academy would be a teaching institution as well. Adler's plan was realized

with the bequest of Moses A. Dropsie (1821-1905), and Adler became the

founding president of Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in

Philadelphia when he left the Smithsonian.

6lln December 1900, in his annual address as president of the American

Jewish Historical Society, Adler initiated a plan to develop an American Jewish

historical exhibition that would be similar in scope to the Anglo-Jewish

Historical Exhibition (Cyrus Adler, "Address of the President," Publications of

the American Jewish Historical Society, volume 9 (1901), pages 5-6. See also

"A Proposed American Jewish Historical Exhibition," American Jewish Year

Book (1902), pages 104-108). At the meeting, Joseph Jacobs (1854-1916), a

historian and folklorist who was one of the organizers of the Anglo-Jewish

Historical Exhibition, presented a paper entitled "A Plea for an American

Historical Exhibition" (Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society,

volume 9 (1903), pages 12-17). Jacobs came to America to serve as an editor

of the Jewish Encyclopedia. Considerable work was done on the plan for

several years, including the development of an elaborate classification system

(see Appendix I). The records relating to the exhibition are found in the

archives of the American Jewish Historical Society, 1-21, "American Jewish

Historical Exhibition." When plans for the exhibition were delayed, there was

a proposal that the exhibition be shown at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in

St. Louis in 1904. Adler's position was that, just as he had arranged an

exhibition on Jewish "ecclesiastical art and ceremonial customs" as part of a

general exhibition on religions, any exhibition on the American Jewish

experience should be framed within the context of an exhibition of general

American history. "I cannot see the propriety of our endeavoring to make an

exception of American Jewish History" (American Jewish Historical Society

archives, 1-21, letter from Cyrus Adler to M.B. Greensfelder, 12 March 1902).

62Appendix II of Adler, "Museum Collections," page 765. In this publication

Adler also cited other classification systems. Appendix I was that of the

Esposizione Vaticana for the Jubilee of Pope Leo XIII, December 1887-May

1888; appendix III was that of the University of Pennsylvania's exhibition on

religions. See Appendix II herein.

63These photographs (NMAH 154470) are now in the reference files in the

Division of Cultural History, National Museum of American History.

MDr. Cyrus Adler's Return: A Statement upon His Return from the Near

East and North Africa as Special World's Fair Commissioner to the Orient,"

Jewish Exponent, volume 10 (22 January 1892), page 2. In the short

announcement he also noted that the sultan of Turkey was going to send two

imperial commissioners to supervise the exhibition of that country and that the

negotiations with Persia, which originally had been under Adler's jurisdiction,

were now being handled by the United States minister to Persia, acting as

special commissioner for the exposition.

65Adler, / Have Considered the Days, page 173.

66Cyrus Adler and I.M. Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial

Objects in the United States National Museum."

""Collection to Illustrate the Comparative History of Religion," Annual

Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the Year

Ending June 30, 1890 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1891),

page 19.

68Adlcr, / Have Considered the Days, page 178.

69G. Brown Goode, Report of the Assistant Director of the National Museum

for the Year 1881. page 93.

TMAdler, "Museum Collections to Illustrate Religious History and Ceremonials," pages 758-759. The description was in Adler's talk at the International

Congress of Anthropology, Chicago, 1893.

"N.W. Cohen, "Anti-Semitism in the Gilded Age," page 190.
60 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

72SIA, RU 70, Box 33. There is a second letter to Mason, dated 24 March, in

which Adler again requests information on duplicates in the museum collection

and states, "I think that the decision as to the preparation of such an exhibit, will

depend very largely on the definite answering of this question." Adler also

notes that Mason had mentioned that his department had duplicates of North

American Indian religious ceremonial, which might be exchanged with foreign

museums, and asks, "Are you prepared to take this matter up now?" Perhaps

Adler hoped to acquire some significant collections in this way.

73SIA, RU 70, Box 33.

74Ibid. The illustrations of Jewish ceremony that were purchased by Adler for

use in the exhibit comprised the series by Moritz Oppenheim, "Bilder aus dem

altjudischen Familienleben " ("Scenes from Traditional Jewish Family Life"),

NMAH 154569. The eighteenth-century Picart prints have been dispersed;

some are in the National Anthropological Archives, and some are catalogued as

NMAH 154575.

"Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in

the United States National Museum," page 702.

76SIA, RU 70, Box 33, Folder 2.

"Ibid.

7SSIA, RU 70, Box 37, Book 3, page 152 (memo dated 20 December 1892).

7

'SIA, RU 70, Box 37, Book 4, page 139. N. Taylor Phillips (1868-1952)

was a descendant of Jonas Phillips (1736-1803), patriarch of an early

American Jewish family. N. Taylor Phillips was a lawyer and public official.

He was a member of the New York State Legislature from 1898 through 1901.

Phillips was a founder of the American Jewish Historical Society and served as

its treasurer from 1904 to 1918. His donations to the American Jewish

Historical Society include a number of colonial-era portraits. He was also active

in Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York, where

he was president (Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Phillips, N. Taylor").

S0SIA, RU 70, Box 39, Folder 8.

81SIA, RU 70, Box 37, Book 4, page 173. The bone cross has not been

identified. An ornate bronze processional cross (NMAH 152231) was acquired

by Goode in Italy. The cross was published in I.M. Casanowicz, "Collections of

Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S. National Museum," United Stales

National Museum Bulletin, number 148 (31 December 1929), page 37.

S2SIA, RU 158, Box 5, Folder 8 (department report by Cyrus Adler dated 22

July 1897, directed to CD. Walcott).

"Unfortunately, the Smithsonian lacked the funds to buy the entire lot

(Richard Eighme Ahlborn and Vera Beaver-Bricken Espinola, eds., Russian

Copper Icons and Crosses from the Kunz Collection: Castings of Faith

(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), page 1.

84Adler described meeting Mr. Souhami in a letter to his mother dated 26

December 1890 (Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1. page 31).

Adler sent a telegram on 30 June 1893 requesting permission to purchase the

Torah shield. The price was one hundred dollars, a rather high sum for a

ceremonial object at the time (SIA, RU 201, "Assistant Secretary in Charge of

the USNM 1875-1902. Letters Received from Departments and Bureaus of the

Government and Letters from Officials of the Museum," Box 11, Folder 6).

Although the Torah shield (NMAH 154990) was purchased from Souhami,

whom Adler knew to be Turkish, its style is not Near Eastern, but rather is very

similar to eastern European examples. The likelihood is that it was either

imported to Turkey or was made by a Russian artisan living in Turkey.

85Adler, / Have Considered the Days, pages 116ff.

86Adler's story is in / Have Considered the Days, page 117. The more

typically reported history is found in Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Gemzah."

Romanian-born Solomon Schechter (1847-1915) trained at the Berlin

Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums and the University of Berlin.

In 1882 he moved to London to teach rabbinics, and in 1890 he was appointed

lecturer in Talmudics and in 1892 reader in rabbinics at Cambridge University,

In 1902 he moved to the United States to assume the presidency of the Jewish

Theological Seminary {Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Schechter, Solomon").

87The catalog numbers at the Freer are 08.44.1 through 08.44.50.

SSA listing of the objects in what was termed the "Jewish exhibit" was

published in American Hebrew, volume 53, number 13 (28 July 1893), pages

404-405. There were other Jewish-related exhibits at the fair that were not

ceremonial. The Alliance Israelite had an exhibition of their educational work

at the Liberal Arts Building (described in American Hebrew, volume 53,

number 17 (25 August 1893), page 532). In the Woman's Building there was an

exhibition from the Mount Sinai Hospital and Training School (described in

American Hebrew, volume 53, number 11 (July 14, 1893)).

''Letter, 19 December 1890, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

""Catalog numbers for these items are as follows: Torah ark curtain, NMNH

154758; rabbi's costume, NMNH 154761; marriage contracts, NMAH 154630,

NMAH 154631, NMNH 154632, NMAH 154633.

"Gotthard Deutsch was born in 1859 in Austria and died in Cincinnati in

1921. Deutsch came to the United States in 1891 and began teaching at Hebrew

Union College (HUC), bringing to the study of Jewish history the scientific

approach of modern times (Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Deutsch,

Gotthard"). When HUC formally established its museum in 1913. it was

Deutsch who wrote an eloquent plea to save ceremonial objects that, given

Reform tendencies, had been consigned to "garrets." Documents on the

founding of the Union Museum are in the HUC Skirball Museum Archives, Los

Angeles.

9:Henry Cohen (1860-1952) was born in London and immigrated to the

United States in 1885. He served first in Woodville, Mississippi, before coming

to Galveston in 1888. Cohen was a historian of the Texas Jewish community

and was active in the efforts to reform the Texas penal system (Encyclopaedia

Judaica, s.v. "Cohen, Henry").

"NMAH 154571-154574. Although listed as returned, NMAH 154572

(Prayers for Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur) is maintained in the collection.

94Adler, / Have Considered the Days, page 173.

95Mordecai Benguiat, "A Jewish Museum in America," unpublished article

in the Benguiat File, Department of Judaica, Jewish Museum, New York. The

article was written at the time of the opening of a separate gallery for the Jewish

Museum at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

%Benguiat, "A Jewish Museum in America."

"Ibid.

«

8

SIA, RU 70, Box 37, Book 3, page 87.

"Because the Benguiat Collection was only a loan, the records previously

kept in the Smithsonian Institution Archives were destroyed several years ago.

In the Registrar's Office in the National Museum of Natural History there are

cards used to record activity concerning the collection, so it is possible to trace

dates of loans and correspondence, but the actual documents are gone.

Fortunately, what does remain are the original catalog cards for the World's

Columbian Exposition loan; they are in the Department of Anthropology

Processing Lab in the National Museum of Natural History. At that time loans

were processed in the same way as acquisitions and were given numbers in that

sequential system. Subsequent Benguiat loans were recorded in a loan book in

the processing lab, so it is possible to identify the objects loaned and the dates

of accession and deaccession. There are no catalog cards extant for loans from

the Benguiat collection after 1893.

l00Cyrus Adler and I.M. Casanowicz, "Descriptive Catalogue of a Collection

of Objects of Jewish Ceremonial Deposited in the U.S. National Museum by

Hadji Ephraim Benguiat," United States National Museum Annual Report for

1898-1899 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1901), pages

539-561.

1OIA clipping of "local notes" from a newspaper dated 10 October 1916,

which was enclosed in a letter dated 13 October to Mordecai Benguiat from

Richard Rathbun, assistant secretary in charge of the National Museum, states,

"Messrs Hadji Ephraim and Mordecai Benguiat of Edgewater, New Jersey, who

for upward of a quarter of a century have been sending objects illustrating

Jewish religious ceremonial and art, until the Collection in the section of

historic religions in the older Museum building is perhaps without equal

anywhere, have recently made another valuable and interesting addition" (cited

in Mordecai Benguiat, "A Jewish Museum in America"). Ten additional objects

were further noted in the article.

IO2Benguiat File, Jewish Museum.

'"Unpublished letter among the Deinard papers. The Deinard information is
NUMBER 52 61

all in SIA, RU 305, "Registrar, 1834-1958, with Accretions to 1976," Box

1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File 207992. Hereafter this will be referred

to as "SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Deinard Papers."

104Cited in Benguiat, "A Jewish Museum in America."

105Ibid.

106A.S.W. Rosenbach, "The Seminary Museum,'' in Cyrus Adler, ed., The

Jewish Theological Seminary of America: Semi-Centennial Volume (New

York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1939), pages 144-148.

""Letter dated 6 July 1938 and repeated by Romanoff to Louis Finkelstein in

a letter dated 3 June 1941 (Jewish Theological Seminary Archives, Ratner

Collection, 1 A-22-39). Grossman is grateful to Richard I. Cohen for calling her

attention to these letters.

l08This is significant because there was not just collegiality but also some

rivalry between Jastrow, the academician, and Adler, the practitioner. Jastrow

and Adler had known each other since their childhood in Philadelphia because

Rabbi Marcus Jastrow was one of those scholars with whom Adler had studied.

Morris Jastrow also became an Orientalist with a specialty in Assyriology, but

he took his doctorate at Leipzig (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Jastrow").

Jastrow's academic training is discussed in Harold S. Wechsler, "Pulpit or

Professoriate: The Case of Morris Jastrow," American Jewish History, volume

57 (1985), pages 338-355. Wechsler cites Adler's admission, as recorded in his

memoirs, that Jastrow received the professorship in Semitics at the University

of Pennsylvania that Adler himself had hoped to receive (page 354).

109Adler, "Museum Collections," pages 757ff. The phrase Adler quotes on

"object lessons" is from Goode, "Museums of the Future," page 427.

n0Adler, "Museum Collections," page 761.

1

' 'As discussed earlier, the development of the department of comparative

religion has been given a number of different histories. In this instance, Adler

wrote, "Some time before the plans for the National Museum exhibit were

underway, the purpose of forming a section devoted to comparative religion

had been definitely announced. It was accordingly decided to prepare a type

exhibit for the World's Fair" (Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of

Jewish Ceremonial Objects," page 701). Adler's description in this talk was

rather grandiose, and because all those listening were to visit the exhibition he

described and were likely to be disappointed with the reality of what was

displayed, Adler did cite extenuating circumstances, saying, "This exhibit

suffered under limitations as to space and time for preparation" (ibid., page

761).

u2Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects,"

pages 701-702. See Appendix III herein.

"

3Adler, "Museum Collections," page 761.

""Ibid.

ll5Menorah Monthly, volume 14, number 5 (May 1893), pages 278-279.

n6The history of the World's Parliament of Religions is taken from an

anonymous contemporary account, A History of the World's Columbian

Exposition Held in Chicago in 1893 (New York: Appleton, 1897), pages

221-231.

"

7Ibid., page 223.

"

8Ibid., pages 221-222.

ll9Ibid., pages 224-225.

120The papers are all published in John Henry Barrows, ed., The World's

Parliament of Religions [An Illustrated and Popular Story of the World's

Parliament of Religions, Held in Chicago in Connection with the Columbian

Exposition of 1893] (Chicago: Parliament, 1893), volume 1. John Henry

Barrows was the chairman of the General Committee on Religious Congresses.

l21Kohut did not deliver his paper in person. Alexander Kohut (1842-1894)

was born in Hungary, earned his doctorate in Oriental languages at the

University of Leipzig in 1865, and was ordained at the Breslau Seminary in

1867. He emigrated to the United States in 1885 to become rabbi of

Congregation Ahabath Chesed in New York. Kohut, who was a central figure

in the controversy between traditionalists and the Reform Movement, played a

prominent role in the establishment of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New

York, intended to train rabbis for the new Conservative movement (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Kohut, Alexander").

l22Kaufmann Kohler (1843-1926) was born in Bavaria. Kohler trained as a

rabbi, received his doctorate in 1867, and emigrated to the United States shortly

thereafter. Kohler was a leader of the radical Reform movement and in 1885

convened the Pittsburgh Conference of Reform Rabbis, which adopted his

platform. Kohler became president of Hebrew Union College in 1903

(Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Kohler, Kaufmann").

123The blood libel accusations had begun several years earlier. Cyrus Adler

wrote from Constantinople on 21 May 1891 thatthe Greek government was just

too cowardly to take any action against the rumors and stop the persecution of

Jews. He indicated that many Jews were preparing to emigrate to Turkey, where

they would feel safer (Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, volume 1,

pages 46-47).

l24Barrows, The World's Parliament of Religions, pages 141-142. The

archbishop's statement was reprinted in an unsigned editorial in American

Hebrew, volume 53, number 24 (14 October 1893), page 734.

I2SA tentative program was listed in American Hebrew, volume LI 11, number

18 (7 September 1893), page 564. Topics included: "The Synagogue and the

Church, and their Mutual Relations with Reference to their Ethical Teaching,"

by Dr. Kaufmann Kohler; "Popular Errors About Jews," by the Rev. Joseph

Silverman; "Contributions of Jews to the Preservation of the Sciences of the

Middle Ages," by the Rev. S. Sale; "Reverence and Rationalism," by Dr. M.H.

Harris; and "Bible Criticism," by Dr. E.G. Hirsch. All of these were very much

in the spirit of Wissenschaft des Judentums. The Jewish papers delivered at the

parliament and those delivered at the Jewish Congress were published as

Judaism at the World's Parliament of Religions (Cincinnati: Union of

American Hebrew Congregations, 1894).

126A listing of the scheduled program was published in the American

Hebrew, volume 53, number 17 (25 August 1893), page 532. The talks were

published as Papers of the Jewish Women's Congress (Philadelphia: Jewish

Publication Society, 1894).

127Songs of Zion was compiled by the Rev. Alois Kaiser and the Rev. Wm.

Sparger. It was privately distributed by the National Council of Jewish Women.

128Grossmann's talk was reprinted in two segments in American Hebrew,

volume 53, number 23 (6 October 1893), pages 704-707, and number 24 (13

October 1893), pages 731-733. A graduate of Hebrew Union College, Louis

Grossmann (born 1863) later became a professor of theology at the college

(Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Grossmann, Louis").

l29Adler, "Museum Collections," page 761.

l30Hannah Greenebaum Solomon (1858-1942) was the founding president

of the National Council of Jewish Women, which was the successor to the

Jewish Women's Congress. She served as its president until 1905.

l31It was reported that at one session, at which the Archbishop of Ireland

spoke, there were a thousand people in attendance (American Hebrew, volume

53, number 21 (22 September 1893), page 643).

l32Ibid., page 4. Hannah Solomon did, however, report that the most

important outcome was the formation of the National Council of Jewish

Women.

'"Joseph Silverman, "Judaism at the World's Columbian Exposition,"

Menorah Monthly, volume 14, number 5 (May 1893), pages 283-284.
7. The Section of Religious Ceremonials

After the World's Columbian Exposition, an exhibition on

religious ceremonials was installed at the Smithsonian. The

very detailed curatorial reports for the next twelve years

indicate that the Section of Religious Ceremonials was quite

active and that there were many acquisitions. As Adler would

write in the 1908 catalog of the collection, he felt he had

successfully met his intended goal of applying to the field of

religion the standards of academic research that the Smithsonian had implemented in other areas. The philosophy of the

department represented what was characterized in that report as

a departure from the conventional approach to the study of

religion:

At that time the tendency in museums abroad, and to a certain extent among the

students of the history of religions generally, was to deal only with the religious

practices and ideas of the semi-civilized or barbarous nations, and to treat but

sparingly those of the more civilized and cultivated nations of the earth. It was

determined, in taking up the subject here, to adopt a course contrary to that

hitherto followed, and to endeavor, from the educational point of view to

interest the people in the history of religion by leading them to the unknown, as

it were, in terms of the known. Accordingly the first three religions to which

attention was given were Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, in the

order of their respective establishments....

Other religions were later illustrated, especially Brahmanism and Buddhism. ...[In time] the interest of the public was plainly

evinced in this section of its work, and gifts and deposits of value were added,

representing Ancient Egypt, Shintoism, the Parsee religion, and other of the

great cults.1

Adler's Theoretical Model for Acquisitions

Adler also wrote of a "scientific method" for what was to be

included in a collection relating to religious ceremonials.

However, his description was more a theoretical ideal than a

methodological reality. As he explained it, a model classification scheme had been used in making acquisitions:

In dealing with this difficult subject a rigorous historical and scientific method

has been followed. The religious ideas have been described through objects or

examples of ceremony. The professors of each creed have received full faith

and their own explanations of the ideas involved in a given ceremony have been

adopted....

The subject of religious belief and cults is susceptible of arrangement under

certain well-recognized heads: Public worship, its furniture and appointments;

the sacerdotal person, his costume and implements; sacred writings, the altar or

its equivalent; public religious ceremonies on special occasions, etc. Another,

and indeed larger, class of objects have to do with the relation of the individual

to cult in such matters as marriage, birth, and in some cases betrothal, and the

secret and mystical religious practices, among which charms and divinations

would fall. This general plan, with modifications, of course, is susceptible of

application to all of the historic religions.2

In fact, the actual acquisitions of Judaica Adler had made for

the Section of Religious Ceremonials were not undertaken

according to any discernible plan. What emerges from an

investigation of the acquisition records is that there was no

systematic program to identify and acquire artifacts. The

records suggest that Adler, like all curators, experienced

constraints that forced him to collect what he could: family

heirlooms, single objects from interested individuals, and items

purchased with what funds the Smithsonian budget allowed.

The situation with the Judaica collection was not unique;

rather, it reflected the often opportunistic nature of the

acquisitions process at the Smithsonian at the time. When

Goode began his serious efforts to collect historical materials,

and to document natural history and ethnology as well, the

earliest collections were "'miscellaneous," because they contained primarily donations.3

 An example was Goode's purchase from George Kunz of the 350 Russian items that had

been exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition. The

purchase was a fortuitous acquisition, the result of happenstance rather than the result of researched effort.4

It becomes clear, however, that Adler believed that he was

applying objective, scientific principles in terms of a nonsectarian, nontheological perspective on the materials and, most

important, that he was presenting the distinctive viewpoint of

the specific religion. This is the most critical factor, for what he

had sought from the outset in collecting Judaica was to provide

"authentic" descriptions. What he defined as authentic was the

testimony of people who represented a specific religion, not

"observers" such as anthropologists who studied "barbarous"

nations, but people who were the "professors of each creed."

This cultural model would alleviate stereotypes; what he

sought to do for Judaism he sought to do for other religions as

well. Moreover, it is significant that Adler did follow

accepted scientific principles in organizing exhibitions, giving

ideas priority, using objects to illustrate those concepts,

identifying the history of the object and its intended use, and

using a formal classification system to arrange and label the

artifacts.5

Immanuel Casanowicz

In Immanuel Casanowicz, Adler had a most able colleague

assisting him. Casanowicz joined the Smithsonian's Division

of Oriental Studies in November 1892 to work on the World's

Columbian Exhibition and remained a member of the curatorial

staff for 35 years, until his death.6

Immanuel Moses Casanowicz (1853-1927) was born in

62
NUMBER 52 63

FIGURE 17.—Immanuel Casanowicz. (United Slates National Museum Bulletin, number 148 (1929))

Zhaludok, Russia, of Jewish parents. A convert to Christianity,

he attended the Evangelische Predigerschule in Basel, Switzerland, where he later became a teacher.7

 Casanowicz immigrated

to the United States in 1882. Beginning in 1886 he studied at

Johns Hopkins, receiving his Ph.D. in 1892.8 During his long

tenure at the Smithsonian, Casanowicz was devoted to the care

of objects of the world's religions and was the individual

responsible for the cataloging of the Judaica collection.9

A Formal Department Is Established

There were now two distinct sections. The Section of

Religious Ceremonial Objects was formally established in

1893. It became the Section of Historic Religions in 1897 and

the Division of Historic Religions in 1903-1904. Cyrus Adler

was the custodian of the section until 1903-1904, when he

became an honorary curator.

The original Section of Oriental Antiquities retained the

same name until 1897, when it was made the Division of

Historic Archaeology. Dr. Paul Haupt continued as honorary

curator until 1905, when he was made an associate in historic

archaeology. Cyrus Adler succeeded Haupt as honorary

curator. When Adler left the Smithsonian, he also was named

an associate. Immanuel Casanowicz was officially designated

an aide in 1896 and became assistant curator in 1905.10 In 1906

Casanowicz was appointed assistant curator of Old World

archaeology.

The two sections, later divisions, were clearly still closely

related, as indicated by an article written by Casanowicz in

1902 entitled "The Collection of Oriental Antiquities at the

United States National Museum."11 At that time, the exhibition

on religious ceremonials still did not include Christianity,

although Casanowicz's article noted that the Smithsonian

expected a special alcove would be designated for that

collection. There are occasional references in the curatorial

reports to these exhibitions as being about comparative

religion, and Adler's plan as articulated in his article "Museum

Collections to Illustrate Religious History and Ceremonials"

described "certain groups of ceremonies [being] taken up in the

hope that a comparison of the underlying ideas may form a

fruitful subject of study."12 However, there was no real attempt

to "compare" except that implied by the placement of the

objects, which reflected the development of the religions (for

example, Buddhism was placed after "Brahmanism" (Hinduism), because it was considered its "offspring").13

Judaica Acquisitions

Because Ephraim Benguiat continued to add to his collection, which was on loan to the United States National Museum,

Adler apparently felt that the Benguiat Collection was an

adequate representation of Judaica, and no other acquisitions

were sought for almost a decade. The curator's report for

1899-1900, in which period only 12 items were received from

Benguiat, gives an indication of that attitude:

The accessions though small in number are all of much interest and value partly

on account of their artistic and historic importance, and partly because they fill

out important gaps in the Section of Jewish Religious Ceremonials which is

already one of the most complete and valuable in existence, and which is made

much use of by persons interested in the study of the Bible.14

In 1902 a group of objects was purchased from Ephraim

Deinard. These too were seen as filling gaps, as was reported in

an article on the acquisitions written by Casanowicz and

published in Jewish Comment.^5

Science Encounters the Wunderkammer

Though Adler and Casanowicz were proud that theirs was an

age driven by the goals of scientific inquiry, there was also an

element of romanticism and naivete in the acquisitions that

reflects a much older tradition of museum collection and

classification with roots in the Wunderkammer (cabinets of
64 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

curiosities) of Renaissance Europe. Thus the Judaica collection

would eventually include not only important examples of

Jewish ceremonial art and ethnographic objects but also

"'curiosities" of various types. For example, items later acquired

from Ephraim Deinard's collection included whale bones

(NMNH 333988), presumably thought to be those of the whale

that swallowed Jonah, as well as an incense burner (NMNH

315227) and vase (NMNH 315228) alleged to have been from

the temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem (but probably

Byzantine in origin—a difference of some fifteen centuries).16

Another unusual acquisition was a "San Benito," a cap that

a person sentenced by the Spanish Inquisition in the fifteenth

century was required to wear.17 Unfortunately, the cap is no

longer in the possession of the museum. In a memorandum to

the file, Cyrus Adler wrote:

This article, a cap, is known as a San Benito. Doctor [Harry] Friedenwald writes

me in a personal letter that the following note was attached to the article written

by his father. Doctor Aaron Friedenwald. "The cap is stated to have been the

cap worn at prayers by one Lyons, who was burned at the stake. It belonged to

the Lyons family, Columbus" (probably Columbia, South Carolina). It was

presented to Doctor Aaron Friedenwald by a member of the Mordecai family

"whose brother married a Levy whose mother was a Lyons."

There is probably an error in the first note. This was not a cap worn at

prayers, as is stated, but a cap which some person was required to wear by the

Inquisition, who had been sentenced to be burned at the stake or some other

punishment. It is a very rare specimen, the first of its kind I have ever seen or

heard of.

Such "hopeful" items—objects alleged to be of historical

interest—were characteristic of the era and were not limited to

Judaica acquisitions. For example, reliquaries with supposed

fragments of the "True Cross" were acquired to represent the

Christian faith, and a front-page article by Thomas R. Henry

regarding the "fragments of the True Cross" appeared in the

Washington Sunday Star on 19 January 1930, at the time of the

posthumous publication of Immanuel Casanowicz's manuscript on what Henry called the "historic cults" of the world,

which was actually the catalog "Collections of Objects of

Religious Ceremonial in the United States National Museum,"

the last catalog published on the Smithsonian's collections of

ritual artifacts.18

Expositions

The success of the World's Columbian Exposition encouraged the United States National Museum to participate in other

fairs. In 1895 a major exhibition was developed by the museum

for the Cotton States International Exhibition in Atlanta. The

general goals of the National Museum's exhibition were quite

ambitious. They were (1) to give as good an idea as possible of

the character of the treasures that are preserved in the Museum

by presenting an epitome of its contents with contributions

from every department; (2) to illustrate the methods by which

science controls, classifies and studies great accumulations of

material objects, and uses these as a means for the discovery of

truth; (3) to exhibit the manner in which collections are

arranged, labeled and displayed in a great museum; and (4) to

afford as much instruction and pleasure as possible to those

who visited the Atlanta Exposition, to impress them with the

value of museums as agencies for public enlightenment, and

thus to encourage the formation of public museums in the

South.19 An enormous exhibition called "Biblical Antiquities"

was organized for this exposition. The introduction to the

catalog gives an explanation of the title of the exhibition:

The Section of Oriental Antiquities in the U.S. National Museum was

established in 1887 and in 1889 there was added to the Museum a Section of

Religious Ceremonial Institutions. Although not at all identical in scope, it was

found best for practical reasons that the exhibit of these two sections in the

Atlanta Exposition should be united in the form of a collection which for want

of a better name may be called Biblical Antiquities.20

The introduction continues with the rationale for the publication of the catalog, explaining Adler's philosophy of the

importance of the lessons of the Bible. It was hoped that the

catalog would

be of service to teachers and students, and may possibly furnish a suggestion to

those who are interested in the establishment of small collections which touch

the interests of so many persons, who, without being special students and

investigators, are yet deeply concerned in anything that relates to the

archaeology and history, the ethnology, and the art of that portion of the eastern

world around the Mediterranean, to which the culture and civilization of later

Europe and even of modern America can in a great degree be traced."21

The Atlanta exhibition included hundreds of objects in the

following categories: "The Land of the Bible"; geology; flora

and fauna; Palestinian antiquities; musical instruments; "Precious Stones of the Bible"; "Coins of the Bible"; dress,

ornament, and household utensils; antiquities of the Egyptians,

Assyrians, Babylonians, and Hittites; and a collection of

Bibles. In addition, all of the 230 objects of Jewish religious

ceremonial in the museum's collection were lent for the

exhibition.22 Although the exhibition underscores the continuity of Jewish ritual practice since biblical times, the early

Christian era was represented only by Roman coins and later

Christianity only by Bibles.

In 1897 a much smaller exhibition was organized for the

Tennessee Centennial Exposition. This exhibition was rather

eclectic, consisting of "objects intended to illustrate Brahmanism and Buddhism, the principal religions of eastern Asia,

Mohammedanism, the literary history of the Bible, and the

religious ceremonials of the Jews."23 In this catalog the

relationship between Jewish religious ceremonials and the

Bible is clearly explained, with the ceremonial items described

as "modern objects used by the Jews in their religious rites,

which have their origin in and are based on Biblical

ordinances."24

Adler Leaves the Smithsonian

Cyrus Adler's departure from the Smithsonian, in 1908, truly

marked the end of an era. He had indeed succeeded in making

the study of Judaism an accepted scientific discipline at the
z

FIGURE 18.—Tennessee Centennial Exposition, exhibition of Judaica. (Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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FIGURE 19.—^Tennessee Centennial Exposition, exhibition on Buddhism. (Smithsonian Institution Archives)
NUMBER 52 67

FIGURE 20.—Plate 3 from Immanuel M. Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects

of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S. National Museum," United States National

Museum Bulletin, number 148 (1929). This photograph first appeared in Cyrus

Adler and Immanuel M. Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial

Objects in the United States National Museum," Proceedings of the United

States National Museum, volume 34, number 1630 (1908).

National Museum. His last contribution while still officially a

staff member was to publish another catalog, this one listing all

of the objects in the collection.25 The vast majority of the

objects were from the Benguiat Collection, which, because

officially still a loan, could be removed from the museum at

any time. It is highly doubtful that Adler left the Smithsonian

thinking that another collection could possibly become the core

of the Smithsonian Judaica.

After Adler left, the Division of Historic Religions was

merged with the Division of Historic Archaeology, becoming

the Division of Old World Archaeology. Casanowicz remained

at the level of assistant curator but was now responsible for the

combined collections. When he died, in 1927, the division was

placed under the general supervision of Neil M. Judd, the

curator of American archaeology, and Henry B. Roberts

became the temporary archaeological assistant working on Old

World archaeology. However, once Casanowicz died, this

division effectively ceased to exist as a functioning entity, with

no staff, no acquisitions, no publications, and no changes in the

exhibitions that were already in place.26

Notes

'Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in

the United States National Museum," pages 701-702.

2

Ibid., pages 702ff.

3Kohlstedt, "History in a Natural History Museum," page 23.

4Ahlborn and Espinola, Russian Copper Icons, page 1.

5

lt should be stressed that there is no implication that Adler did not truly

advocate the "scientific method"; certainly his perception was that a scientific

approach motivated all of his endeavors. Indeed, he had been quite systematic

about his acquisition of study casts of the Near Eastern antiquities, but that, of

course, is a much easier task than trying to buy or borrow original objects. Also,

there is substantial documentation in the Smithsonian Institution Archives of

his organized approach to his endeavors as librarian of the Smithsonian and

especially his involvement with the International Catalogue of Scientific

Literature. Adler was the representative of the United States at the founding

conference of that project in Great Britain, and he served on the Executive

Committee beginning in 1903. Documents on Adler's work as Smithsonian

librarian are found in SIA, RU 31, Box 3. Included is the recommendation by

Langley, dated October 1903, that Adler be named to the executive committee.

6

In Cyrus Adler's memo of 13 May 1892 to George Brown Goode outlining

his request to mount an exhibition on religious ceremonial at the World's

Columbian Exposition, he indicated that he would need an assistant: "For the

work involved in making, describing and arranging this collection it will be

necessary to have some scientific assistance. I believe the services of a

scientific man could be secured for $40 per month" (SIA, RU 70, Box 33).

Casanowicz's letter of appointment is dated 14 November 1892 (SIA, RU 20,

Box 37, Book 3, page 39).

'One of the articles Casanowicz wrote was "Non-Jewish Religious

Ceremonies in the Talmud," Proceedings of the American Oriental Society,

volume 16 (1894), pages LXXVI-LXXXII.

dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,

1964), volume 2, page 556. Beginning in 1896 with the biblical antiquities

exhibition at the Cotton States International Exposition, Casanowicz is listed as

coauthor with Cyrus Adler on several of the museum catalogs related to the

Judaica collection. Other catalogs coauthored by the pair include: "Descriptive

Catalogue of a Collection of Objects of Jewish Ceremonial Deposited in the

U.S. National Museum by Hadji Ephraim Benguiat," 1901, and "The

Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the United States National

Museum," 1908. He published two articles on Jewish amulets in the

Smithsonian Collection: "Jewish Amulets in the United States National

Museum," Journal of the American Oriental Society, volume 36 (1916), pages

154-167, and "Two Jewish Amulets in the United States National Museum,"

Journal of the American Oriental Society (1917), pages 43-56. His manuscript

"Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the USNM" was published

posthumously in the United States National Museum Bulletin, volume 148

(1929).

'The breadth of Casanowicz's knowledge of religions was remarkable.

Among his other publications, for example, is "A Description of the S.S.

Howland Collection of Buddhist Religious Art in the National Museum,"

United States National Museum Annual Report for 1904-1905 (Washington,

D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906), pages 737-744.

10SIA, RU 201, Box 16.
68 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

"Immanuel M. Casanowicz, "The Collection of Oriental Antiquities at the

United States National Museum," Journal of the American Oriental Society,

volume 23 (1902), pages 44-47.

l2Adler, "Museum Collections," page 762.

"Ibid., page 47.

14SIA, RU 158, Box 33, Folder 3, "1899-1900."

l5Immanuel M. Casanowicz, "Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the U.S.

National Museum," Jewish Comment, volume 16, number 18 (1903), pages

5-6.

l6The whale bones were eventually transferred to the Division of Vertebrate

Paleontology.

"A memorandum from Cyrus Adler regarding the cap is in accession record

11610, dated 23 July 1906, concerning a deposit made in the National Museum

by Dr. Harry Friedenwald.

18The original newspaper clipping is in the National Anthropological

Archives, Box 8-111. The reliquaries are published in I.M. Casanowicz,

"Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the United States National

Museum," page 41.

"The Exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution at the Cotton States Exposition

Atlanta. 1895 (Washington, D.C.: City of Washington, D.C., 1895) (SIA, RU

70, Box 46).

20Cyrus Adler and I.M. Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of

the Exhibit at the Cotton States International Exhibition, Atlanta, 1895," United

States National Museum Annual Report for 1896 (Washington, D.C.:

Government Printing Office, 1898), page 953.

21Ibid.

22Ibid., pages 1013-1023.

^Report of the United States Government Exhibit at the Tennessee

Centennial Exposition, Nashville, 1897 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government

Printing Office), page 118.

24Ibid.

25Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in

the United States National Museum," pages 701-746.

26Report on the Progress and Condition of the United States National

Museum for the Year Ended June 30, 1928 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.

Government Printing Office, 1928), page 30.
8. The Ephraim Deinard Collection: A New Factor

Whereas Cyrus Adler was largely responsible for the

conceptualization and early development of the Smithsonian's

Judaica collection, the vast majority of the current collection of

objects, nearly two-thirds, are from a collection formed by

Ephraim Deinard between the turn of the century and World

War I.1 By trade, the intrepid Deinard was a book dealer, but he

was more than that. He too, like Adler, with whom he

sometimes came into conflict, was a man driven by a personal

mission: the advancement of Jewish scholarship. Like others of

his generation, he aspired and labored arduously to further

jiidische Wissenschaft; in Deinard's case, "Jewish science"

meant one consuming passion—bibliography.2

Deinard definitely was a difficult and irascible personality

and adhered only to his own personal code of ethics and

conduct. Though Deinard's methods of collecting were

aggressive and did not always accord with standard practice,

his ultimate contribution to the development of Jewish libraries

is immeasurable. Alexander Marx, the eminent librarian of the

Jewish Theological Seminary, wrote in a tribute some years

after Deinard's death:

Deinard was a curious personality. A great lover of books, he traveled all over

the world, particularly in the Near East, in search of rarities. How he managed

to obtain these unique volumes, I do not know, but undoubtedly a considerable

number would have perished in the disorders of the last decade if Deinard had

not found them a resting place in the great Jewish and general libraries both

here and abroad.3

Deinard was born in Shossmaken, Latvia, in 1846 and had a

traditional upbringing. Most of his learning was acquired

autodidactically. In 1866 he married Margolia Jaffee, a

descendant of a long line of Hebrew scholars; her patience with

her husband's exploits has been ascribed to this background.4

Deinard was a prodigious and prolific author; even as a young

man, he wrote articles for Hebrew journals. The dauntless

Deinard also began traveling in his quest to find rare Jewish

books and manuscripts. In 1872 Deinard traveled through

Volhynia and Podolia (a region of the Ukraine, annexed by

Russia in the second partition of Poland in 1793) looking for

materials of ethnographic interest.5

Deinard was the author of more than 50 works. His first

publication, a booklet of some 31 pages printed in Warsaw in

1875, was Toledotlbn Reshef, a biography of the Karaite leader

Abraham Firkovitch (1786-1874).6 Deinard had worked for a

period as secretary to Firkovitch. From the time of this earliest

work, Deinard did not hesitate to exercise his strong-willed and

controversial personality through the use of a polemical pen.

Deinard accused Firkovitch, who claimed that the Karaites had

entered the Crimea from Byzantium and converted the Khazars

to Judaism, of forging many of the manuscripts and artifacts he

collected in order to show the antiquity of the Karaites in that

region and of utilizing pressure tactics in making his

acquisitions.

Another early work, Sefer Masa' Krim, published in 1878 in

Warsaw, exemplifies an important facet of Deinard's documentation efforts. In Sefer Masa' Krim he recorded a history of the

Jews in the Crimea, with reference to the Khazars, the Karaites,

and the Krimchaki.7 Deinard hoped that by writing about

little-known Jewish communities and forming collections of

books and manuscripts concerning those groups, he could help

further the study of those peoples, learning about their history

and the various ways in which Judaism developed in different

places. A subscription book for Sefer Masa' Krim was among

the personal papers Deinard "inadvertently" left at the

Smithsonian.8 The subscription book, which has more than 160

pages, is a compilation of handwritten comments by the

persons solicited by Deinard to purchase the work; clearly he

was an early master of marketing. In it are book orders and

testimonials from prominent Russian, Crimean, and Polish

personalities, as well as a few from Germany and France. These

are written in Hebrew, Russian, Polish, German, and English.

Some of the tributes were printed as front matter in the

published version of the book. A complete register of the

subscribers, listed by city, is given as well, a true indicator of

the extent of his constant travel.

Among the statements reprinted by Deinard is the assessment of Dr. Hermann L. Strack, who makes reference to

Deinard's work as Wissenschaft. Dr. Strack was a German

Protestant theologian and Orientalist who taught Old Testament exegesis and Semitic languages at the University of

Berlin. Because he was considered to be the foremost Christian

authority in Germany on Talmudic and rabbinic literature, his

comments would certainly have been of great import to

Deinard.9

In 1882 Deinard traveled to Eretz Yisrael for the first time,

with every intention of settling there.10 However, his wish was

not to be fulfilled, and Deinard returned to Russia. Deinard

published an account of his trip to the Near East in Masa'

Be-Erets Ha-Kedem in Pressburg in 1883. An essay on Jewish

colonization in Palestine is included in a volume that Deinard

published in 1885 in Pressburg on the status of Jews in

European countries, Masa' Be-A iropa.''

Deinard ultimately returned to Odessa, where he had

established a bookstore in 1880. He made a distinction between

booksellers, mokhre sefarim, and book dealers, sohre sefarim.

Deinard considered himself to be among the second group, who

69
70 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

FIGURE 21.—Ephraim Deinard, from Shibolim Bodedot, 1915. (Courtesy of

Hebrew Union College, Francis-Henry Library)

purchased books as well as sold them.12 He prided himself that

many of the major European libraries purchased books from

him. The Deinard home also became a salon for many of the

leading scholars of the day.

In 1888 Deinard immigrated to the United States, bringing

with him a large collection of books and manuscripts. Energetic

as always, Deinard immediately began to establish himself as

part of the literary community. Deinard lived briefly in New

York and then in Newark for a couple of years, finally settling

in Arlington, New Jersey, where he even set up a printing press

in his home. Deinard began his own publishing endeavors in

the United States with Ha-Leummi, a Hebrew weekly of which

23 issues appeared in 1888 and 1889.

Ephraim Deinard, Activist

Deinard was actively involved in a variety of Jewish causes.

Among Deinard's personal papers and correspondence left at

the Smithsonian are documents that reflect some of his

involvements.13 Deinard was a Zionist and president of the

Zionistic Author's Society.14 He worked on behalf of emigration of Jews from Russia to Palestine. A letter from Theodor

Herzl written on 8 March 1898 expresses thanks to Deinard for

sending "brochures," most likely copies of Ha-Leummi, and

adds his hope that the American Zionist Conference will "be a

successful rally and thereby a meaningful addition and

conclusion of the Basel Congress." Max Nordau, physicist,

journalist, and cofounder of the World Zionist Organization,

wrote from Paris in February 1898 expressing his admiration

for Deinard's enthusiastic and energetic efforts and his surprise

that Hebrew literature was cultivated to such an extent in

America.

In 1902 Deinard tried to enlist Mayer Sulzberger's aid in

order to have the Zionist Congress meet in the United States in

1903.15 Deinard, as might be expected, had his own views of

Zionism, but basically he was a Herzlian Zionist, believing that

only political endeavors and diplomacy would bring about a

separate Jewish state.16 After Herzl's death, Deinard's activities

focused more on those individuals who were not only

politically oriented Zionists but religiously committed ones as

well. Among the documents housed in the NMNH Department

of Anthropology collections is a broadsheet announcing a

memorial service for Herzl, to be held on the first anniversary

of his death, and at which Deinard was to be a featured

speaker.17 Deinard did later purchase a home in Ramleh and

called it Gan Ephraim ("Garden of Ephraim"), where he lived

from 1913 to 1916, when he was expelled by the Turks.

Deinard also worked to resettle Jewish farmers from Russia

on agricultural sites in the western United States. Deinard

himself traveled to Nevada and then to California to assist the

group. Included in the Smithsonian deposit are several letters

Deinard wrote in 1897, as president of the Hebrew Agricultural

Society, to officials in Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, and California and to representatives of the U.S. Indian Service inquiring

about land on the Siletz Indian Reservation. There is also a

letter of introduction for Deinard to Governor James Dudd of

California from Adolph Sutro. Sutro (1830-1898), who was

then mayor of San Francisco, was also a great collector of

books, hence the relationship with Deinard. Among Sutro's

holdings was a sizable library of Hebrew books and manuscripts. Deinard prepared a catalog of Sutro's collection,

though it was never published because Sutro passed away in

1898.18

There were positive responses to Deinard's letters about the

resettlement effort. For example, a letter from William Lord,

governor of Oregon, dated 4 August 1897, is most encouraging: "There is plenty of good land in Oregon for experienced

farmers, and welcome for the honest and industrious."

Yet on 15 September 1897 Deinard wrote a very bitter letter

to Patrick W. Riordan, archbishop of San Francisco, deploring

how the Jewish community had forsaken their coreligionists

and pleading for Riordan's help. The letter is a sad commentary

on Deinard's willingness to take any steps he deemed necessary

to achieve a cause he championed.
NUMBER 52 71

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FIGURE 22.—Leaf from Sefer Mitzvot Ha-Gadol, by Moses ben Jacob of Coucy, thirteenth or fourteenth century;

NMAH 315394A.78. (Negative number 92-13045)

A remnant of the Jewish people, persecuted and driven from the land of their

birth, implore you to listen to their petition ... and we prostrate ourselves before

your Grace and ask in the name of Him who loved the poor, the sad and the

sorrow-laden, to grant us your protection, to alleviate our distress, and to see

that our burden of sorrow be lightened."

That Deinard should write in this way is bizarre, especially

given the history of his antagonism to Christianity, particularly

as reflected in Tselem Ba-Hekhal, a vitriolic work of his later

years that criticizes the literary critic and historian Joseph

Klausner as well as the prominent rabbi Stephen S. Wise for

pro-Jesus sentiments.20

In addition, Deinard's papers at the Smithsonian include

letters from various personalities, including important leaders

of the Anglo-Jewish community, such as Sir Moses Montefiore, and the French lawyer and statesman Adolph Cremieux,

who wrote a letter of introduction for Deinard on 24 June 1878

praising his character and his scientific and literary work.21

Deinard's Typical "Miscellany"

A few stray manuscript leaves also are found in this group of

documents, including one page from a thirteenth-century copy

of the Mishne Torah by Maimonides and a Samaritan
72 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

manuscript leaf of Leviticus 24.

It was apparently not unusual for Deinard to take apart a

manuscript, sometimes sending sections to two different

buyers. In this way he could inflate the price. Because Deinard

did engage in this practice, there are items in the Smithsonian's

collection that have counterparts in other collections, including

Damascus marriage contracts, memorial plaques from Italy,

and decorative sukkah panels from Italy.22

An indication that this was not unusual is apparent from a

letter of explanation that Deinard sent to Alexander Marx:

You are correct, my friend, for there have remained with me a few leaves of the

printed material as well as of the manuscripts. The great cold in my storeroom

prevented me from lingering there long and gathering all of them. In any event,

you have not told me if you will accept them or not. Therefore, I thought that

if you will notify me that you are buying them, then I will collect them al I. None

shall remain with me except two or three pages of which I decided to make

facsimiles and include them in my book Atikot Yehuda, which I have sent to be

published in Jerusalem. AfteT I finish with this, 1 will turn them over to

you ... you will be missing nothing.23

Deinard, Pioneer on Behalf of Jewish Libraries in America

Deinard was a fervent advocate of Wissenschaft des

Judentums. His personal mission was to advance Jewish

scholarship by developing collections for libraries. Although

his methods were unorthodox, Deinard brought a vast quantity

of books to America and worked very hard to find donors to

present them to various libraries, and so he made a tremendous

contribution to Jewish learning. He was a pioneer in assembling collections of books and manuscripts that would prove to

be indispensable resources for future generations of scholars in

the United States. As he would describe it later, Deinard's very

clear goal was

to establish libraries in all the leading cities of our land. It is my hope that in the

course of time I shall succeed in disseminating Jewish literature in this barren

country.... If a Jewish scholar needs an ancient text, he must go to Europe, to

the British Museum or the Bodleian Library in Oxford.24

Indeed, as soon as he arrived in America, Deinard began

looking for donors who would sponsor the acquisition of books

for major libraries. The first person to respond was the diplomat

Oscar Straus, whom Deinard solicited through Richard J.H.

Gottheil, professor of rabbinical literature and Semitic languages at Columbia University. In 1888 Straus purchased 133

manuscripts for Columbia.25

In time, Deinard's efforts resulted in the formation of major

holdings at numerous institutions, including those at the

University of California at Berkeley, supported by Dr. Jacob

Voorsanger, rabbi of Temple Emanu-el in San Francisco; those

of the New York Public Library, given by Jacob Schiff; and

those of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, funded

by Mayer Sulzberger.

In 1904, when Sulzberger presented the Library of the

Jewish Theological Seminary with some 7,500 books and 750

manuscripts, he echoed the goal of Wissenschaft des Judentums

in his message to the board of directors: "My hope is that the

Seminary may become the center for original work in the

science of Judaism, to which end the collection of a great

library is indispensable."26 Sulzberger also donated 25 objects

to the library at that time and noted his hope that these would

serve "as a suggestion for the establishment of a Jewish

museum in connection with the library."27 It is possible that a

number of these objects were obtained from Deinard.28

Deinard's private library was purchased by Harvard University through the generosity of Lucius N. Littauer, industrialist

and member of Congress, just months before Deinard died. The

soher sefarim had indeed saved many of the greatest treasures

for his personal library. For Deinard, the sale of this collection

meant the fulfillment of an endeavor he had begun in 1895,

when he first offered books to Harvard. There are two letters

from 1895 in the Deinard accession file from David Gordon

Lyon, the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental

languages and the first director of the Semitic Museum at

Harvard, expressing regret that the university was unable to

make the acquisition. In January 1895 Lyon wrote:

Your collection, if we could own it, would be of great interest and value in

enriching the Jewish branch of our library and would in every way strengthen

the Semitic Department of the University.

It has long been our hope to have a professor for the Talmud and related

subjects, but here too the money is wanting. The purchase or acquisition of such

books as you offer would doubtless do something to hasten the appointment of

such a professor.29

The Library of Congress Hebraica Collection

One of Deinard's most important collections, numbering

some 10,000 volumes, was acquired in 1912 for the Library of

Congress through the munificence of Jacob Schiff. The history

of this acquisition relates directly to Cyrus Adler and the

Smithsonian Judaica. Deinard's initial contact with the Smithsonian was in 1893. In a reply written on 11 December 1893 to

a letter from Deinard, Adler acknowledged Deinard's description of his success in "collecting Oriental Manuscripts" and

informed him that he had unsuccessfully sought him out during

a trip to Newark in the summer of 1892. Adler indicated that the

United States National Museum was financially unable to

purchase the manuscripts but wrote that he was "intensely

interested in such objects" and would certainly welcome

Deinard in Washington if he had a visit planned.30

The cordial tone of the letter is actually uncharacteristic of

Adler's attitude toward Deinard. At this early date, Adler's

view of the book dealer was doubtless influenced by Mayer

Sulzberger. Sulzberger was a major patron of Deinard, from

whom he acquired over 600 manuscripts as well as thousands

of books.31 A catalog of Sulzberger's collection was published

by Deinard; at that time Sulzberger owned 28 manuscripts and

about 400 books.32 Eventually Sulzberger would have his own

misgivings about some of Deinard's dealings, and they are

foreshadowed in a note Sulzberger wrote to Deinard on 22 July
NUMBER 52 73

1896 with reference to the proposed catalog. Sulzberger gives

him permission to print the catalog and then adds: "Only I must

insist that no personal remarks, good or bad, shall be printed in

it about any person." In a letter to Professor Marx written in

1909, Sulzberger seems to question Deinard's mental status; he

commented that Marx's interpretation of a Deinard offering of

an Arabic manuscript was "testimony to your proficiency in

psychology ... Deinard as usual hears inner voices besides the

outer ones of the man who speaks to him."33

The antipathy Adler personally felt toward Deinard can

perhaps be traced to a proposal by Deinard to establish a

collection of Hebrew works at the Library of Congress to serve

the needs of American scholars.34 Deinard presented the plan at

a meeting of the American Oriental Society in 1894.35 For

Deinard, this was a logical proposition: after all, prior to

coming to the United States, he had been a purveyor of

manuscripts and rare books to many of the great European

libraries, including the British Museum, the Bibliotheque

Nationale, and the Preussiche Staatsbibiothek. Certainly it

made sense to form such a collection at the national library of

the United States. According to Deinard, Daniel Coit Gilman,

president of the Johns Hopkins University and then-president

of the American Oriental Society, approved the plan. Only

Cyrus Adler rejected the recommendation.36

Adler's reaction seems to have been both professional and

personal. First and foremost, Adler himself already had given

voice to such a scheme in 1892.37 For Adler, a library was only

one facet of a larger approach to the scientific study of Judaism

in America. Adler was wary of parochialism; he wanted to see

such a library only as part of a larger scheme that included

museum studies and university coursework, not as just an

isolated deposit of books. He could, of course, cite his own

experience as a model. As a university-trained scholar of

Semitics, his credentials were on a par with those of any

"modem humanist."38 In the face of the growing secularization

of universities, one of Adler's suggestions was to focus on

obtaining funds to help the Jewish Publication Society support

original research. The publications would then be distributed to

every "College, Library, and seminary in the United States." A

library at the Smithsonian or the Library of Congress was

another possibility.

In addition, to Adler, who was a fervent adherent of

diplomatic process, Deinard was an interloper, operating

outside what Adler felt were the proper channels. It can be

surmised that Adler felt the plan should have been proposed

through him in his capacity as librarian of the Smithsonian

Institution, or at least in consultation with him in his role as

resident Semiticist at the National Museum. Moreover,

Deinard's presentation at a public forum, especially the

American Oriental Society, and in particular his seeking the

approval of Gilman, had likely proven quite difficult for Adler,

the scholar of Semitics whose doctorate had been awarded by

Gilman himself and who had held an academic appointment at

Johns Hopkins for five years after receiving his degree, prior to

assuming a full-time position at the Smithsonian.

For Adler, the situation was further complicated by the status

at that time of the Smithsonian library within the Library of

Congress.39 In 1866 the Smithsonian library had been

transferred to the Library of Congress by an act of Congress.

Until the 1880s, when the sheer volume of books caused the

system to break down, the Smithsonian's new book accessions

were sent to the Library of Congress. To Adler, who understood

the bureaucratic realities, Deinard's proposal was a serious

challenge. Because officially the only books to be retained at

the Smithsonian were those required for use by staff in

departmental collections, a major library of "Jewish science"

would, of necessity, have to be created at the Library of

Congress and not the Smithsonian. Thus Adler's position that

the time was not ripe secured his own presence and exclusive

influence in this realm for years to come. Adler maintained a

close working relationship with the Library of Congress and

especially Herbert Putnam, who became librarian of Congress

in 1899. Putnam greatly expanded the collections of the library,

including securing books on the Bible and "Oriental Subjects."40

Deinard's overtures to the Library of Congress were not

renewed until 1909, when Adler had left the Smithsonian to

assume the presidency of Dropsie College. As would be

expected, however, Adler's opinion on the acquisition was

solicited by Putnam. Adler, wanting to promote the development of a "Semitica" collection at the Library of Congress, yet

still wary of Deinard, recommended that an evaluation of the

collection be left to Alexander Marx. In the end, the acquisition

did not materialize.

In 1912 the matter of a purchase from Deinard for the Library

of Congress was initiated anew. This time it was determined

that Jacob Schiff should be approached for funds. Putnam, of

course, consulted with Adler and asked him to intercede with

Schiff on behalf of the Library of Congress. Adler demurred,

stating that the request should come directly from Putnam.41

Schiff too sought Adler's advice. Adler, ever the diplomat,

wrote back in a most official, "objective" manner, analyzing the

merits of establishing a collection of Hebraica and Judaica at

the Library of Congress. Though once again he hesitated about

giving an appraisal of the quality of the Deinard Collection and

deferred to Marx's opinion, Adler did make eminently clear the

importance of a Jewish presence in Washington. Adler noted

his personal endeavor to "represent the ideals of Judaism"

through his efforts

to place in the National Capitol a collection that would represent in a beautiful

and dignified way Jewish ceremonial and art objects and with such funds as the

National Museum had at its disposal, I collected a nucleus which has been

greatly enhanced by the deposit of the splendid Benguiat collection. These

cases in the National Museum are at present the only representation of anything

distinctively Jewish in the National Collections which meets the eye[s] of

[visitors] from all over the country.42

Adler's letter to Schiff also demonstrated his manipulation of

the two sides. Adler responded to Schiff as if he had no prior
74 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

knowledge of the matter from Putnam. On the other hand,

Adler advised Schiff against following Putnam's suggestion to

have a special committee oversee the building of the collection,

because it might arouse internal criticism at the Library of

Congress, but he did state that Schiff should have the right to

approve the librarian, a tacit acknowledgment that because

Schiff had once asked Adler's advice, he would likely do so

again, and so Adler would almost certainly have a say in

choosing the appointee. Further, Adler confidentially informed

Schiff that he had learned from Deinard that, although Putnam

was requesting funding for the entire acquisition, there were

some funds available from the Library of Congress, and it was

best to designate a portion of his gift for future acquisitions.

Clearly Deinard too was doing his best to orchestrate the

acquisition. Not only did he contact Adler, but he wrote to

Alexander Marx as well to enlist his assistance in the sale to the

Library of Congress. In his letter to Marx he said, "I believe that

he [Putnam] will send you my book lists or will speak with you

about my collection in general. I trust you will not hurt me,

perhaps you can even influence him positively."43

Fortunately, despite the machinations, all went well, and the

Library of Congress acquired the books, the first of four

collections to be acquired from Deinard. Two of the collections

were funded by Jacob Schiff. Even Cyrus Adler publicly

praised the Deinard Collection and spoke well of its care in an

address presented at the Menorah Convention in New York on

30 December 1913.44

Deinard Forms a Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects

In 1899, when he began a series of trips to Europe and the

Near East, Deinard began acquiring objects as well. He was

certain he could place them at the Smithsonian. All of the

Deinard objects in the Smithsonian's Judaica collection were

acquired by him between 1899 and 1913. By then Deinard had

formed a large collection, housed in Palestine. A substantial

portion of the collection apparently already had been acquired

by 1902, when Deinard sold a group of objects to the

Smithsonian. As recounted in a letter to Mayer Sulzberger

written in Mantua on Erev Shavuot in 1902, by that date he

already had traveled to Damascus and Tunis as well as

Strasbourg and to Turin and Casale in Italy. He indicated that

he would make stops in Ferrara, Padua, Venice, and Ancona

before leaving for Jerusalem via Corfu. Deinard added that he

would be looking for objects for the Smithsonian and

commented that in Jerusalem "I also anticipate uncovering

valuable items, as I had promised Mr. [Cyrus] Adler." In the

letter, Deinard recorded several of the treasures he had found in

Mantua, including a 1731 Mahzor from Augsburg, which he

priced at $100, and his greatest find, an illuminated Haggadah,

for which he wanted $500. This Haggadah was acquired by the

Library of Congress, probably in the third Deinard acquisition,

in 1916. Now known as the Washington Haggadah, the

manuscript by Joel ben Simeon, Hebrew scribe and artist, dates

to 1478.45

The 25 objects included in the 1902 purchase from Deinard

are a Torah case, 6 amulets, a ceremonial cup, a pair of tefillin,

a Haggadah from Tunis, and 14 sukkah decorations from Italy.

The transaction was initiated in the spring of 1902. In a letter to

Cyrus Adler written on 2 April 1902, Deinard wrote that he had

forwarded "two cases of Jewish antiquities" to the Smithsonian

and would come to Washington to uncrate them. In fact, neither

he nor the crates came then, and subsequently Deinard sent a

letter requesting that he receive payment by wire sent to

Ancona. The crates did not arrive until September, and

payment was sent to him in Constantinople.46

Deinard is not known to have had any further contact with

the Smithsonian until 1913. Deinard, then living in Jaffa in

Palestine, offered a substantial collection for sale to the

museum, and a lively correspondence ensued. Deinard described the collection in a letter addressed to Immanuel

Casanowicz:

I have brought together a large collection of Jewish antiquities. About fifty

synagogal silver vessels of various kinds, numerous candlesticks of brass and

silver, a stone vase found on the Temple site, a large and heavy stone mortar,

two large gilt "chairs of Elijah" (used in the rite of circumcision) from

synagogues in Italy; a complete collection of Jewish coins, from the first struck

by the Maccabeans to the last of Bar-Kochba; a silver miniature of the ancient

Holy Ark of Prague; wooden models of the great synagogue at Jerusalem and

the Tomb of Rachel; a white metal case of a Torah scroll; various silver

ornaments of the Torah scroll; silver cups inscribed; silver cases for the Roll

of Esther, the like of which is not seen cither in Europe or America; silver

crown, breastplate and bells and pointers for the Torah scroll; Hanukkah lamps

of brass and silver; hanging lamps and a candalaber [sic] of brass; old veils for

the holy ark inscribed. And many other things which I can not at present

enumerate, but will shortly make a detailed list of the whole collection. It goes

without saying that this collection will be a credit to the Museum as well as to

the Jews.47

Deinard also made suggestions as to possible donors for the

Museum:

I am sure that if the Director of the Museum will write only two words to Mr.

Adolph Lewisohn48 (who is a lover of antiquities and himself a collector) and

inform him that a collection of Jewish antiquities is to be obtained for $6,000,

he will extend the money at once, though I have no doubt that also Mr. Schiff

would give the money if he were asked.49

Casanowicz immediately wrote to consult with Cyrus Adler,

who sent the following reply on 30 January 1913:

I have your letter of January 29 and what you write me is very important and

very interesting. In as much as Deinard has offered to give a more detailed

account of the collection I would advise that you ask him for a catalogue or at

least an account in ftill detail. Much of the money value of the collection

depends upon the meaning of one statement in the letter which you write me,

namely, "a complete set of Jewish coins." You ought especially inquire about

the number of these and find out how they check up with Madden's Jewish

coinage. If he has even a half complete collection of Jewish coins that alone

would be worth more than the price that he asks.50

In this first letter, Adler did seem amenable to having Deinard's

collection evaluated and, indeed, offered some information

about possible donors:

Of course, the Secretary would be the best person to take the matter up with Mr.

Schiff after we have more details about the matter.51 ... I go to New York to
NUMBER 52 75

discuss the matter with Judge Sulzberger with whom I am going over. Mr.

Lewisohn is a man who is perfectly able to make such a donation and has in fact

made large donations to various institutions. Up to this time as far as I can see

he has made his donations principally to the City College of New York and to

Yale University. He could be reached best through Arnold Brunner, the

architect, who is his adviser on all matters of art and antiquity and all the

Museum people are very friendly with Brunner.52

Adler did mention his own preference for acquiring a Judaica

collection. Adler would have preferred that the museum buy the

Benguiat Collection, which by that time had been on loan to the

Museum for 20 years.

Adler's remarks give a sense of his personal feelings toward

Deinard:

You speak of Deinard's bringing the collection to this country for examination.

I understood that Deinard had gone to settle in Palestine. Of course, I never

believed that he would settle there but 1 think it is a very good thing to let him

settle there.53

Adler went on to suggest that it might be worthwhile to try to

find an expert in Palestine who might examine the collection

for the Smithsonian. Alternatively, he suggested that it was not

really a problem for the objects to be shipped to the Museum

for inspection, as he assumed that all of the items were

antiquities and there would be no difficulty with potential

customs duties.

However, just three days later, Adler sent Casanowicz

another letter after he had consulted with Mayer Sulzberger.

Now Adler was very brief:

Judge Sulzberger who knows Deinard well says that he is a good collector, but

that his judgment as an antiquarian is not to be trusted. If therefore the question

of the purchase of his collection is to be considered at all it should be made on

condition that he send it to the Museum for inspection}*

In his administrative memos, Casanowicz recorded that he had

written Deinard on that very day

asking him for a full and detailed list of the specimens, a description of their

state of preservation and data of their provenance and genuineness, and also

suggested some objects necessary to make this collection complete and

representative.

To this Deinard replied from Jaffa on 25 February 1913:

All of the objects which you have mentioned in your letter are already in my

collection and I am constantly adding to it so that you need not doubt that there

will be nothing wanting in it that is necessary for a Jew from the cradle to

grave. But the collection is already so large that I have absolutely no time to

prepare a detailed list of it. I would therefore request you to ask the Director of

the Museum whether he wants to receive this collection. If so, I shall send the

collection to the Museum where you could examine it and make a list of it. Also

the Maecenas who would buy it for the Museum could then see it. I have no fear

but that we shall agree as regards the price.55

On 22 March 1913 Casanowicz officially informed William

Henry Holmes,56 the head curator of the Department of

Anthropology, of Deinard's offer. Holmes's response came by

way of a handwritten note on Casanowicz's original letter:

"Regrets, no funds for purchase." Yet despite this situation,

Holmes forwarded the information to Assistant Secretary

Richard Rathbun with the following note: "There appears to be

a great opportunity here. The collection of such objects is

important historically and from the standpoint of art." Holmes

mentioned that if the secretary wanted to purchase the

collection, the objects would have to be brought to Washington

for inspection. Rathbun passed this information on to Secretary

Charles D. Walcott, noting that both Ephraim Deinard and

Cyrus Adler had suggested approaching Adolph Lewisohn or

Jacob Schiff for funding.57

After a lapse of two months, Rathbun followed up on the

proposed acquisition, appending a draft of a letter (authored by

Casanowicz) to be sent to the potential donors. Among

Rathbun's concerns was that because the Benguiat Collection

was a loan, it could be withdrawn at any time. The Casanowicz

draft gives a brief description of the Deinard Collection and

then discusses the need for and importance of the acquisition,

which Deinard had described as containing

all that is necessary for a Jew from the day of his birth to the day of his death.

The collection of objects of Jewish ceremonial at present on exhibition in the

National Museum is one of the most complete and valuable in existence. Its

educational influence can not be overestimated. Not only is it one of the great

attractions for the thousands that pass through the halls of the Museum, but is

often the object of serious study of Bible classes and Sunday schools. But by far

the greater and most valuable part of this collection is a loan of the family

Benguiat, including many family heirlooms, and is liable to be any day

withdrawn from the National Museum. This would cause a serious lacuna in the

exhibitions of the National Museum which would be greatly regretted by the

visiting public at large and by Bible students especially. It may therefore be that

the offer of Mr. Deinard is the right occasion and opportunity of securing a

permanent representation of Judaism in the national capital which is more and

more becoming the center not only of the political life of the American people

but also of their religious and ideal interests and endeavors.

The letter continues with the significance of the acquisition for

the Jewish community:

But as the National Museum has no funds available for such acquisitions, 1

venture to suggest that this may be a fit and proper occasion for the Jews to put

up by the donation of this collection a monument, as it were, and an object

lesson of their faith, religious life and history.58

Although Casanowicz had indeed characterized in his own way

both the educational and political agendas long espoused by

Adler, the secretary apparently decided that it would be

desirable to contact Adler himself and ask him to draft a letter

to Adolph Lewisohn. Adler's letter expressed the need for the

collection much more adroitly (and not immodestly) and

tailored the request to the donor by mentioning an aspect of the

collection that Adler knew would be of particular interest to

him.59 Adler's draft, which was, in fact, copied verbatim when

sent to Lewisohn, reads as follows:

Some twenty years ago, in the course of the development of that portion of the

United States National Museum which relates to the History of Man, it was

decided to include collections illustrating the great religions of the world.

Doctor Cyrus Adler, then connected with the Museum60 made the initial

collections which have steadily grown in interest and importance. Among these

historic religions, Judaism naturally held an important position and the

collections in this field have grown by gift and loan to be of considerable

moment. I am sending you under separate cover several catalogues which have

been issued by the Museum from which you can see at a glance some of the

objects that have been gathered.
76 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

In addition to these more notable ones, there have been brought together

many excellent engravings and prints of synagogues which have been useful to

the architects of this country when called upon to design such buildings. A

number of years ago, for example, when Mr. Arnold Brunner, who I am sure is

known to you, had a synagogue to design, he made studies from these

collections.

The letter continues with the request for support, noting:

Opportunities for securing collections of Jewish ceremonial do not often occur,

but when they do, the Museum is without funds to meet the emergency. Our

appropriations from Congress are in the main specific and fixed, and we have

little opportunity to purchase collections when brought to our attention except

through the help of generous friends of the nation.

The appeal is followed by a brief description of Ephraim

Deinard, as a man of "industry and rare knowledge" and

includes in its closing remarks another direct pitch:

I thought you might be willing to consider making a gift of this collection for

the benefit of the Nation. I appreciate that you must have brought before you

many suggestions and appeals, and if for any reason, you do not see your way

at the moment to undertake this matter I shall completely understand the

situation. It would be a gratification to me, however, to have the privilege of

associating your name with the growth of the National Collections.61

Adler appended two notes to the draft of 27 May. One was the

entry for Adolph Lewisohn from Who's Who, 1912-13. The

second was a personal note to R.I. Geare, who was Secretary

Walcott's assistant, with a stern caveat that if the draft was to be

used, the secretary should be aware that

I am not speaking from any knowledge at all about this collection. On January

29, 1913 Doctor Casanowicz wrote me a long letter on the subject. On January

30 I answered him advising the collection be brought to this country for

inspection or that at least a detailed catalogue be secured. I am not at all

favorable to purchasing Deinard's collection without having some expert see it.

On February 3, Doctor Casanowicz acknowledged my letter and since then I

have heard nothing about the matter. While as 1 wrote to Doctor Casanowicz I

am very anxious to see the collections grow, we ought not buy a pig in a poke.62

Lewisohn declined to purchase the collection. The memos

worked their way back to Casanowicz through Geare and then

went to Rathbun and Holmes with the suggestion that it might

be worthwhile to contact Mr. Schiff with the same request.63

Casanowicz replied on 17 July to Holmes that it would be best

to wait until Deinard brought the collection to the United States

to be evaluated. Casanowicz stated: "When it is seen and found

to be as represented the authorities of the National Museum will

be in [a] position to recommend its purchase on their own

account and responsibility." Apparently Casanowicz had taken

Adler s admonition to heart and felt he could not proceed any

further.

Deinard, still in Jaffa, had no notion of the dealings at the

National Museum. However, he was still anxious to make the

sale and wrote to Secretary Walcort in a letter received on 5

November 1913 that he had further enriched the collection and

was willing to pay for the costs of transportation to Washington

so that the collection could be exhibited at the museum.

Deinard's expressed rationale was: "I am quite sure that when

the collection is displayed there will be easily found generous

Jews who will be willing to buy it and present it to the National

Museum, for it will be both an ornament to the Museum and a

credit to Judaism." On 2 December 1913 a reply was sent to

Deinard from Rathbun expressing willingness on the part of the

museum to receive the collection for exhibition, and instructions for shipping were given.

However, the Deinard Collection was not shipped immediately, and World War I prevented it from being sent until 1920,

when Deinard brought the collection to Washington. In a letter

dated 22 May 1920 Casanowicz wrote to Holmes that Deinard

had again offered the collection to the museum as a deposit,

pending a purchaser who could present it to the museum.

Casanowicz recommended that the collection be accepted as an

accession for examination. Holmes's response to Richard

Ravenel, now the assistant secretary, was that although this was

quite out of the ordinary, he might want to approve the request

because the "material may finally accrue to us."64 Thus, the first

objects from the Deinard Collection were finally accessioned

by the United States National Museum as a loan.

By 1926, when still no donor had been found to purchase the

collection for the Smithsonian, Mendel Silber, Deinard's

son-in-law, wrote the following translation of the introduction

to Devir Ephraim, the prospectus of Deinard's collection:

This collection would constitute a most excellent and valuable nucleus for a

Jewish Museum, for which there is a great need in the country. This collection

of antiquities, which illustrate the history of religion, was procured with much

difficulty and great effort in the oldest Jewish settlements in the Orient. Such

articles are indeed very rare. Moreover, few of them are in Jewish hands. This

is due to the insecurity of the Jew throughout the centuries, which made the

preservation of such objects well nigh impossible.65

By this time Deinard was nearly blind and almost unable to

work. In 1927 he lent the remainder of his collection of

ceremonial art to the Smithsonian. It was in this final shipment

that he included the large group of private papers and

correspondence. Considered to be "nondescript material" from

the museum's perspective, as noted by Casanowicz on his

intake memo, these documents (described earlier in this

chapter) were apparently part of the legacy Deinard wanted to

leave at the National Museum. By 1927 Deinard had deposited

almost 600 objects and documents at the Smithsonian.

It is uncertain why Deinard decided to begin a collection of

objects. It is possible, as he indicated in his 1902 letter to Mayer

Sulzberger, that his sole motivation to purchase objects was a

request from Cyrus Adler to look for "valuable items."

Deinard, unlike Adler, was not a theoretician, and the only

model he used for collecting objects that would represent

Jewish life from '"cradle to grave" was his own experience as a

traditionally observant Jew. Wissenschqft des Judentums was

integral to his efforts as a bibliophile, and, as evidenced by his

remarkable accomplishments in assembling major collections

of books and manuscripts, he was extremely knowledgeable

about them. Unfortunately, compared with his achievements in

the world of books, he did not attain anywhere near the same

level of mastery as an antiquarian.
NUMBER 52 77

Certainly one element of Deinard's success as a bibliophile

and book dealer was that he searched for materials incessantly.

He was a scavenger and a deal-maker. Deinard favored

purchasing whole collections, which meant that he could get

the best possible price. He did obtain some rarities: a group of

eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ketubbot from Damascus; a

number of nineteenth-century Italian memorial candle plaques;

and a quantity of Italian graphics used as sukkah decorations. It

is indicative of Deinard's true expertise that these more

important items are akin to manuscripts. But his penchant for

purchasing entire collections also led him, for example, to

acquire an entire group of silver ceremonial objects of dubious

provenance (such as NMNH 315288). In another instance, he

obtained a group of nearly two dozen Italian Torah binders,

among which was only one outstanding example (NMAH

315209).

Nonetheless, although the quality of the artifacts and

documents in the Deinard Collection is mixed, by virtue of the

early date at which they were obtained through his extensive

and unparalleled contacts and travels, Deinard's pioneering

attempts to amass a representative collection of Jewish life

meant some important items were saved from being lost.

It was Deinard's hope that the Smithsonian eventually would

prepare a catalog of his collection, as had been done for the

Benguiat Collection, and he apparently submitted some type of

catalog listing to Casanowicz. In November 1927, two months

after Casanowicz passed away, Deinard requested that Dr.

Israel Shapiro, head of the Division of Semitic and Oriental

Literature at the Library of Congress, intercede on his behalf in

order to ascertain whether the listing had been found among

Casanowicz's personal effects. A note in the file from W.H.

Holmes indicates that many of Deinard's '"specimens" were

described in a manuscript, which would be published. This

response was officially conveyed to Deinard on 2 December

from A. Wetmore, an assistant secretary. However, the

publication, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial

in the United States National Museum," which appeared in

1929, included only the same few items that were part of the

1902 purchase.

After Deinard's death in 1930, the collection remained at the

Smithsonian as a loan. In 1954 Deinard's grandsons Amos S.

Deinard and Benedict S. Deinard began discussions with the

museum about the disposition of the collection. The negotiations with the Deinard heirs proved to be difficult, as they were

unwilling to accept the appraisers suggested by the museum.

Even though a memo written by H.W. Krieger, dated 2

February 1954, gives some indication that the Smithsonian's

evaluation of the collection was that it was not "outstanding,"

Dr. Remington Kellogg, director of the museum, was apparently anxious to retain it. Kellogg wrote a letter on 27 April to

Benedict Deinard stressing the importance of the collection and

quoting from the Parke-Bernet catalog of the sale of the

collection of Mrs. Rebecca Davidowitz:

The demand for Hebraica among American collectors has mounted sharply in

recent years This intense, almost passionate, interest is not due merely to the

genuinely emotional feeling of the Jewish community today for its own ritual

relics, and for the widely scattered fragments of its folk art, produced by a

harassed and dispersed people all over the Western world under the most

difficult conditions. It stems equally from the increasing shortage of such

material, which has been brought about by the destruction of Jewish

possessions and the razing of synagogues during the horrors immediately

preceding the last war, and the subsequent ravages of the military campaigns in

Central Europe, Russia and other theatres of battle. Much of the material that

survived was donated to Jewish museums in Israel and elsewhere, thus further

reducing the visible supply to the collector.66

In fact, the quote in Kellogg's letter is appropriate to the

approach of Ephraim Deinard himself, as his primary aim was

preservation. After a satisfactory appraisal was obtained, the

Deinard Collection was deeded as a gift to the Smithsonian in

1955.

Notes

'A biographical sketch of Deinard with a listing of the books and

periodicals he edited first appeared in Israel Shapiro, "Ephraim Deinard,"

Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, volume 34 (1937),

pages 149-163. Simcha Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard (1846-1930): A

Transitional Figure" (M.A. thesis, Columbia University, 1964) is the most

complete biography to date on Deinard. A summary of Deinard's contributions

to the establishment of various libraries in the United States is found in Simcha

Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard: Bibliophile and Bookman," Studies in Bibliography and Bookhre, volume 9 (spring 1971), pages 137-152. All of Deinard's

accession records are now to be found in SIA, RU 305. "Registrar, 1834-1958,

with Accretions to 1976," Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File. The

accession number is 207992.

2Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard (1946-1930): A Transitional Figure," page

46.

3Alexander Marx, "Jewish Libraries in America," Menorah Journal,

volume 31 (winter 1943), page 80 (cited in Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard

(1946-1930): A Transitional Figure," page 137).

4

Shapiro, "Ephraim Deinard," page 149.

5Ephraim Deinard, Devir Ephraim: Prospectus of the Library of Ephraim

Deinard at New Orleans (St. Louis: Moinesten, 1926), page 10 (cited in

Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard: Bibliophile and Bookman," page 137). Deinard

was indeed ahead of his time; not until thirty years later, in 1912, did an

expedition team organized by S. An-sky, sponsored by the Jewish HistoricEthnographic Society in St. Petersburg, go to these same remote towns and

villages to document the traditional folkways of these settlements and to collect

artifacts and manuscripts.

6The Karaites are a Jewish sect that came into being about the eighth

century. Their primary doctrine is adherence solely to the Torah. The Karaites

do not accept the Talmudic-rabbinic tradition (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v.

"Karaites").

7The Khazars, a Turkic nomadic people, were an independent and sovereign

group in eastern Europe between the seventh and tenth centuries C.E. Some of

the leading Khazars professed Judaism during part of this time (Encyclopaedia

Judaica, s.v. "Khazars"). The Krimchaki claim was that their history could also

be traced in that region back to the Middle Ages. We wish to thank Kenneth

Blady for providing additional information on the Kximchacki.

'According to a handwritten note by Immanuel Casanowicz on a list of

items accepted at the Smithsonian from Deinard in 1927, these papers were

intentionally not entered into the museum records and were to be preserved for

return to the owner. The subscription book is now housed at the NMAH. The

remainder of the papers are located in SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim

Deinard Accession File. Myron M. Weinstein identified the subscription book

and its importance.
78 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

"Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Strack, Hermann Leberecht." The text of

Strack's remarks appears in Ephraim Deinard, SeferMasa'Krim (Warsaw: n.p.,

1878), pagexiv.

l0Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard (1946-1930): A Transitional Figure," page

6.

"The section on Jewish colonization in Palestine was reprinted in a separate

volume by Deinard, Se'u Nes Tsiyonah (Pressburg: n.p.. 1886).

i:Deinard, Kohelet America (St. Louis: n.p., 1926), volume I, page 2 (cited

in Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard: Bibliophile and Bookman." page 137).

13AII of the correspondence is in SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard

Accession File.

l4Because Deinard had a printing press in his home, creating stationery for

the groups he "represented" was likely not a problem.

15Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard (1946-1930): A Transitional Figure," page

133.

16Ibid., page 132.

"NMNHT839, no. 14. Deinard's 1927 loan included "1 lot of miscellaneous

Hebrew script" to which R.A. Elder Jr., a museum technician, assigned the

number 315394A in July 1955. Among these was an additional group of

previously unidentified and uncataloged documents from the Deinard Collection, given temporary (T) numbers and housed in the Anthropology Processing

Lab at NMNH. Elder had written on the envelope in which they were placed

that they were to be discarded, but they remained in storage. Myron M.

Weinstein, the acting head of the Hebraica Section of the Library of Congress,

was asked by Richard Ahlborn to identify the 315394A documents.

^Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Sutro, Adolph Heinrich Joseph." The catalog

referred to is "Catalogue of the Old Hebrew and Arabic Manuscripts of the

Library of the Honorable Adolph Sutro."

I9SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File.

20Ephraim Deinard, Tselem Ba-Hekhal (New Orleans: n.p., 1926). In 1922

Joseph Klausner had published a book in Jerusalem entitled Yeshu Ha-Nozeri

(Jesus of Nazareth) (Jerusalem: n.p., 1922), stressing the Jewishness of Jesus

(Encvclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Klausner, Joseph Gedaliah"). Rabbi Stephen S.

Wise (1874-1949) preached a sermon at his Free Synagogue in December

1925 entitled "Jesus, the Jew." Deinard's attitude to Christianity and his attacks

on Klausner and Wise are cited in Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard (1946-1930):

A Transitional Figure," pages 79-85.

2

'Sir Moses Montefiore (1784-1885) was famed for his philanthropy and

social action on behalf of his coreligionists in Great Britain and his aid to

Jewish communities in Eretz Yisrael, Morocco, Syria, Russia, and Romania

(Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Montefiore, Sir Moses"). Isaac Adolphe

Cremieux (1796-1880) was a French lawyer and statesman known as a

defender of Jewish rights, both in France and abroad. He was president of the

Alliance Israelite Universelle, which was founded in 1860 (Encyclopaedia

Judaica, s.v. "Cremieux, Isaac Adolphe").

"Damascus marriage contracts obtained from Deinard are to be found in the

Jewish Theological Seminary Library; memorial plaques obtained from him are

in the Library of Congress; and sukkah panels obtained from him are at the

Jewish Museum in New York.

23Cited in Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard (1946-1930): A Transitional

Figure," page 24.

24Deinard, A History of the Jewish Settlement at Kearny-Arlington, N.J.,

pages 17-18 (cited in Berkowitz, '"Ephraim Deinard: Bibliophile and

Bookman," page 147).

25Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard: Bibliophile and Bookman," page 147.

26Cited in Marx, "The Library."

27lbid.

28According to correspondence from the Jewish Museum, only 15 of the

objects can be identified at this time. These items, accession numbers

S501-S515, include two nineteenth-century Torah cases. Because Sulzberger

bought most of his books from Deinard and there was no one else selling

Judaica in the United States at that time, it seems likely that Sulzberger bought

them from Deinard. Also, the Torah cases are similar to ones among the

Deinard items in the Smithsonian's collection.

29SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File.

30Ibid.

"Alexander Marx, Studies in Jewish History and Sooklore (New York,

Jewish Theological Seminary, 1944), page 234.

32Ephraim Deinard, Or Mayer: A Catalogue of Old Hebrew Manuscripts and

Printed Books of the Hon. M. Sulzberger of Philadelphia (New York: J.

Aronson, 1896).

"Herman Dicker, ed.. The Mayer Sulzberger-Alexander Marx Correspondence, 1904-1923 (New York: Sepher-Hermon. 1990). page 47, letter S-84. In

a letter dated 19 December 1910, Sulzberger wrote Marx, "I am glad that the

hurly-burly purchase from Deinard turns out to your satisfaction. 1 confess I had

some doubts."

34The acquisition of a collection from Deinard for the Library of Congress is

described in Myron M. Weinstein, "The First Deinard Collection of the Library

of Congress," unpublished paper presented at a symposium marking the

exhibition "From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of

Congress," 1991. Myron Weinstein was good enough to share the paper with

Grossman. Professor Abraham J. Karp curated the exhibition and authored the

catalog that documents the exhibition.

35Deinard became a member of the American Oriental Society in March of

1894 and remained active for only three years, until May 1897 (Berkowitz,

"Ephraim Deinard: Bibliophile and Bookman," page 145).

36Ibid.

37Cited in Cohen, Encounter with Emancipation, page 208.

38Ibid.

39Weinstein, "The First Deinard Collection," pages 7ff.

40Ibid., page 9.

4lIbid., page 16.

42Robinson, Cyrus Adler: Selected Papers, volume 1, pages 209-212.

43Alexander Marx collection, among the Deinard papers at the Jewish

Theological Seminary (cited in Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard: Bibliophile and

Bookman," page 139).

44Deinard, Koheleth America, part I, page 6 (cited in Berkowitz, "Ephraim

Deinard (1946-1930): A Transitional Figure," page 36).

44Deinard, Koheleth America, part I, page 6 (cited in Berkowitz, "Ephraim

Deinard (1946-1930): A Transitional Figure," page 36).

45The letter is in the Alexander Marx-Mayer Sulzberger file of the papers of

Ephraim Deinard (cited in Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard: Bibliophile and

Bookman," pages l40ff.). This file is located at the Jewish Theological

Seminary. Myron M. Weinstein alerted Grossman to the microfilm of this

Hebrew letter, which contains some additional details not quoted by Berkowitz.

The Washington Haggadah was reproduced in a facsimile volume in honor of

the 75th anniversary of the Library of Congress Judaica collection. Myron M.

Weinstein wrote the introduction in the commentary volume ("Introduction," in

The Commentary Volume to the Washington Haggadah (Washington, D.C.:

Library of Congress, 1991), pages 3-25.

46SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File. The original

accession number was 39909.

47SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File. The undated

Hebrew letter was received at the Smithsonian on 28 January 1913. The

translation is an abstract of Deinard's letter by Casanowicz.

4SAdolph Lewisohn (1849-1938) was an industrialist and philanthropist. He

arrived in the United States from Hamburg in 1867. With his brothers Samuel

and Julius, he established a firm that was a pioneer in copper mining in the

United States and dealt in copper and lead worldwide. Among other civic

activities, Adolph Lewisohn was president of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian

Society for over 30 years (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Lewisohn").

49SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File. The undated

Hebrew letter was received at the Smithsonian on 28 January 1913. The

translation is an abstract of Deinard's letter by Casanowicz.

50Apparently a major collection of coins had been offered to the Smithsonian

about 10 years earlier. At the time that collection was appraised for $17,500, a

price Jacob Schiff would have paid to bring the collection to the United States
NUMBER 52 79

and present it to the National Museum. The owner stayed firm at his asking

price, and Adler lost out to the British Museum.

5lThough he added that Schiff was about to leave the country for a six-month

trip to the Orient.

52SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File.

"Ibid.

54The caveat is underlined, apparently by Casanowicz. This conclusion is

based on the fact that certain passages of other letters in this correspondence

directed to Casanowicz are similarly highlighted.

SSSIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File. Though Deinard

never did send a list to the Smithsonian in 1913, several years later he published

Devir Ephraim, in which he included, as stated on the title page, '"A List of

Jewish Antiquities, Depicting the History of Religion' on Exhibition at the

Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D.C. and at New Orleans, Louisiana."

56William Henry Holmes (1846-1933) was a pioneer in developing new,

more scientifically based archaeological methods in America. He did not have

a particular interest or expertise in Old World archaeology or historic religions,

although he supervised those sections as chair of the Department of

Anthropology.

"SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File.

58Ibid.

''Specifically, he mentions the architect Arnold Brunner, whom Adler had

mentioned in his earlier letter of 30 January 1913 as being the best way -of

reaching Lewisohn.

^In Adler's draft, Casanowicz added a handwritten note at this point: "and

now President of the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, Phila,

Pa."

61SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File.

62Ibid.

63From the first memo from Geare to Rathbun on June 16 after Lewisohn's

letter was received. SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File.

M

SIA, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File.

65Mendel Silber, "Introduction," in Devir Ephraim, pages iii-iv.

66S1A, RU 305, Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File.
9. New Generations

Over the years, as the Smithsonian's museum units

multiplied, the Judaica collections were split among various

divisions. In these interim years, there were only occasional

accessions of Judaica, which were acquired primarily within

large collections. For example, the Virgil M. Hillyer Collection

of Heating and Lighting Devices, donated to the Smithsonian

by his wife in 1935, includes over a thousand items, of which

twelve are items of Judaica.' An article Hillyer wrote for the

Harvard University Alumni Bulletin provides an interesting

commentary on why he was interested in acquiring objects of

Jewish ceremonial:

With each distinctive piece acquired I have often found that a whole new field

of experience has been opened up. The finding of a rare Hanukkah light has

stimulated my interest in Jewish religion and history, and made a point of

departure for extensive excursions into Semitics.2

Unfortunately, Hillyer let his enthusiasm be his guide in his

purchases of Judaica, and a number of the objects he purchased

from dealers are problematic. One very curious item is a strange

composite object created from a memorial lamp, which has

been transformed into a Hanukkah lamp. An element salvaged

from yet another object bears a dedicatory inscription in

Hebrew indicating that it was the gift of Nathan son of Naftali

Rosenboim, of the Society of Anshe Hesed ("Righteous Men"),

of Bialystok.3

Division of Cultural History

In 1948 C. Malcolm Watkins, a young cultural historian,

joined the Smithsonian staff as a curator to build a new division

of cultural history within the Department of Anthropology. It

was a distinct history unit by the early 1960s, when he was

preparing to move the European collections to the new

Museum of History and Technology (renamed the National

Museum of American History in 1980) for study and the

European background displays to a hall called "Everyday Life

in the American Past."4 Included, but not listed, in the transfer

of the European collections were approximately two-thirds of

the Judaica, a total of about 650 objects. The Judaica remaining

in the Department of Anthropology was associated with the

Middle East and North Africa, although this was not accurate in

all instances. There are no documents from the period that

explain how decisions were made.5 The new exhibits on culture

at the National Museum of History and Technology concentrated on the national identities of European groups that had

come to the United States from Great Britain, France, Holland,

and so forth. Only one Jewish ceremonial object, a Hanukkah

lamp from Italy, was displayed, and it was incorrectly

incorporated into the exhibit on France.

In 1959 Dr. Eugene Knez was one of the new curators hired

by the Smithsonian to plan a major exhibit modernization

program for the Department of Anthropology.6 The hall

"Peoples of Africa and Asia" was installed in 1965; its section

on the Middle East contained a unit on Judaism. Knez decided

to distinguish that region as the seat of three major religions,

and he, like Adler, viewed Judaism as "primary," given that its

development preceded the development of Christianity and

Islam. His script for the exhibit was reviewed by members of

the local Jewish community, including Lawrence Marwick,

then head of the Hebraic Section of the Library of Congress.

Although several items of Judaica were still on display from

earlier periods, and although the Smithsonian already had a

sizeable Judaica collection, Knez sought out additional objects,

a process he found noteworthy for its "difficulties." Again

following Adler's approach, Knez was eager to represent

traditional cultures with resonating modern artifacts, and he

obtained a donation from the Embassy of Israel.7 In addition, a

gift of ceremonial objects made by contemporary Jewish

silversmiths Ludwig Wolpert, Chava Wolpert Richards, and

Moshe Zabari was solicited from Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof.8

These objects were all created in the Tobe Pascher Workshop

established by the Kanofs at the Jewish Museum in New York.

Kanof, writing on why he felt it was important for

contemporary Jewish ceremonial objects to go to the Smithsonian, noted how a fortuitous encounter led to the gift:

My interest, and that of my wife, Dr. Frances Pascher, in the concept of modern

design for Jewish ceremonial objects was natural. As Jews reared in traditional

homes and matured in America, we felt the need to integrate both cultures into

our lives. Moreover, as modest collectors of modern art, and as Jews in the

Conservative Movement, it seemed logical to introduce the principle of

contemporary design into the Baroque and Gothic Judaica just as in the

Conservative synagogue the prayer ritual had been modernized. Our thoughts

resolved into action with the establishment of the Tobe Pascher Workshop in

the Jewish Museum [in New York] of which I was then Chairman.

The Workshop brought to this country first Ludwig Wolpert [in 1955] and

then Moshe Zabari [in 1960], from the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem. The

two taught and created diverse and significant forms in ceremonial art. In their

work they created contemporary designs which embody the most profound

concepts of prayer and worship. Their pieces from the Workshop are to be

found in synagogues and homes throughout the world.

In an extension of our interest, Mrs. Kanof and I founded a collection in the

Jewish Museum. When I became Chairman of the B'nai B'rith Museum, we

added an extensive collection to that institution. At the opening event, the then

Director of the Smithsonian suggested a similar collection at the Smithsonian.

The idea of a national Judaica collection of modem design to supplement the

magnificent group of traditional pieces inflamed our imagination. We said,

yes.'

80
NUMBER 52 81

The gift was arranged through Tom Freudenheim, then

assistant curator of the Jewish Museum in New York, who later

became assistant secretary for the arts and humanities at the

Smithsonian. Knez had written to Freudenheim requesting his

help in acquiring these objects; his letter described the goals of

the Smithsonian in acquiring the contemporary objects.

The purpose of the Jewish exhibit is to present a significant aspect of the

cultural mosaic in the Near East. ... Ritual objects are being utilized since they

introduce the museum visitor to some of the essentials in contemporary Jewish

life and its religious orientation.10

Cyrus Adler was long gone, but the conceptual framework that

he had established in shaping the basic philosophy of the

Division of Historic Religions persisted. The new permanent

exhibit, which incorporated the contemporary ceremonial

objects, echoed the early Smithsonian exhibits on Biblical

archaeology, which treated contemporary practice as "living

archaeology."" This new exhibit remained in place until 1994.

Smithsonian Judaica Reorganized

In 1969 curator Richard E. Ahlborn, at the National Museum

of American History, established a new Division of Ethnic and

Western Cultural History to preserve materials of American

regional and minority groups. Among the collections for which

he was responsible was the Judaica. Beginning with Ahlborn's

tenure, the Judaica collection again became active, with

research, preservation efforts, loans for exhibitions, and new

acquisitions.

In 1972 Ahlborn discovered a cache of about a dozen copies

of a 1929 publication, "Collections of Objects of Religious

Ceremonial in the United States National Museum." This

volume, written by Immanuel Casanowicz and published

posthumously in his honor, is based on his 35 years of "study

of religions comprehending the historic cults of the world."12

The catalog represented the last vestige of the Division of

Historic Religions, which traced its beginnings to 1893.

Ahlborn brought the Casanowicz volume to the attention of

Arthur M. Feldman, then the curator of the Renwick Gallery at

the Smithsonian, who was about to become the director of the

Spertus Museum of Judaica, in Chicago. The Casanowicz

catalog was an astonishing revelation both because of its

implication that a collection of Jewish ceremonial objects

existed at the Smithsonian and because the first objects in this

group had been collected in the nineteenth century, at a time

when not a single Jewish museum had been established

anywhere in the world, let alone a Jewish collection in a public

museum.13 It was Feldman's suggestion to organize a loan

exhibition of objects from the Smithsonian for the Spertus.

As curator of the Spertus, Grace Cohen Grossman first met

with Ahlbom in December 1972. That meeting, like Adlers

with Mason nearly a century before, turned out to be quite

serendipitous. Ahlborn's response to the loan request was

actually an invitation to begin a study of the Judaica collection.

In fact, he jokingly remarked, "If we can find them, you can

borrow them!" Thus the research on Judaica at the Smithsonian

was initiated to identify and inventory ceremonial and

ethnographic Judaica in departments throughout the Smithsonian's museums. In a series of brief visits between 1973 and

1985, with funding provided by the Smithsonian Institution's

Office of Fellowships and Grants, and in 1984, with a grant

from the Memorial Foundation of Jewish Culture, ceremonial

and ethnographic Judaica was located, examined, and recorded.

By 1985 more than 850 objects had been inventoried, and the

cataloging of each item was in process.

The beginning of the project was much like a treasure hunt.

Using the Casanowicz catalog as a guide, Grossman began to

puzzle out the history of the collection. Where and what were

the objects, and how had they gotten "lost"? With few

exceptions, the objects were merely misplaced. With the

growth of the Smithsonian's collections over the years, the

names of various collections, divisions, and departments

changed along with their jurisdiction over certain types and

classes of objects. It was necessary to backtrack through the

surviving records of personnel, collections, and exhibition

policy to determine where the objects were currently located.

Throughout the process, a substantial body of documentation

on the history of the collection was compiled.

During an intense two-day review of storerooms in what was

then the Museum of History and Technology, in May 1973,

about 150 individual items were identified. Because no

inventory was available, the process of searching for the objects

involved simply opening each cabinet to look for Jewish

ceremonial objects. When a longer, two-week survey was

scheduled for March 1974, a more organized plan was

developed. Old United States National Museum reports that

could provide relevant information about the development of

the collection were sought out. Also, it had been noted during

the 1973 survey that a number of objects were marked with the

name Deinard, which was a clue that there might be other

objects that had been given by the same donor; later, a footnote

in an article on Deinard revealed that the Deinard collection at

the Smithsonian comprised 470 objects.14 There are actually

almost a hundred more objects than that in the Deinard

collection, but the fact that there were so many objects at the

Smithsonian from Deinard was the first major breakthrough in

the study.

During the 1974 survey, copies of the Deinard accession lists

were found in the Office of the Registrar. As it turned out, the

Deinard collection came into the Smithsonian over a 25-year

period beginning in 1902, when a number of objects were

purchased from Deinard. Also located was a curious group of

letters that had been in the accession file for 50 years. This

correspondence, although not relevant to the collection,

consisted of various letters to and from Deinard reflecting his

many interests, from Zionism to the settlement of Jewish

farmers in the western United States.

In an effort to find objects from the Deinard collection that
82 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

had not been transferred to the Museum of History and

Technology, the search-and-fmd method of locating objects

was undertaken in the anthropology storage areas at the

National Museum of Natural History. There, in units listed as

containing objects from Palestine and Syria, about 200 objects

were discovered. By 1974 Ahlborn had located a sack of

documents from the Deinard collection, and Myron M.

Weinstein, then acting head of the Hebraica Section at the

Library of Congress, agreed to identify them. These manuscript

pages had apparently remained untouched for half a century as

well. More than 200 items were eventually identified by

Weinstein, who was uniquely qualified to do the research,

given his great skill in reading and analyzing a broad range of

Hebrew scripts. By late 1974, more than 500 objects were part

of the growing roster of Judaica.

On the subsequent research trips, records were carefully

examined in the Anthropology Processing Lab, where the

original accession books were made available, as well as the

loan records dating from the nineteenth century. Through the

loan records, the history of the Benguiat Collection at the

Smithsonian was documented. Although the actual correspondence and loan forms had been destroyed long ago, the records

of the correspondence file proved to be an invaluable resource

in learning about the history of the collection in which the

Benguiat loan had played such a prominent role.

Just at the time when the Smithsonian Judaica was

becoming known, the National Museum of History and

Technology was preparing a monumental exhibition, "A

Nation of Nations," to commemorate the Bicentennial of the

American Revolution. Under the late senior curator Carl

Scheele, the planners of the exhibition began to struggle with

issues of multiculturalism, seeking to acknowledge the diverse

groups of Americans while conceding that

the nation of nations has also been a place of turmoil among red men, white

men, black men, and yellow men; it has also been a caldron which has refused

to melt the antagonistic elements into a new, single race of composite men.

Rather the American has come to be a multiple man, with allegiances here and

sympathies to a past which somehow seems essential to his quest for personal

identity.15

Greater interest began to be shown in the Judaica, partly as a

result of the renewed research, and several Jewish ceremonial

objects were included in "A Nation of Nations." The museum

began to receive many loan requests; at the time, the loans were

made primarily to local institutions for use in holiday-oriented

exhibitions.

In 1978 a major exhibition of Judaica, the first loan

exhibition of its size since the Tennessee Valley Exhibition

some seven decades earlier, was organized for the B'nai B'rith

Klutznick Museum in Washington. Anna M. Cohn, director of

the Klutznick, who later became the director of the Smithsonian

Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), requested the

loan on short notice when a major exhibition scheduled for

display at the Klutznick Museum was suddenly canceled. From

the inventory in process, Grossman and Ahlborn provided lists

to the Klutznick by object type and by museum location.

Seventy-five objects were included in the exhibition.

Because of the time constraints, it was not possible to revise the

existing attributions, all of which dated from the AdlerCasanowicz era, and so the label copy did not reflect current

research. The exhibit was titled "Judaica from the Smithsonian:

An Enduring Link with an Ancient Past," and what was

highlighted was the fact that these were the hidden Judaica

treasures of the Smithsonian. No particular theme was

developed beyond the notion of "treasures," and the exhibition

was installed according to life-cycle events, holiday celebrations, and objects used in synagogue worship. No catalog was

published, but the brochure text briefly discussed the history of

the collection. Clearly, the very fact that a collection of Jewish

ceremonial objects had existed at the Smithsonian for a century

was the critical message of the exhibition. For the Jewish

community, which, like other groups in the 1970s, was

searching for cultural roots, the legacy of the Smithsonian

Judaica bestowed a great measure of pride, and an exhibition

was a useful cultural model to express the agenda of those

cultural politics.

As a result of the B'nai B'rith exhibition, SITES became

interested in organizing a traveling exhibition of the Smithsonian's Judaica objects. Again, the thrust was to be the

little-known and very surprising fact that there was a significant

collection of Jewish ceremonial objects at the Smithsonian.

Approximately 100 objects were selected for the exhibition,

and the focus was to be on the outstanding objects in the

collection, with the criteria for inclusion being either the

significance of the object from the perspective of Jewish

material culture, its importance in terms of the history of the

collection, or both.

Unfortunately, the exhibition never materialized because the

Smithsonian conservators judged that many of the most

important objects were too fragile to travel. The benefit of this

decision was that for the first time, the Department of

Conservation became involved with the Judaica; eventually

this would result in a major conservation effort to at least

stabilize the condition of a large number of works in the

collection.

In 1982 another major exhibition drawing from the

Smithsonian's collections was organized by the Office of

Folklife Programs and the Renwick Gallery of the National

Museum of American Art. "Celebration: A World of Art and

Ritual" had as its intent to "mount a major exhibition that

would reveal the Smithsonian's long interest in studying and

collecting objects from folk and traditional cultures."16 Of the

thousands of objects identified through the four-year research

phase, approximately 600 items representing 62 cultures were

selected for the exhibition. What the organizers realized was

that many of the objects chosen for the exhibition had not been

studied since they were acquired by the Smithsonian. In many

instances, that meant nearly a hundred years or more. In order

to ensure that the objects were properly described, the help of
NUMBER 52 S3

specialists was enlisted to provide more current cataloging data

on the objects. Judaica was selected as one of the areas in which

consultation was requested, and subsequently 20 Jewish

ceremonial objects were included in the exhibition. The

philosophy of the "Celebration" exhibition would have

validated many of Cyrus Adler's dreams, for it was a

cross-cultural exhibition with the "authenticity" of the description of each culture ensured by a researcher representing that

culture. As described by Victor Turner, curator of the

exhibition, these researchers "brought to light knowledge that

enables us to hear what the objects say with understanding,

respect, and some inkling of the historical conditions under

which they were created."17

In 1987 "Generations: A Universal Family Album," another

monumental cross-cultural exhibition that drew largely from

the Smithsonian's collections, was organized as the inaugural

exhibition of the Smithsonian's International Gallery. Anna

Cohn was the project director for the exhibition. Once again,

the curatorial research group included Judaica as a field of

specialization, although in the actual exhibition only two

objects of Judaica were included.18

Beginning in the late 1970s, Judaica from the Smithsonian

was also loaned for major exhibitions organized by Jewish

museums. These included "Magic and Superstition in the

Jewish Tradition," organized by the Spertus Museum of

Judaica in Chicago; "Jewish Heritage in American Folk Art,"

organized by the Jewish Museum and the Museum of Folk Art

in New York; "Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in

Italy," organized by the Jewish Museum; and "Sephardi Jews in

the Ottoman Empire," organized by the Israel Museum in

Jerusalem.

The progress of the Judaica inventory and study of the

collection and the increased visibility through exhibitions

encouraged Ahlborn to seek funding to support a three-phase

project: the comprehensive interbureau, interdisciplinary survey and cataloging of the Smithsonian's Judaica holdings;

publication of the findings; and an exhibition of the Judaica.

Phase I of the Smithsonian Judaica Project was formally

launched in November 1985 with a grant from the Horace W.

Goldsmith Foundation.

The Smithsonian Judaica Project was organized under

Ahlborn's supervision, with Grossman serving as project

director. Dr. Gus Van Beek and Dr. Paul Taylor represented the

National Museum of Natural History during the course of the

project and did much to facilitate research. Elizabeth Kessin

Berman joined the project as cataloger and took on the

day-to-day responsibilities of the survey and cataloging

process. Berman worked from the inventory, catalog work

sheets, and photographs that Grossman had compiled during

earlier work stages to complete, refine, and further explore the

holdings in the Smithsonian. Ultimately, ceremonial and

ethnographic Judaica was located in fourteen departments

throughout the Smithsonian's museums.19 The Judaica was

cataloged using the standards and format of the International

Index of Jewish Art developed by the Center for Jewish Art at

the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Sheila Salo edited and

typed each catalog entry. A comprehensive data base was also

compiled and is included at the end of this publication. A

reference file was established in the Office of Historical

Resources, Department of History, Division of Cultural

History, National Museum of American History, to house all of

the International Index of Jewish Art cards, research aids, and

guides to the Smithsonian's Judaica collection. In addition, an

accession file was developed that contains a synopsis of

materials contained in the Smithsonian Archives and in the

museum records that pertain to the accession of documentation

of the objects.

Many individuals were involved in the project.20 As noted

above, Myron Weinstein, of the Library of Congress, identified

and interpreted nearly 200 documents in the collection.

Curators from various Smithsonian divisions were extremely

helpful in providing valuable research and reference information on the objects. This technical cataloging assistance

included, for example, the identification of hallmarks on silver

and watermarks on paper as well as the analysis of textile

fibers.

The enthusiastic participation of the curators and conservators resulted in a major storage stabilization of the objects at the

National Museum of American History. This conservation

project was managed by Elizabeth Kessin Berman as well. The

paper conservator, Ann Craddock, determined that urgent care

of the numerous works on paper was needed, and it was decided

that all of the paper and parchments in the collection needed to

be rehoused. As a result, special boxes to house the unique

parchments mounted on wood were designed and built by

conservation lab staff, and two interns built special containers

for the 50 Syrian marriage contracts and rehoused 50 prints and

graphics in the collection as well. Nikki Horton, an objects

conservator, similarly made recommendations for rehousing.

Catherine Dirks, a textile conservator, surveyed and analyzed

all of the Judaica textiles at the National Museum of American

History. Under her supervision, all of the textiles were

vacuumed and properly stored, and a number of objects were

treated. After phase one of the project was completed, the

Judaica objects at the National Museum of Natural History

were moved to the Smithsonian's state-of-the-art storage

facility in Suitland, Maryland, where they could be properly

rehoused.

As new objects are acquired by the Smithsonian, they are

cataloged according to the International Index of Jewish Art

system. Batja Bell, of the Object Processing Facility at the

National Museum of American History, has served as a

cataloging consultant for the Judaica project since 1989. David

Shayt, a collections manager in the Division of Cultural

History, is responsible for the care of the Judaica and has

actively participated in research on a number of the objects.

What remains to be done is to computerize the catalog data. The

Smithsonian's Judaica collection is available for research;

inquiries should be directed to the Department of Anthropology
84 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Judaism. 411 ancient religion of Middle Ii:

origin, upholds in its ceremonies and Ikccjtui

concept of One God who acts with justice, mere;

truth and rccjuircs the siinc conduct from man,

I I113 tvinci'pt lias carried over into Christianity and

Islam, both religions having developed from the

earlier Jewish tradition.

The ceremonial objects displayed here are fruin

the Ne.ir l^ t or North Africa; similar objects arc

used b) Jews throughout the world.

FIGURE 23.—Installation of Judaica at the National Museum of Natural History, 1965-1993. (Department of

Anthropology Processing Lab Photography Records)

at the National Museum of Natural History and the Department

of History at the National Museum of American History.

In 1987 phase two of the Smithsonian Judaica Project—

writing the history of the collection to prepare this publication—was undertaken with additional funding from the Horace

W. Goldsmith Foundation. Accession records, archival documents, and published reports gathered during almost two

decades of research on the collection were reviewed, and

additional material was sought in the process. During phase

two, over 100 of the Judaica objects were photographed in

preparation for publication. Funding for this volume was

provided by a grant from the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg

Foundation.

The way in which the collection serves as a resource

continues to reflect the cultural politics of those who use it and

the cultural models developed to convey the specific message.

An example is the exhibition entitled "History as Memory and

Model." The exhibition was developed at the National Museum

of American History by Ahlborn and Grossman in response to

a request by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to

participate in commemorating its opening, in 1993. Though the

display was small, because of its importance it was given a

position of prominence, directly across from the original

Star-Spangled Banner flag. Because of the popularity of the

flag display when the national anthem is played hourly,

thousands of visitors saw the Judaica exhibition. The exhibition

itself was funded by the United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum.

On display were several ceremonial objects and photographs

that were among the earliest acquisitions of Judaica at the
NUMBER 52 85

museum. The text panel provided a brief statement about the

initial acquisition of Judaica at the Smithsonian and then

suggested a very different context for viewing these objects and

photographs, demonstrating how varying presentations of the

same objects can convey new meanings. The photographs of

historic European synagogues, which Harry Friedenwald

purchased for the museum in 1890, were collected by Adler not

only as historical photographs but also because he hoped they

would serve as models for American synagogues. Yet not quite

fifty years later, in Germany on the night of 9-10 November

1938—known as Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass"—

began the massive destruction by the Nazis of Jewish homes,

businesses, and cultural and religious institutions. By the end of

World War II many European synagogues lay in ruins, their

ceremonial objects widely scattered. Thus the vintage photographs in the Smithsonian Judaica collection have become not

only architectural records but a poignant memorial as well.

In this instance, the cultural politics of the exhibition was to

use the objects to make a statement about the impact of the

Holocaust. The statement, by implication, was to serve as a

moral lesson for the visitor. A simple didactic cultural model

used the power of presentation by contrasting the beautiful

vintage photographs of the synagogues with the grainy

enlargement from a newspaper report of the Nazi burning of

one of them, the Wiesbaden Synagogue.

As Adler had intended with his own work, the exhibition

"History as Memory and Model" and the United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum itself aim to set the record

straight about stereotypes and prejudice.21 Sadly, however, the

message about the annihilation of European Jewry that was

emphasized by this exhibition is not the same message about

the contribution of Jews to Western civilization that Cyrus

Adler felt he had brought to the nation's capital "with beauty

and dignity." The Smithsonian's Judaica collection will

doubtless be amplified and interpreted by others in the future.

Notes

'Virgil M. Hillyer was headmaster of the Calvert School in Baltimore (A.

Hart, Calvert and Hillyer (Baltimore: Calvert School, 1947)).

2Hillyer was a member of the Harvard class of 1857. See Virgil M. Hillyer,

"Aladdin's Lamp and Some Others," Harvard University Alumni Bulletin,

volume 21(19 June 1919), page 37.

3NMAH 377032 and 377033.

4Telephone conversation between Richard Ahlborn and C. Malcolm

Watkins, 19 October 1995.

5

In the telephone conversation with Richard Ahlborn in October 1995,

Malcolm Watkins confirmed that there was no particular plan regarding the

Judaica.

6Eugene I. Knez Papers: Series 1 and 2, 1959-1978. National

Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

'Telephone conversation between Richard Ahlborn and Eugene Knez. 31

October 1995.

BThe accession records indicate that the gift was donated by Dr. and Mrs.

Abram Kanof. Mrs. Kanof used her own name. Dr. Frances Pascher,

professionally. The objects have catalog numbers NMNH 402932-402939.

'Dr. Abram Kanof to Grace Cohen Grossman, December 1989, in response

to an inquiry about the history of his gift. This information is in the Kanof

accession record, number 256783.

'"Letter in the Kanof accession record, number 256783.

"The exhibit was on view at the National Museum of Natural History from

1965 to 1994.

l2From the memorial dedication to Casanowicz in Immanuel M. Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S. National

Museum," United States National Museum Bulletin, number 148 (31 December

1929), pageiii.

13Several items of Judaica had incidentally been acquired by the Victoria and

Albert Museum in London as early as 1855, but there was no plan to collect

Judaica (M. Keen, Jewish Ritual An in the Victoria and Albert Museum

(London: HMSO, 1991), page 6).

'"Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard: Bibliophile and Bookman," page 151. This

information was written in a letter to Berkowitz from S.H. Riesenberg, then

curator of ethnology. Riesenberg also wrote, "Parts of these five collections

were placed on exhibit in Hall 8 of the natural History Building in 1926 or 1927

and remained there until 1960, when the Hall was dismantled for renovation.

All of the Deinard materials are now housed in our study collections and there

are no plans at present to place them on exhibit again."

I5S. Dillon Ripley, "Foreword," in P.C. Marzio, ed., A Nation of Nations:

The People Who Came to America as Seen Through Objects, Prints, and

Photographs at the Smithsonian Institution (New York: Harper and Row,

1976), page xiii. Writing this in 1995, it is interesting to reflect how the cultural

politics of race and ethnicity, but not of gender, had become a major factor by

1976.

l6Lloyd Herman, "Introduction," in Smithsonian Institution. Renwick

Gallery and Office of Folklife Programs, Celebration: A World of Art and

Ritual (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982), page 7.

l7Ibid., page 9.

18A.R. Cohn and L.A. Leach, eds., Generations: A Universal Familv Album

(New York: Pantheon, 1987).

"Because the focus of the project was ceremonial and ethnographic Judaica,

certain categories of objects were not included in the Judaica catalog. These

include archaeological artifacts, fine arts, and numismatics. The Adler

classification plan had excluded objects of American Judaica except for

ceremonial objects. He considered secular objects to be the bailiwick of the

American Jewish Historical Society, which he helped to found in 1892.

However, as part of the overall survey of Judaica begun at the Smithsonian in

1974, selected secular objects that reflect the American Jewish cultural

experience were recorded, although they were not fully cataloged according to

the International Index of Jewish Art system. These objects are all in the

collections of the National Museum of American History.

20A complete listing of their names appears in the acknowledgments.

21The advocacy role of the United States Holocaust Memorial museum as a

"voice of morality" is discussed in Jeshajahu Weinberg and Rina Elieli, The

Holocaust Museum in Washington (New York: Rizzoli, 1995), page 174.
10. Conclusion

From the outset of the Smithsonian Judaica Research

Project, it became clear that a comprehensive study of the

artifacts could not be confined to typical cataloging data, with

a description of the physical characteristics of the object, the

history of its manufacture and use, and its provenance prior to

acquisition by the Smithsonian. Rather, it was critical as well to

focus on the curators and collectors who shaped the collection.

Their perceptions as to what was appropriate to include in the

collection, their methods of acquisition, and their philosophies

of how the objects were to be interpreted in exhibitions and

publications were vital to an understanding of the growth and

development of the Smithsonian Judaica collection.

What emerges from a study of the history of this collection

is an illustration of how the world view of its curators and

collectors influenced their efforts. In this instance, both theory

and practice about acquisitions and interpretation reflect their

outlook on the study of religion, specifically Judaism. The

attempts through acquisitions, exhibitions, and publications to

actualize the special agendas that represented their perspective

have had an impact on our understanding of the objects that is

as significant as any information about the actual history of the

individual artifacts.

To validate this characterization of the Judaica collection's

history as a demonstration of the role of cultural politics in

shaping cultural models, we might consider two questions:

Without the efforts of Cyrus Adler, would the United States

National Museum have established a department of religion,

and would Jewish ceremonial objects have been collected? In

responding to both questions, it is necessary to consider both

the climate of the times at the museum and the fact that all new

departments needed an advocate whose plan had the backing of

the top administration. Keeping that in mind, the answer in both

instances is likely not.

Although George Brown Goode did list religion in his 1881

classification system, it was not a top priority. There was

apparently little interest in studying the history of religion

outside of what was being acquired through ethnological

studies of Native Americans, who were considered to be in the

realm of what Adler termed "semi-civilized or barbarous

nations." Given the formation of collections of comparative

religion at other institutions, such as the Musee Guimet, the

Smithsonian eventually might have followed suit, but not

necessarily.

The fact is that after the Civil War, the focus of the

Smithsonian's collections was becoming more concentrated on

America. The most telling reason is reflected in the first

exchange Otis Mason had with Spencer Baird in the early

1870s. Mason was told that he should give up his interest in

Oriental studies, for if he did not, he would have to be satisfied

with the leavings of European scholars. "It will not be possible

for you here in America to obtain the material for important

researches; but—I give you the two Americas!"1 Mason's

experience is indicative of the sense of pioneering and

adventure linked to the expansion westward. Studying the

Americas was something American scientists were uniquely

well positioned to do. Moreover, in the years following the

Civil War, Washington had become an intellectual center of

consequence, and the government was a major force in the

scientific field. During this time, a great diversity of forums for

discussion emerged, including the philosophical, literary,

anthropological, and biological societies of Washington.2

Even prior to the Civil War, there had been a significant

increase in the number of America-related artifacts in the

United States National Museum with the transfer in 1857 of the

Patent Office collections, which spotlighted American inventiveness and progress in science. Another major expansion

came after the 1876 Centennial Exposition, when some 48

freight cars of objects came to Washington. Then an act of

Congress in June 1880 clarified and bolstered the relationship

between the increase of knowledge through governmentsponsored research and the diffusion of knowledge through the

museum's exhibitions, publications, and public programs by

legislating that the material findings deriving from such

research should be preserved in perpetuity in order for them to

be used for further research and education.3 Thus the

Smithsonian became known both as the "nation's attic" and as

a significant source of technical expertise in a wide diversity of

fields. In addition, a new allied entity, the Bureau of American

Ethnology—the agency established to be responsible for all of

the anthropological work of the four major surveys of the

trans-Mississippi region—had come under the aegis of the

Smithsonian Institution in 1879.

There was another change in the post-Civil War era that

made the climate at the Smithsonian conducive to accepting a

proposal to study religion. There was a sense that the museum

had an important role to play in popular education, particularly

in imparting moral lessons. Heated arguments over the true

mission of the museum led even Joseph Henry, who had for so

long maintained the importance of the supremacy of research

over exhibitions, to realize how influential museums could be

in popular education. The idea that museums should set

standards and teach morality provided a logical link to the

study of religion. As George Brown Goode so often said:

86
NUMBER 52 87

The Exhibition of the future will be an exhibition of ideas rather than of objects,

and nothing will be deemed worthy of admission to its hall which has not some

living, inspiring thought behind it, and which is not capable of teaching a

valuable lesson.4

In addition, a Protestant revival took root in late-nineteenthcentury America as a reaction to the perceived growth of

secularism in the country. This renewed public interest in

religion provided the Department of Anthropology with yet

another opportunity to "enlighten" the public, as Goode hoped

to do. So the climate was right for the study of religion in

general, but without an advocate for creating a department of

religion and structuring it around a focus on comparative

religion, such a department might never have materialized.

Given the overwhelming Protestant character of the Smithsonian at the time, if Cyrus Adler had not been the architect of

the new department, it is much more likely that any exhibitions

on religion would have focused on Christianity; there was no

compelling reason to do otherwise. If Goode and the others had

determined to focus on the history of religion, the framework

could have begun with Christianity. After all, using Adler's

own logic of proceeding from the known to the unknown in the

study of religion, Christianity was really more known to the

average visitor, and Judaism easily could have been addressed

by reference to the Old Testament. Islam probably would not

have been included at all, as it was not considered to be part of

Western civilization; Islam was about "Orientalism," about

which there was a fascination but also a sense of disdain. Then

too, a completely different model could have been selected,

such as Francis Greenwood Peabody's museum collection at

Harvard, which was related to the social ethics movement.5

This social reform model would have corresponded well with

Goode's philosophy and his commitment to moral education in

the museum, and it certainly would have meshed with the

religious orientation of the vast majority of the museum's

audience.

Despite the research focus on America, when Cyrus Adler

appeared at the Smithsonian with proper academic credentials

in Semitics and suggested that he help form a collection of casts

of Near Eastern antiquities, there was no reason not to accept

his offer. In any event, this project had nothing to do with the

general study of religion or specifically with collecting Jewish

ceremonial objects. Significantly, what Mason was allowing

Adler to do was very typical of the times, for many specialists,

including amateur collectors, volunteered their services as

honorary curators to build up collections. After all, Mason did

have his own affinity for studying the material. Also, there was

a curiosity about the new archaeological finds in the Near East.

Moreover, because Adler was suggesting the creation of a

collection of study casts, the United States National Museum

could establish itself as a center of learning and a repository for

future gifts without making a commitment to any serious

investigation, which would require sponsoring its own expeditions. Indeed, though his mentor, Paul Haupt, wanted to dig in

Mesopotamia, Adler diplomatically suggested that the expedition be carried out by the University Museum at the University

of Pennsylvania, which it ultimately was.

Although it is unlikely that Adler initially had any grand

scheme for bringing Judaism to the National Museum, he did

immediately begin acquiring Judaica as if it was self-evident

that there was a link between the Bible and contemporary

Jewish practice. It does seem reasonable that the early

collecting of Judaica was motivated not only by Adler's

conviction that the continuity of Judaism could be demonstrated by the link between ancient beliefs and contemporary

celebration but also by the idea that Jewish ceremonial objects

could therefore be used to illustrate an exhibition on the ancient

Near East. After all, what he really knew about Judaism was

either text-based or what he had experienced at the celebrations

in his home and in his synagogue, which confirmed his idea

that there were direct links between the Bible and its ritual as

celebrated by contemporary Jews. Moreover, the very first

items he acquired did directly relate to ancient practice—a

shofar is an ancient musical instrument, an omer calendar is

used to count the days between Passover and Shavuot, and the

circumcision cup and knife directly relate to the covenant of

Abraham. Of course, even from the outset, Adler believed that

this "natural" connection of the Bible to contemporary Jews

would serve as a counterbalance to age-old anti-Semitism.

Once Adler did begin a collection of Jewish ceremonial

objects, he clearly felt the need to broaden the theoretical

framework of his acquisitions. In his retrospective writings,

Adler suggested that both Mason and Goode, having been

influenced by the Musee Guimet, recommended that the

museum begin acquiring objects of other religions, so as to

establish a department of comparative religion. It is difficult to

get a clear picture of the chronology of the department's

development because of different nuances in the stories written

by Adler in several publications. However, what seems to have

been the real turning point for Adler in terms of creating a true

plan to collect objects to be used in exhibitions on comparative

religion (as opposed to simply collecting Judaica to complement Bible studies) was his trip to the Near East on behalf of

the World's Columbian Exposition. Perhaps even more

important were his stops along the way in Europe.

There were several key factors that seem to have led to

Adler's becoming proactive on behalf of his cultural politics.

The first was that the 15 months of travel were a period of

tremendous personal growth. When Adler left the United

States, he was only 27 years old. Though his family

background and his academic training gave him a substantial

measure of sophistication, what he gained on his trip was

savoir-faire. He had taken on a tremendous responsibility in

agreeing to coordinate the Near Eastern exhibits, which

probably was a much more complicated task than he ever could

have imagined. Under very difficult circumstances, he learned

what it took to get things done, and his natural proclivities

toward diplomacy were tested, developed, and seasoned. He

learned lifelong lessons that would serve him in good stead for
SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

the many facets of his remarkable career in the museum world

and the academic sphere and as an advocate for Jews and

Judaism.

It is most fortunate that Adler left an incredible record of his

experiences through almost daily missives to his mother.

Through these letters it is possible to gain insight into his

personal responses: the excitement of being in such cosmopolitan cities for the first time; his reactions to the various

personalities he met and his candid descriptions of how he had

to conduct himself because of his position; his careful

balancing act in separating his work for the exposition from his

involvement with Jewish communities.

In addition to the letters, Adler also kept some personal notes

in a diary, though they are not very complete. In the privacy of

those entries, it seems as if he was testing his wings as a

museum professional. He jotted down his appraisals not only of

the collections but also of the exhibition installations as well,

always mentioning the labels and evaluating how "scientific"

the approach was. Clearly his mentor, Goode, was ever-present.

Through the diary and the letters it is also evident that he soon

came to realize that in terms of "Oriental antiquities,'' the

United States National Museum could never compete with

European and Near Eastern museums. Though he still would

encourage the use of study casts for exhibition purposes, the

original artifacts made a deep impression. The most telling

comment concerns a newly discovered sarcophagus he saw at

the Imperial Museum in Constantinople that completely

changed his impression of antique art—not only by its carving,

with each figure like an individual sculpture, but by the fact that

it was decorated in vivid color.6 A white casting could never

convey the same aesthetic power.

Adler also had an opportunity to visit the Musee Guimet in

Paris, which had been so highly praised by Mason and Goode.

Though he much admired the collections, from his personal

perspective the focus on the "exotic" religions of the Far East

was deficient, as was the organization of installation, which

was by geographic region. For Adler, it was more important to

highlight religions that contributed to Western civilization. As

a committed Jew, his approach would logically and triumphally

begin at the beginning with Judaism, then continue on to the

daughter religions of Islam and Christianity.

The trip to the Near Eastern countries was also an eye-opener

for Adler in terms of what "Orientalism" was really about. Near

Eastern culture still held a tremendous fascination for him, but

after coming back to the United States he distanced himself

from his own work when his educational exhibits became

"shows." In the course of the negotiations, he learned a hard

lesson about how viable an academic approach really was when

it came to real people and their agendas—both those of the

fair's managers and those of the Near Eastern participants.

"Keep your eyes open" became his byword. It was also

somewhat of a surprise to him how he personally responded to

Jewish life in the different communities. He saw the Jewish

customs of the Near East as "interesting"; he was not really so

much a participant as an observer. For him Near Eastern Jews

were sometimes picturesque and surely to be respected, but

they were definitely the "other," and he did not feel completely

sanguine about his reaction.

The place where Adler really did feel at home was London.

He was very impressed with the people he met and especially

with the institutions developed by the Jewish community there.

He became a true Anglophile: to him the English way

represented the height of civilization. The activities and

principles of his English coreligionists confirmed Adler's

belief that promoting knowledge about the Jews, through the

"scientific study of Judaism," would lead to less prejudice.7

The need for scientific study of Judaism in America became a

critical theme for him.

The Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, which had been

held in London in 1887, was a significant model for him. The

monumental exhibition provided Adler with a way to bridge his

own two worlds: secular society, as represented by the United

States National Museum, and Judaism. The Anglo-Jewish

Historical Exhibition provided an excellent prototype for

Adler's efforts, with a well-thought-out, well-organized system

of classification and the twin goals of documenting AngloJewish experience and demonstrating the patriotism of English

Jews. However, Adler had a different strategy than did the

English. For him, study of Judaism in a nonsectarian way, by

scientists, was the only means to achieve success in secular

America. He shared with the English Jews the aims of the

Wissenschaft des Judentums, but the English Jews were

pursuing their projects as Jews studying Jews. Adler developed

the personal conviction that in order for Jews to achieve success

in secular America, the scientific study of Judaism could not be

an exclusively Jewish agenda. His position at the Smithsonian

gave him the perfect opportunity to give it a try.

When Adler returned to the United States, he began his

quest. He addressed his agenda through two projects that he put

into action almost immediately. For the United States National

Museum, he renewed the concept of building a department of

comparative religion, which would place Judaism in the

context of other religions and study it scientifically at a secular

institution. Adler was anxious to begin this program with an

exhibition at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, an

international fair, unlike the Jewish-sponsored Anglo-Jewish

Historical Exhibition.

Adler worked very hard at making this exhibition happen,

though his proposal was made very late in the planning stages

of the exposition. Here Adler's diplomatic skills came to the

fore, and personalities really came into play. Adler followed

bureaucratic procedure precisely in petitioning for his plan. But

he was also very close to Goode and quickly became

indispensable to Secretary Langley, who appointed him the

Smithsonian's librarian, the very post Langley had originally

held when he came to the United States National Museum.

Adler could demonstrate that, given the number of Bible

students in the country at the time, it was appropriate to include
NUMBER 52 89

religion in the government exhibition at the World's Fair and

that if there was going to be an exhibition on religion, it should

be comparative in nature. The exhibit would meet "scientific"

criteria and, in contrast to previous studies of religion, which

had focused on the exotic, would concentrate on those religions

that influenced Western civilization.

It is also likely that Adler's plan was appealing because it

reinforced the operative cultural politics in the United States at

the time, which assumed the supremacy of Western culture and

its march toward Utopian civilization. The approach of the

United States National Museum, as epitomized in the work and

writings of George Brown Goode, was in consonance with this

world view, and the World's Columbian Exposition was the

archetypal representation of this politics. Of course, museum

officials believed that their efforts were about education, not

supremacy over the exotic "other."

Adler, responsible for the living ethnographic exhibits from

the Near East on the Midway, was right in the thick of things.

He quickly found a way to manipulate the cultural politics of

both sides in negotiating the shows while in the Near East, and

once he was back in the United States, he wanted to move on.

Adler's plan for an exhibition on objects of religious

ceremonial at the exposition was, of course, accepted, and

fortuitously the Benguiat Collection of Jewish ceremonial

objects became available on loan. Because the Benguiat

Collection was formed in the Near East, it made it possible for

Adler to maintain his theme of continuity between biblical

times and current practices. Because it was a fairly comprehensive collection in terms of Jewish celebration, Adler was able to

use it as representative of his classification scheme for the

proper study of each religion.

The second manifestation of Adler's proactive approach was

his initiative to establish the American Jewish Historical

Society. Within a month of his return in the winter of 1892,

Adler sent a circular to 150 people proposing the formation of

such a society, which elicited a great response.8 The objective,

as stated in the original statement of purpose, was "to collect

and publish material bearing upon the history of the country,"

the focus, of course, being on Jewish contributions and

achievements, although the statement was carefully worded to

indicate that the objectives were "not sectarian but American."9

Indeed, in speaking of the successes of the American Jewish

Historical Society on the occasion of its 25th anniversary,

Adler stressed the significance of its achievements, which, he

said,

have a profound importance for the Jews of America both for a popular

understanding on their part of themselves and for a proper presentation of their

record to the world at large.... No body of people can ever have a secure future

or a self-respecting present who does not understand and reverence their own

past.10

In terms of his work as a curator, the dozen years Adler spent

at the Smithsonian after the World's Columbian Exposition

were like a coda. The collections of religion grew, and he was

involved in several major exhibitions even though much of his

time was taken up by his responsibilities as librarian and in

attending to the many tasks assigned to him by Secretary

Langley. Moreover, after 1902 he was only at the Smithsonian

half time, having taken on the administrative position of acting

president of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Yet he had

accomplished his goal. The serendipitous confluence of Adler's

personal quest to establish the study of Judaism in a secular

sphere and dispel age-old stereotypes with the commitment of

the United States National Museum to popular education with

a moral component brought the Judaica collection into being in

the context of comparative religion.

Once Cyrus Adler left the Smithsonian, the collections he

had formed were taken over by a caretaker administration, and

the exhibit of Judaica remained basically unchanged until the

Benguiat Collection, which was still only on loan, was

deaccessioned, in 1924. The designated caretaker, Immanuel

Casanowicz, was a devoted academic, and he spent his time

researching the religions of the world. For years Casanowicz

worked on his magnum opus, "Collections of Objects of

Religious Ceremonial in the United States National Museum,"

which was published posthumously. The success of this

volume is that it contains descriptive treatments of each

religion as a separate entity and in a nonsectarian fashion,

which met one of Adler's original goals. Adler's second intent,

the comparative aspect, never materialized in any significant

way.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the Smithsonian Judaica

Collection is that the large majority of objects was brought

together by Ephraim Deinard, a man whom Cyrus Adler found

quite difficult. What they both shared was an intense

commitment to the scientific study of Judaism, but Adler could

never abide Deinard's acquisition methods and found him an

irascible personality. It is also ironic that Deinard, a bibliophile

and book dealer, probably began collecting ceremonial objects

because of his belief that Adler would acquire them for the

Smithsonian. In fact, Adler did buy a group of objects from

Deinard for the Smithsonian in 1902. It seems that Deinard

developed his own agenda for Judaica at the Smithsonian, and

once he began acquiring ceremonial objects, he tried to put

together a "cradle-to-grave" collection. Adler, in his continuing

role as consultant to the museum, admonished the administration not to "buy a pig in a poke," but Deinard left his collection

on deposit in the 1920s, and once the Benguiat Collection was

removed, objects from Deinard's collection were used to

replace them in the Judaica exhibit. The rationale on the part of

the museum was that it was important to maintain the exhibit to

keep Bible students happy; here too Adler's early theme

persisted.

Deinard's cultural politics as a book dealer were, in the spirit

of Wissenschaft des Judentums, to bring "authentic" Judaism to

the public by forming collections of Hebraica and Judaica at

major university libraries and even the Library of Congress. In

this realm he made a tremendous contribution to Jewish culture
90 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHN< >LOGY

in America. Although he doubtless had the same aim in mind

for the Smithsonian Institution, he did not have the same level

of knowledge about ceremonial objects, and for that reason the

quality of the collection is mixed. However, because of his

"salvage" methods, acquiring whole lots of similar types of

object, and because of the early date at which he was collecting,

he did bring together a number of rare and significant items.

After Casanowicz died, the Division of Historic Religions

ceased to function as an independent entity. There was no

particular interest in the study of religion, and acquisitions of

Judaica came in only as parts of large collections, such as the

Hanukkah lamps in the Hillyer Collection of Heating and

Lighting Devices. No further research was done. In fact, a sack

of important documents that was part of the 1927 Deinard

deposit, made just prior to Casanowicz's death, remained

unopened and uncataloged from 1927 until the 1970s. The

dismal state of affairs in the mid-1930s was described by a

young researcher who had learned of the collection and thought

he might like to work on it. He wrote of the collection as lying

in a "heap" in the "storage bins" with minimal interest on the

part of the person designated to assist him. In fact, when he

found a megillah scroll he wanted to study, he was told he

could take it home and bring it back when he was finished with

his investigations." In the mid-1950s, when Deinard's heirs

were in the process of donating the collection, a local rabbi,

Karl Darmstadter, came to the Smithsonian to provide a

professional opinion even though he was not an expert in

Judaic material culture.

That these were dormant years for the Judaica at the

Smithsonian is not startling, for the same was true even in

Jewish museums. After Hebrew Union College purchased the

renowned collection of Salli Kirschstein in 192612 and the

Jewish Museum of the Jewish Theological Seminary installed

its first major exhibit in 1931, there was very little activity in

this sphere. Even in the aftermath of the Holocaust, except for

the rescue efforts of the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction,13 it

was only at the Jewish Museum in New York that there was a

highly active acquisition and exhibition program.

In the mid-1960s, when the National Museum of Natural

History hall "Peoples of Africa and Asia" was being renovated,

it was decided to install a case of Judaica, to contain about 20

items. At that time, Dr. Eugene Knez, an associate curator in the

Division of Ethnology, was responsible for developing the

exhibit. Adler's old formulation was still operative in Knez's

perspective: Judaica was shown as part of the cultural mosaic of

the Near East, and the ceremonial objects were intended to

introduce the visitor to contemporary Jewish practice.14

Although new acquisitions had not been sought by the museum

in many years, the Smithsonian acquired a group of modem

ceremonial objects, which were included in the exhibit. In 1964

the Judaica collection was divided, and about two-thirds were

transferred to the new National Museum of History and

Technology as part of a new Division of Cultural History,

developed by Malcolm Watkins. Watkins had no special

interest in the Judaica; the objects selected for the move were

simply those that had originated in Europe, whereas those

designated as being from the Near East remained. Unfortunately, because Deinard had shipped many of the objects

(including a number of European objects) from the Near East,

the provenance of many of the objects was incorrectly listed,

and the lack of subsequent research compounded the original

error.

The Smithsonian's Judaica collection enjoyed a renaissance

beginning in the 1970s. Once again there was a fortuitous

confluence of interests. At the National Museum of American

History there was a new Division of Ethnic and Western

Cultures, established by Richard Ahlborn. The Judaica collection, among many others, came into his area of responsibility,

and he actively encouraged young curators, such as Grossman,

to use these collections for research and exhibition. In addition,

in those years an interest in seeking one's ethnic identity was

manifest in many ways in American society and led to the

formation of a myriad of ethnic museums, including numerous

Jewish museums.15 At the same time there was renewed

academic interest in the "scientific" study of Judaism, with

numerous courses being developed on the university level. At

the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Center for Jewish Art

was established, and it spearheaded the effort to document

artifacts of the Jewish cultural heritage throughout the world,

developing a standardized cataloging system to do so.

During the past 20 years, renewed study of the Smithsonian's Judaica collection has made it increasingly more

available for researchers and the general public alike. Directed

by Richard Ahlbom and supported by curators Gus Van Beek

and Paul Taylor at the National Museum of Natural History, the

Smithsonian Judaica Project, formally established in the 1980s,

made possible the documentation of the entire collection using

the International Index of Jewish Art system. Just as Cyrus

Adler had hoped, objects of Jewish ceremonial art have taken

their place among the artifacts of other ethnic groups in major

exhibitions at the Smithsonian (including "A Nation of

Nations," which was developed in honor of the Bicentennial in

1976) and in dozens of other exhibitions in museums

throughout the United States. In an age of multiculturalism,

when cultural politics is often about seeking pride in one's own

ethnicity and respecting and finding parallels in the experiences

of members of different culture, so that no one is the "other,"

the cultural model echoes what Cyrus Adler believed was true

and what he tried to achieve: the idea that the unbiased study of

one heritage among others benefits them all.

Both cultural politics and cultural models do change over

time and reflect new voices of authority. From an expression of

the Wissenschafi des Judentums in the late nineteenth century

to issues of ethnic identity in the late twentieth century, the

Smithsonian's Judaica collection has mirrored the climate of

the times in both the American Jewish community and the

larger society. Yet even as cultural politics and cultural models

change, the Judaica collection remains a vital resource to be

thoughtfully analyzed and interpreted anew in each generation.
NUMBER 52 91

Notes

'T.D.A. Cockerell, "Spencer Fullerton Baird" (cited in Hinsley, Savages and

Scientists, page 85, and in Rivinus and Youssef, Spencer Baird of the

Smithsonian, page 188).

2Hinsley, Savages and Scientists, page 262.

3Goode, The Smithsonian Institution, page 335.

4This version of his statement, first articulated in his seminal address

"Museums of the Future," is cited in Goode, First Draft of a System of

Classification for the World's Columbian Exposition.

5The description of Peabody is found in Herbst, The German Historical

School in American Scholarship, pages 94-96. See also Harvard University

Archives, Boxes HUG 1676.582 and HUG 1676.582.2, "Letters to and Letters

from Francis Greenwood Peabody Concerning the Social Science Exhibit."

Additional information can be found in UAV 800.157, "Social Ethics

Department, Social Museum" (two boxes).

'Letter, 10 February 1891, JTS, Adler Papers, Box 1/18.

7As cited earlier from Dr. Hermann Adler. "The Anglo-Jewish Historical

Exhibition," Jewish Chronicle, 22 April 1887, page 9.

8Adler later wrote that this effort was, in fact, a renewal of a plan that

originally had been proposed in 1886 by the Reverend Abram S. Isaacs to

prepare for the 1892 celebrations a history of the part Jews had played in the

discovery and settlement of America. In 1888 Dr. B. Felsenthal encouraged

Adler to form a Jewish Historical Society. In 1890 Adler prepared a draft

circular to be sent out announcing the formation of a Society, but his trip

delayed his plans. See Cyrus Adler, "The American Jewish Historical Society,"

Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, volume XXVI (1918)

(reprinted in Adler, Lectures, page 189).

9

 Adler, Lectures, pages 190-191.

10lbid., page 198. According to Naomi Cohen, the formation of the American

Jewish Historical Society was partly in response to anti-Semitic propaganda in

Europe (Cohen, "American Jewish Reactions to Anti-Semitism," page 56). No

doubt Adler's trip through Europe, where he met many Jewish leaders, was a

factor in prompting him to establish the society as soon as possible after his

return.

"Letter from Michael Fooner to Myron M. Weinstein, 1 September 1988,

and a follow-up letter from Fooner to Grace Cohen Grossman on 13 November

1988. Fooner eventually did write an article on an Esther scroll, NMNH

315395, which was published in the March 1936 issue of Opinion. Thanks to

Myron Weinstein for providing Grossman with a copy of the letter sent to him

by Michael Fooner.

I2A museum was established as part of the Library of Hebrew Union College

in 1913.

l3The Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. (JCR). founded by Professor Salo

Baron of Columbia University, was the agency empowered by the United States

State Department to identify and redistribute heirless Jewish property after the

Holocaust. The JCR was an independent organization that garnered the

broad-based support of other Jewish organizations.

14Letter in the Kanof accession file 256783.

l5For a general history of Jewish museums in the United States, see A.M.

Greenwald, "Jewish Museums," in Encyclopaedia Judaica Yearbook, 1988-

89, pages 167-181. In this same volume, E. Van Voolen's article "Jewish

Museums in Europe" discusses the post-World War II situation for Jewish

museums in Europe (pages 182-188). For a general thematic summary of the

history of Jewish Museums in the United States and their status today, see R.R.

Seldin, "American Jewish Museums: Trends and Issues," in American Jewish

Year Book, volume 91(1991), pages 71-113.
Appendices

I. American Jewish Historical Exhibition: Schedule of Objects

Joseph Jacobs and Cyrus Adler were responsible for developing this very comprehensive

plan for an American Jewish Historical Exhibition, which was never realized.

AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORICAL EXHIBITION.

SCHEDULE OP OBJECTS.

SECTION- A. AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY.

.CLASS I.—HISTORIC RELICS.

A. Relics and Records (or photographs and descriptions)

relating to the participation of the Jews in the Discovery of America.

B. Inquisition Records.

C. Title-deeds of Earliest Land and Property Holders.

D. Historical Records in MS. (a) General, (b) Synagogal,

Archives.

E. Letters and Autographs of Distinguished Americans

about Jews.

F. Lists and Mementos of Jews prominent in American

Jewish History: MSS., Autographs, Coat of Arms,

Pedigrees.

G. Records of Jews (not now living), who have received

marks of distinction in America, medals for bravery,

commissions, diplomas, etc.

H. Petitions and Communications to State and National

Legislatures, on behalf of Jewish Institutions.

CLASS II.—PORTRAITS AND PRINTS.

I. Portraits and Prints of persons prominent in American

Jewish History, Rabbis, Soldiers, Patriots, Public

Officials, Professors, Writers, Artists, etc.

J. Portraits and Prints of Members of old Jewish Families.

K. Portraits and Prints of noted Foreign Jews who have

temporarily visited America.

L. Pictures Illustrating Jewish Family Life, Ceremonies,

etc.

M. Photographs and Prints of American Jewish Graves,

Cemetaries, and Mausolea.

N. Pictures, photographs, models, and drawings of synagogues, and places of interest in American Jewish

History.

O. Pictures, Prints, Bookplates, Caricatures, Curiosities,

etc.

92
NUMBER 52

CLASS Tit.—BOOKS, KTC.

P. Pamphlets and Books bearing upon American Jewish

History; Complete Files of Periodicals, Almanacs,

Illuminated and Other Curious Books, etc.

Q. Writings of American Jews, (a) on General Topics, (b)

on Jewish subjects including Sermons, Prayerbooks,

Almanacs, etc.

R. Map of United States, indicating Jewish Congregations

past and present; Map of North and South America,

showing distribution of Jewish population.

S. Obituaries and Newspaper Items of Jewish Interest;

.JiiiaaJslieets,-Playbills, Programme of Ceremonies.

T. Histories and Records of Jewish Congregations and of

Philanthropic and Educational Institutions of

America, Reports and Statistical Tables, Conferences

of Jewish Rabbis.

SECTION B. ECCLESIASTICAL ABT.

U. .Synagogue Objects : Ark of Law and Curtain for

same, Perpetual Lamp, Lavers for Priests, Scrolls

of Law with appurtenances, Mantle Crown, Pointer

etc., Synagogue Decoration, 'Omer Board.

V- Home Objects, Meznzah, and Mizrach, Sabbath Lamp,

Kiddush Cup, Passover Requisites, Sukkah, Megillot.

W. Personal Objects : Talit, Tefilin, Betrothal and Wedding Ring, Sargenes, Kemoit or Amulets.

X. Ancient and Modern Synagogue Music.

SECTION C. ANTIQUITIES.

(Not confined to the United States.)

Y. Manuscripts and Books, Inscriptions and Autographs,

Facsimiles and Views, Illuminations and Illustrations.

Z. Jewish Seals, Medals, Coins, Rings, etc.

&c. Palestinian Objects.
II. Classification Used in the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition

The Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition was a model for Adler in terms of technical

organization. The methodology they used, which was descriptive rather than interpretive,

corresponded well to Adler's approach to the presentation of religion.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE ANGLO-JEWISH EXHIBITION.

HISTORIC HF.LICS AND RECORDS.

(a) Pre-expulsion period.

(b) Title deeds, etc.

(c) Pictures, etc., of Jewish buildings.

(d) Trowels, etc.

(e) Synagogue documents, etc.

(/) Personal relics.

(g) Montefioriana.

(ft) Autographs and family documents.

(i) MSS. and books of historic interest.

(j) Beni-Israel.

(fc) Portraits.

(I) Newman collection.

(m) Miscellaneous prints, etc.

JEWISH ECCLESIASTIC ART.

Synagogue:

(a) Ark and curtain.

(6) Perpetual lamp.

(c) Lavers for priests.

(d) Scrolls of the law, etc.

(e) Synagogue decorations.

(/) Synagogue music.

Home:

(g) Mezuzoth and Mizrachs.

(h) Sabbath requisites.

'i) Festival requisites.

(o) Manuscripts.

Crawford collection:

(6) BookB.

(e) Inscriptions, etc.

(d) Temple.

Home—Continued.

0) Shekhita.

Personal:

(k) Weddings.

(I) Circumcision.

(TO) Tephillin and Talith.

(») Charms.

(o) Miscellaneous.

(p) Straus collection.

(</) Sassoon collection.

ANTIQUITIES.

Crawford collection—Continued.

(«) Palestine exploration fund,

(/) Sandeman collection.

{g) Seals and rings.

Coins and medals.

APPENDI X III.

CLASSIFICATION OF UNIVERSITY' OF PENNSYLVANIA EXHIBIT OF

RELIGIONS.

Ancient Egypt,

fieligionsof Indiu:

Sectarian BraUiuinisni.

Buddhism.

Jainism.

Beligions of China:

'The Btate religion.

Confucianism.

Worship of ancestors.

Taoism.

Buddhism.

Tibetan Buddhism.

**h'giouB ceremonies of the Chinese in

the United States.

Japan:

Shintoism.

Buddhism.

Mohammedanism.

American religious:

Northwest Coast.

United States.

Mexico.

Yucatan.

San Domingo.

Peru.

Polynesia.

Bantu tribes.

94
III. Religious Ceremonials Exhibition at the World's Columbian Exposition

(World's Columbian Exposition, 1893 Official Catalog, United States Government Building)

The official guide provided a summary of the objects on exhibit. Judaism clearly had the

most prominence in terms of the number of items.

WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION I if - r Hi ,, , •»

1893

OFFICIAL CATALOGUE, ft.

UNITED STATES

GOVERNMENT BUILDING,

PART XVI.

BOARD OF CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT.

EDWIN WILLITS. OEPT. OF AGRICULTURE. CHAIRMAN.

WM. W. ROCKWELL, OEPT. OP STATE.

FRED A. STOCKS. TREASURY OEPT.

MAJ CLIFTON COMLY, U. S. A. WAR DCPT.

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER E. D. TAUSSIG. NAVY DEPT.

A. D. HAZCN. POST OFFICE DEPT.

F. w. CLARKE, DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR.

ELIJAH C. FOSTER. DEPT. OF JUSTICE.

G. BROWN GOODE, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

AND NATIONAL MUSEUM.

TAHLETON H. BEAN, U. S. FISH COMMISSION.

F. T. BICKFORD, SECRETARY AND EXECUTIVE OFFICER.

EDITED BY

THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLICITY AND PR

M. P. HANDY, CHIEF.

CHICAGO :

W. B. CONKEY COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

TO THE

WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION,

1899.

95




V. Archival Sources

Smithsonian Institution Archives

The following Record Units (RU) were surveyed:

RU 31, "Office of the Secretary, Samuel P. Langley,

1891-1906, Incoming Correspondence", Box 3, Folders 4-17

RU 33, "Office of the Secretary, Joseph Henry, Spencer F.

Baird, Samuel P. Langley, Outgoing Correspondence, 1865-

1891"

RU 45, "Charles D. Walcott"

RU 55, "Assistant Secretary in Charge of the Museum, Richard

Rathbun, 1897-1918," Boxes 1, 15, 16, 19, 20

RU 70, "Exposition Records of the Smithsonian Institution and

the United States National Museum, 1873-1939," Boxes 10,

27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, 41, 43, 46, 47, 61, 67, 70, 77,

78

RU 95, "Photographs," Boxes 1, 9, 13, 15, 16, 50, 53

RU 158, "Curator's Annual Reports, 1881-1904," Boxes 3, 5,

24,31,33

RU 201, "Assistant Secretary in Charge of the U.S. National

Museum, 1875-1902: Letters Received from Departments and

Bureaus of the Government and Letters from Officials of the

Museum," Box 11, Folders 3-8, Box 20, Folders 12-15

RU 217, "Smithsonian Library," Box 3

RU 242, "Adler Correspondence, Department of Biology," Box

1, Folder 1

RU 7078, "Biographical Information File," Box 1

RU 305, "Registrar, 1834-1958, with Accretions to 1978,"

Box 1048, Ephraim Deinard Accession File 207992

National Museum of Natural History:

Anthropological Archives

The National Anthropological Archives house a variety of

materials related to the early collecting of Judaica in the United

States National Museum, including papers, correspondence,

and reference notes of Cyrus Adler and Immanuel M.

Casanowicz. These are all in the Department of Anthropology,

Division of Ethnology, Manuscript and Pamphlet File.

Box 5-60, 61: Exhibit labels of Hebrew books

Box 5-62: Activities of F. Petrie relating to ancient Jewish

history

Box 5-63: Newspaper articles from the 1880s and 1890s on

Jewish activities in Egypt, contemporary research on the

Exodus story, archaeological discoveries in Eygpt and the

Sudan

Box 5-65:1.M. Casanowicz's notes on the Greek translation of

the Bible

Box 5-66: Notes on a Hebrew manuscript of the Pentateuch

from S.S. Howland; Hebrew seals; casts of the "Deluge Tablet"

and Lachich Tablet; label for ketubbah (cat. no. 154633)

Box 6-68: Handwritten and typed manuscripts by I.M

Casanowicz on: sacrifices; the "Personnel of the Service in the

Tabernacle"; the "Mosaic Tabernacle"; "Antiquities of the

Bible" (slide lecture); "A Sketch of the Geography of the

Holyland"; "A Rapid Sketch of the History of Archaeological

Exploration in the Holy Land"

Box 6-71: I.M. Casanowicz's manuscript on the myth of the

Phoenix

Box 8-96: I.M. Casanowicz's manuscript on Buddhism

Box 8-103: I.M. Casanowicz's manuscript on calendars

Box 8-111: Clipping from the Sunday Star, Washington, D.C.,

19 January 1930, on fragments of the "True Cross" at the

USNM; I.M. Casanowicz's notes for USNM catalogs on the

Atlanta Exposition and the Benguiat Collection, and articles he

wrote on Jewish subjects and "Oriental Antiquities" during the

period 1894-1904

Box 16-219: I.M Casanowicz's manuscript "The Fish in Cult,

Myth, and Symbol"

Box 22-285: Notes by I.M. Casanowicz and others on Hittites

Box 26-396: I.M. Casanowicz's manuscript on Jainism

Box 32-438: Articles and newspaper clippings relevant to

world Judaism

Box 32-440: Articles and curators' notes on Jews of Palestine,

Cochin (India), Tunis, and Great Britain

Box 45b-641: I.M. Casanowicz's manuscript "Birth of Religion" (12 November 1909)

Box 76-800: Research notes deposited by a few researchers on

the Judaica collection

Box 75-796: Religions—notes and correspondence

Box 75-800: Article by M. Fooner on Esther scroll (cat. no.

315395), November 1935; clipping from Harper's New

100
NUMBER 52 101

315395), November 1935; clipping from Harper's New

Magazine (no date) entitled "The Passion Play in Oberammergau in 1870"; clipping from the London Jewish Chronicle (1

December 1899) on the English Catholic press and the Popes

and blood accusations

Box 78-811: Exhibit labels and undated outline of a plan for a

book on mythology

Box 77-800: Newspaper clippings from 1887 to 1889 on

anti-Jewish incidents

Box 77-829: Newspaper articles from the American press of the

1880s and 1890s relating to Jews, Judaism, and Jewish

domestic life

Box 79-830:1.M. Casanowicz's manuscript on Shinto religion

Box 85-959:1.M. Casanowicz's manuscript on Zoroastrianism

The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America

Boxes 1/17, 1/18: Cyrus Adler Papers. These papers are cited

courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

The American Jewish Historical Society

Box 1-21: The American Jewish Historical Exhibition. These

papers are cited courtesy of the American Jewish Historical

Society.

Harvard University Archives

Boxes HUG 1676.582 and HUG 1676.582.2: "Letters to and

Letters from Francis Greenwood Peabody Concerning the

Social Science Exhibit, 1903—1906"

Additional information is found in UAV 800.157, "Social

Ethics Department, Social Museum" (two boxes)

Catalog

Guide to the Catalog

The catalog entries are a representative selection of the

Smithsonian Institution's Judaica collection. A comprehensive

database of the collection is included at the end of this

publication. Because of the cultural history focus of this

catalog, the arrangement of the entries was determined by the

date and source of accession of the objects. The organization is

chronological, with the exception of the group of objects from

the Deinard Collection, which is treated as a whole, though the

objects came into the Smithsonian over a 25-year period. Each

entry includes descriptive information, as listed below, as well

as any available details about the object that are relevant to the

history of the Smithsonian's Judaica collection. In a number of

instances, a single entry covers a group of like objects, and the

technical catalog data is prefaced with a general statement

about the group.

FORM OF A TYPICAL ENTRY

A typical entry comprises the following items in the order

listed:

Name or identification of object

Catalog and accession number

Artist or maker (if known)

Origin and date of object

Composition

Dimensions (in centimeters)

Source of acquisition

Negative number

Description

Notes

Bibliography, specifically where the object has been published

TRANSLITERATION, QUOTES, PROPER NAMES, AND DATES

Transliteration of Hebrew and Aramaic follows the rules set

in the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Deviation from these rules

occurs only to accommodate a more common usage. Names

and terms that have entered English usage have been given their

most common spellings. Biblical quotes generally are according to the Jewish Publication Society of America editions,

except in cases where the translations do not seem to express

the intent of the inscription. Liturgical quotes are from the

Birnbaum Prayer Books (1978, 1985). A glossary of terms used

in the entries follows the catalog.

Because the Hebrew year is based on a luni-solar calendar

and overlaps the secular calendar, a Hebrew date that is given

as only the year, without month and day, sometimes may fall in

either of two secular-calendar years; such dates are given in the

text as, for example, 1174-1175.

ABBREVIATIONS FOR OBJECT LOCATIONS

The vast majority of the objects in the Smithsonian's Judaica

collection are located in either the National Museum of

American History (NMAH) or the National Museum of Natural

History (NMNH). Unless otherwise designated, all of the

objects in the National Museum of American History are in the

former Division of Community Life. Other designations

include NMAH-AR, Archives Center; NMAH-MI, the former

Division of Musical Instruments; NMAH-PH, the former

Division of Political History; and NMAH-TE, the former

Division of Textiles. (A reorganization of the museum in 1995

placed collection divisions under a new Department of History,

but computerized registrarial data has continued to refer to the

original divisions that still hold the collections. These divisions

are now administratively located in either the Division of

Cultural History or the Division of Social History.) A few

others are in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design and

Decorative Arts (CH) or in the Freer Gallery of Art (Freer).

The abbreviation for the Smithsonian Institution Archives is

SIA, and the abbreviation for Record Unit is RU.

PUBLICATIONS

Following the name of the publication in which the object

appeared is that publication's catalog entry number for the

object.

There are three principal volumes in which the Smithsonian's Judaica has been published. They are as follows:

Cyrus Adler and Immanuel M. Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit at the Cotton States

International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," United States National Museum Annual Report for 1896 (Washington, D.C.:

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896), pages 943-1023.

Cyrus Adler and Immanuel M. Casanowicz, "The Collection of

Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the United States National

Museum," Proceedings of the United States National Museum,

volume 34, number 1630 (1908), pages 701-746.

Immanuel M. Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S. National Museum," United States

National Museum Bulletin, number 148 (1929), pages 1-207.

103
104 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 1429

New month plaque

NMAH 1429; ace. no. 6502

United States, late nineteenth century

Cut paper with watercolor wash

H 15.1 cm, W 28 cm

Gift of David Sulzberger, 1900

Negative number 92-13061

This oval wall plaque in its original gilt frame is composed

of a paper-cut of Hebrew letters, with blue watercolor wash,

overlaid on a backing of textured gold leaf. It was apparently

used in a synagogue, possibly in Philadelphia, to announce the

beginning of the new month, as a reminder to recite the special

prayers for the day. The Jewish calendar is luni-solar, with each

month beginning with the new moon and the years adhering to

the solar seasons by the addition of a full month in leap years,

which occur seven times in each cycle of nineteen years.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 72.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 27.

NMAH 5491

Butcher's stamp

NMAH 5491; ace. no. unknown

United States, late nineteenth century

Wood

H5.1 cm, W 1.9 cm

From the collection of J. Varden

Negative number 92-13017

The butcher's stamp is carved with the word kosher in

Hebrew. Traces of ink are still visible on the letters. The stamp

was used to designate meat that had been processed in

accordance with traditional ritual requirements. Unfortunately,

the accession history of the stamp is lost, but given the low

catalog number, it is clearly an early acquisition.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 66.
NUMBER 52

105

NMAH-MI 95142

Shofar

NMAH-MI 95142; ace. no. 22131

Central Europe, nineteenth century

Ram's horn

L 25 cm

Gift of David Sulzberger, 1889

Negative number 86-12904/7

This shofar, which belonged to Cyrus Adler's grandfather

Leopold Sulzberger, was the first object of Judaica acquired by

Adler for the Smithsonian. Leopold Sulzberger, who was born

in Germany, arrived in the United States in 1838; he died in

1881. The shofar was first exhibited in March 1889 in a small

exhibition on biblical antiquities, mounted in honor of the

inauguration of President Benjamin Harrison.1

The shofar must initially have been a loan, because the

official accession was not documented until several months

later. When it was accessioned, it was recorded with a group of

musical instruments from the Near East. The apparent purpose

of this acquisition was to study these instruments as examples

of types that had been in use since antiquity.2 In 1895 some of

these, including the shofar, were included in an exhibition on

biblical antiquities at the Cotton States International Exposition

in Atlanta.3

The form is typical of central European shofarot, with a

straightened shaft and flattened mouthpiece. The opening has

been worked to create a large shaped notch.

Notes:

'Abraham A. Neuman, Cyrus Adler: A Biographical Sketch (New York:

American Jewish Committee, 1942), page 31. The installation of the exhibition

is also documented in the annual report of the Section of Oriental Antiquities,

1889 (SIA, RU 158, Box 5, Folder 2).

Accession 25947 includes, for example, a dwnbelek, a stringed instrument

from Cairo, and a zaida, a bagpipe from Tunis.

3One of the photographs in the exhibition catalog includes the shofar, a halil.

a flute (cat. no. 95695), and reeds or pan pipes (cat. no. 95795). With the

exception of the shofar, all were collected by G. Brown Goode and were

acquired from the Near East.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit

at the Cotton States International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," plate 2.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 99.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 34.
106 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 129829

Mezuzah

NMAH 129829; ace. no. 20465

United States, late nineteenth century

Case: tin

Scroll: ink on parchment

H 7.4 cm, W 1.4 cm

Gift of Otis T. Mason, 1888

Negative number 92-13037

A Jewish home is identified by the mezuzah at its door. The

mezuzah is used in accordance with the biblical imperative

"Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this

day... inscribe them on the doorpost of your house and on your

gates" (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). The parchment scroll, which is

encased in a protective cover, is inscribed by a specially trained

scribe with the passages from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Written on

the back of the parchment is the word Shaddai, "Almighty."

When the parchment is rolled, the word Shaddai is visible

through an aperture in the case.

Although the first object Cyrus Adler acquired for the

Smithsonian was his grandfather's shofar, apparently the first

item of Judaica collected for the museum was this mezuzah,

which had been given to Otis T. Mason, the curator of

ethnology, in the spring of 1888. According to the accession

records, this simple mezuzah had been used on a home in

Washington, D.C.

NMNH 130291

Tray

NMNH 130291; ace. no. 22985

Turkey (?), late nineteenth century

Brass

D 66 cm

Museum purchase, 1890

Negative number 130291

When this tray was purchased by the museum from Harry

Friedenwald, it was believed to have been used for the Passover

seder. The tray was published and displayed as a seder item

from Turkey over a period of at least forty years. The

inscription has no discernible meaning in Hebrew or any other

language written in Hebrew characters (such as Ladino); in the

catalogs by Adler and Casanowicz the inscription is described

as Arabic written in Hebrew letters. The decoration, consisting

of a series of hybrid and composite animal figures and animals

with human heads, is also unusual for a seder plate.

Unfortunately, there is no record of where, or from whom,

Friedenwald acquired the piece.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit

at the Cotton States International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," plate 19

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 79.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 30, plate 4.
NUMBE

R 52

Judenstern

NMNH 130294; ace. no. 22334

Germany, eighteenth century

Brass

L 45.7 cm

Museum purchase, 1889

Negative number 92-13027

The Judenstern (literally, "Jewish star") is the typical form

of lamp used in central Europe for the ceremonial kindling of

lights to begin the Sabbath and holidays. The Judenstern

derives from the star-shaped hanging lamps that were in

general use in Europe during the Middle Ages. By the sixteenth

century, this type of lamp had become associated primarily

with Jewish ritual use.

1

According to the original accession records, the lamp was

Cyrus Adler's very first foray into acquisitions, purchased in

September 1889. Adler bought it from Sypher and Co., a New

York dealer, which identified the lamp as coming from

Felheim, Germany, although there is no evidence to support

any specific provenance. Like most examples of Judensterns

that have come into museum collections, this lamp is missing

the shafts that would have carried the oil from the star-shaped

oil reservoir to the drip pan below. However, because it is a

typical Ashkenazi type, the lamp was an important acquisition

for the nascent collection.

Notes: An exampl

e of a fourteenth-century star-shaped lamp in the collection of

the Jewish Museum in New York (cat. no. JM 200-67) is described in Norman

L. Kleeblatt and Vivian B. Mann, Treasures of the Jewish Museum, page 30.

There is a fragment of a similar lamp in the Kirschstein Collection of the

Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum (cat. no. 33.1).

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit

at the Cotton States International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," page 994, plate

17.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 64.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 22.

107

Hanukkah lamp

NMNH 397672; ace. no. 23736

Morocco, nineteenth century

Brass

H 23.5 cm, W 29.3 cm, D 5 cm

Museum purchase, 1889

The form of this Hanukkah lamp, with the backwall designed

as an imaginative architectural facade incorporating an arcade,

is a typical North African type from the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries.

1

 In this example, the pattern of the

backwall, with the arcade surmounted by a quatrefoil or rosette

NMNH 130294
108 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

design, is echoed in the separate sidewalls. The backwall is

further embellished with schematic floral and geometric

patterns. The lamp is made to be hung from the ring that

emerges from the domed structure at the apex of the backwall.

The Hanukkah lamp was purchased by Talcott Williams

while he was traveling in Morocco. The purchase price in 1889

was documented as one dollar and the provenance as Tetuan.

Williams, a resident of Philadelphia, purchased a number of

items for the museum, but this is the only artifact of Judaica he

acquired. In 1897 Cyrus Adler wrote to Secretary Samuel

Langley requesting that the Smithsonian advance Talcott

Williams between $500 and $1000 so that Williams, who was

then intending to travel to southern Morocco, could "complete

the Moorish collection which he began for the museum in his

previous expedition."2

Notes:

'S. Landau, Architecture in the Hanukkah Lamp (Jerusalem: Israel Museum,

1978), pages 7ff., no. 20: see also Aviva Miiller-Lancet, ed.. La viejuive au

Maroc, no. 75, and M. Narkiss, The Hanukkah Lamp (Jerusalem: Bney Bezalel,

1939), no. 153.

2Documents on Williams's travel in Morocco and his acquisitions are in

accession file 23736. The letter from Adler to Langley is in SIA, RU 31, "Office

of the Secretary, 1891-1906, Incoming Correspondence," Box 3.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," page 53, figure 4.

F.W. Robbins, The Story of the Lamp (and the Candle) (Bath, U.K.:

Ringmead Reprints, 1970), plate 17:4.

Seder plate

NMAH 130299; ace. no. 22844

Germany, eighteenth century, with later inscription

Pewter; hallmarks: BMINSB, (on back) ME

D 35.5 cm

Museum purchase, 29 January 1890

Negative number 92-13035

This pewter plate was adapted for use in the Passover seder

sometime after its original manufacture. In the cavetto is a

four-pointed star with a central medallion containing the

cursive letters MEZ, perhaps the initials of one of the plate's

owners. Around the rim is an inscription in Hebrew with the

order of the elements of the seder service ritual; the final words

were executed in smaller letters because of a lack of space. A

three-letter Hebrew monogram also appears on the rim; this

may refer to a member of the Friedenwald family, as this plate

was purchased from Harry Friedenwald.

Adler and Casanowicz give the provenance of the plate as

Tetenhausen, Germany, but there is no evidence to support that

attribution and it is not known how that determination was

made.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit

at the Cotton States International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," no. 86.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 31.

Spice container

NMAH 130297; ace. no. 22844

Germany, nineteenth century

Silver; hallmarks: N, Wv/ith castle

H 23.5 cm, D (base) 8 cm

Museum purchase, 1890

Negative number 92-13031

This spice container in the form of a ashlar clock tower is a

nineteenth-century version of an earlier Nuremberg type.1

Purchased by Harry Friedenwald as an antique, the spice

container was published by Adler and Casanowicz as having

been made in Laupheim, Germany, circa 1740.

Notes:

'For a similar example, see the Sotheby's catalog Important Judaica, Tel

Aviv, 28 April 1992, no. 380.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit

at the Cotton States International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," plate 18, figure 4.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 71.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 25.

Shofar

NMAH 154402; ace. no. 22914

Italy, nineteenth century

Ram's horn

L 35 cm

Museum purchase, 1890

Negative number 76-9464

Among the items Harry Friedenwald was requested to buy in

Europe on behalf of the U.S. National Museum was an

Italian-type "curled" shofar.1 It was Adler's opinion that the

shofar dated from the seventeenth century, but there is really no

basis for that dating.

The shofar has a flattened shaft and a carved and rolled

mouthpiece; the bell is detailed with carved notches.

Notes:

'Letter to Friedenwald from G. Brown Goode, SIA, RU 201, Box 11.

Bibliography:

Annual Report of the United States National Museum for 1892, page 438

P.C. Marzio, ed, A Nation of Nations: The People Who Came to America as

Seen Through Objects, Prints, and Photographs at the Smithsonian Institution

(New York: Harper and Row), no. 186.
NUMBER 52 109

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NMAH 130299

NMAH 130297 (left)

NMAH 154402
110

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

ofy rri rrtij? -rftv fbrnii

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NMAH 154404

O calendar

NMAH 154404; ace. no. 23302

United States, nineteenth century

Ink on parchment, mounted on wood. Original frame: gilt on

wood

H 81.3 cm, W 67.3 cm

Gift of David Sulzberger, 1890

Negative number 92-13112

The seven-week period between Passover and Shavuot is

marked by the counting of the omer, which was the offering of

the new grain harvest at the Temple in Jerusalem. The counting

of the seven weeks begins on the second night of Passover.

This calendar integrates the blessings recited in counting the

omer into an architectural framework. Within the arch is the

Hebrew inscription "Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of

the Universe, who has sanctified us with thy commandments

and commanded us concerning the counting of the omer." The

formula continues with the Hebrew word for today, beneath

which the calendar information is recorded in full in Hebrew on

a rotating scroll, visible through an aperture at the center of the

span of the arch. Below the calendar information is the Hebrew

inscription "May the Merciful One restore the worship of the

Temple speedily in our days" {Ethics of the Fathers 5:23). This

inscription is followed by the complete text of Psalm 67 in

Hebrew. This psalm traditionally is read when counting the

omer.
NUMBER 52 111

The column on the left is inscribed with three letters, H, S,

and D.] The H refers to which day it is of the 49 days of the

omer. The original cataloging information of the H makes

reference to the fact that the Sephardi pronunciation of the word

omer is "homer" and therefore an //was used to represent it. In

the Sephardi tradition, the S then refers to which week

(semana) it is in the omer. The daily counting of the omer

makes reference to the number of weeks that have passed as

well as the number of days; for example, the 33rd day of the

omer is also described as four weeks and five days. The D

identifies the day (dias). The right column has three windows

for the numbers corresponding to the three letters.

There is no record of the provenance of the omer calendar

except that it was the gift of David Sulzberger. Furthermore,

given the rarity of large omer calendars made in the United

States in the nineteenth century, it is noteworthy that there is an

omer calendar among the 25 items given to the Jewish

Theological Seminary in New York in 1904 by Mayer

Sulzberger.2

Notes:

'An eighteenth-century omer calendar from Philadelphia in the collection of

Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia also has the letters H, S, and D. See

Kenneth Libo and Leorah Kroyanker, In the Footsteps of Columbus: Jews in

America, 1654-1880 (Tel Aviv: Beth Hatefusoth, 1986-1987).

2The omer calendar in the Jewish Museum has cat. no. S515. Both the

Mikveh Israel and Jewish Museum omer calendars are in glass-fronted wooden

cabinets, which facilitated the changing of the date. As the Smithsonian's

calendar is framed, its use would have been more difficult.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit

at the Cotton States International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," page 996, plate

20.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 97.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 33.

Smithsonian Institution, Celebration, A World of Art and Ritual (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press), no. 32.

Synagogue Photographs

NMAH 154419-154432; ace. no. 23474

Western and central Europe, c. 1890

Museum purchase, 1890

When the Section of Comparative Religion was established

at the Smithsonian Institution, the long history of Jews in

Europe made the continent a logical place to turn for Judaica

resources. Included in the letter asking Harry Friedenwald to

purchase ceremonial objects for the museum was the request

that he also purchase photographs of synagogues.1 Cyrus Adler

thought they could serve as models for the rapidly growing

Jewish community in America.

For centuries, synagogue architecture, like many aspects of

Jewish life, was subject to numerous restrictions by non-Jewish

society. This situation began to change in central and western

Europe in the late eighteenth century, and with the Age of

Enlightenment and then the Emancipation came the building of

many new synagogues. These new synagogue structures were

usually built in some type of revival style, although the

buildings are often quite eclectic, mixing and matching

elements from a variety of sources.

Notes:

l

SIA, RU 201, "Assistant Secretary in Charge of the U.S. National Museum,

1875-1902," Box 11.

Photograph of the synagogue on rue de la Victoire (interior)

NMAH 154419

Paris, France

H 28 cm, W 22.5 cm

Dedicated in 1874, the synagogue was designed by Alfred

Philibert Aldrophe, a Jewish architect who worked for the

French government on the expositions of 1855 and 1862. The

interior expands on the Romanesque Revival style, with an

arched and ribbed ceiling as well as the traditional three tiers

and circular apse, but with more light and a triumphal-arch

inscription in French. The synagogue was built to accommodate 5,000 worshipers.

Unidentified synagogue

NMAH 154420

H 28 cm, W 22.5 cm

The original photograph is incorrectly marked as being a

synagogue in Florence, Italy. The correct synagogue has not

been identified.

Photograph of the Hauptsynagoge

NMAH 154421

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

H 28 cm, W 22.5 cm

The Hauptsynagoge (Main Synagogue) was dedicated on 23

March 1860. The eclectic building, designed by Johann Georg

Kayser, reflects influences of the Moorish Revival. Reports

from the time of the consecration of the synagogue indicate that

the synagogue building symbolized the end of the "Jewish

Middle Ages" and the beginning of a new, brighter, emancipated era. On the darkened "Jew Street," which represented

centuries of suppression, "there arises now a temple which in

its lovely shapes illustrates the victory of an easier and more

tolerant era Plenty of light shines through the high arches

into the central hall and contributes to the wonderful

atmosphere."1 The synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht.

Notes:

'From Frankfurter Konversationsblatt (1860), number 74, cited in HansPeter Schwartz, Die Architektur der Synagoge (Frankfurt am Main: Deutsches

Architekturmuseum, 1989), page 371. Paul Kester translated the relevant

information for this volume.
112

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 154422

Photograph of the Oranienburgerstrasse Synagogue

NMAH 154422

Berlin, Germany

H27cm, W 19.5 cm

Negative number 92-13057

A monumental example of the Moorish Revival style, the

Oranienburgerstrasse Synagogue, which featured a ribbed,

patterned, bulbous dome, became a landmark in the old Jewish

neighborhood in Berlin. Designed in 1859 by Eduard Knoblauch, the synagogue was not completed until 1866, a year

after the architect died. Though not destroyed on Kiistallnacht,

the building was heavily damaged by the Allied bombing of

Berlin. The Oranienburgerstrasse Synagogue has been partly

reconstructed.
NUMBER 52

113

Photograph of a synagogue in Bonn

NMAH 154423

Bonn, Germany

H 22.5 cm, W 28 cm

Built about 1879, this building, designed by Maertens, is

representative of the Romanesque Revival style.

Photograph of the Tempio Israelitico (interior)

NMAH 154424

Florence, Italy

H25cm, W 18.7 cm

Dedicated in 1882, the building was designed by Mariano

Falcini and Vincente Micheli, two municipal employees, and

Marco Trevi, a professor of architecture who was Jewish. The

synagogue was built with funds from the bequest of Daniele

Levi, given in the short time that Florence was the capital of

Italy (1864-1870). The design of the interior reflects the

Moorish influence, with complex wall patterns and even a

raised pulpit that looks like the minbar of a mosque. During

World War II the Nazis used this synagogue as a stable; rebuilt

after the war, the building was later damaged in the devastating

flood of 1966. The structure has been restored once again. (See

also NMAH 154428.)

Photograph of the Dohany Street Synagogue

NMAH 154425

Budapest, Hungary

H 24.5 cm, W 19.8 cm

The competition committee for the new Budapest synagogue

chose the Moorish design of Viennese architect Ludwig von

Forster because they felt it had a purely "Oriental" style that

was linked to elements of the ancient Temple of Solomon in

Jerusalem. In fact, the twin-towered building includes Gothic

elements as well, such as the window tracery. The sanctuary

was built to seat 3,000 worshipers.

Photograph of the synagogue on rue Notre-Dame-deNazareth (interior)

NMAH 154426

Paris, France

H 27.5 cm, W 21.8 cm

A synagogue was first built on rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth

in 1822. By 1850 this structure was not only inadequate in size

but also in poor condition. An enlarged building, designed by

J.A. Thierry, was dedicated in 1852. The four-tier space

displays magnificent brass candelabra and a monumental

seven-branched menorah before the Torah ark.

Photograph of a synagogue in Vienna, Austria

NMAH 154430 (missing)

Photograph of the Altneuschul (interior)

NMAH 154427

Prague, Bohemia

H 27.4 cm, W 19.8 cm

Built about 1280 for one of the oldest Jewish communities in

Europe, this medieval stone structure with a steeply pitched

roof and small dormers is the oldest surviving synagogue in

Europe. The style reflects medieval Christian architecture in the

double-naved sanctuary, with ribbed vaults, ironwork, and the

carved Gothic gable of the original Torah ark. (See also NMAH

154432.)

Photograph of the Tempio Israelitico

NMAH 154428

Florence, Italy

H 25.2 cm, W 18.8 cm

The structure has a central plan, with a dome over the

crossing and barrel vaults over the four arms. However, a

Moorish Revival influence prevails in the banding in alternating textures of stone and the horseshoe arches. (See also

154424.)

Photograph of the "Rashi Chapel"

NMAH 154429

Worms, Germany

H 17.7 cm, W 11.5 cm

Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, 1040-1105), the leading

commentator on the Bible and the Talmud, was born in Troyes,

France, but studied for a time in the famous Talmudic academy

in Worms. The "Rashi Chapel" was built in 1624 as an addition

to the medieval Worms Synagogue, which dated from

1174-1175. Destroyed by the Nazis in 1938, the Worms

Synagogue has been rebuilt by the German government.

Photograph of a synagogue in Wiesbaden

NMAH 154431

Wiesbaden, Germany

H 28.2 cm, W 22.2 cm

Built about 1869, this structure, designed by Philipp

Hoffmann, blends the "Oriental" elements of the Moorish

Revival style. It also borrowed five-pointed stars, rose

windows, and a central plan with a dome from Christian

churches in Italy. The synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht ("night of the broken glass"), 9-10 November 1938.

Photograph of the Altneuschul (exterior)

NMAH 154432

Prague, Bohemia

H 20.3 cm, W 25 cm

See NMAH 154427
114 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 154436

Circumcision cup and knife

NMAH 154436; ace. no. 23660

London, England, 1863

Knife: steel, brass, jade, carnelian, quartz

Cup: silver, parcel gilt; hallmarks: lion passant, sovereign,

leopard, RD

Knife H 14 cm, W 1.9 cm; cup H 8.2 cm, D 5.1 cm

Gift of Mayer Sulzberger, 31 October 1892

Negative number 92-13028

Double cups are sometimes used for circumcision ceremonies, with one cup being the ''cup of blessing" and the second

being the "cup of metzitzah."1 Double cups also are sometimes

used for weddings.

Notes:

'An eighteenth-century double cup from Augsburg in the collection of the

Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum bears inscriptions indicating those

functions, as do double cups depicted in Barnett, Catalogue of the Permanent

and Loan Collections of the Jewish Museum, London, nos. 490 and 490A, and

a double cup in the Kestner Museum, Hanover, cited in K. Schilling, ed.,

Monumenta Judaica: 2000 Jahre Geschichte und Kultur der Juden am Rhein

(KSln: Kolnischen Stadrmuseum, 1963), no. E133, and in C. Benjamin, The

Stieglitz Collection: Masterpieces of Jewish Art, translated by M. Jagendorf

(Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1982), no. 208.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit

at the Cotton States International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," page 997, plate

18.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 127.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 53.

Smithsonian Institution, Celebration, no. 136b.
NUMBER 52 115

NMNH 154437

Amulet

NMNH 154437; ace. no. 23660

United States (?), nineteenth century

Gold

L 5.1 cm

Gift of Mayer Sulzberger, 1892

Negative number 75-076

This unusual amulet, in the form of a woman's hand, may

have been adapted from a needle case. The hand is delicately

textured. A wide band on the wrist is decorated with a floral

festoon. Engraved on the palm is the Hebrew word Shaddai,

"Almighty," which is also found on mezuzot. The cuff, which

is attached to the hand with a hinge, is a chased band with an

acanthus leaf decoration. A scroll, now missing, originally was

placed within the hand.

Ketubbot and Poems Acquired by G. Brown Goode

In the spring of 1892 George Brown Goode traveled to Italy

and acquired numerous objects of Christian ceremonial for the

museum.1 It is still unclear why none of these objects was

included in the exhibition Cyrus Adler organized for the

World's Columbian Exposition. While in Rome, Goode also

purchased six items of Judaica—four illuminated marriage

contracts {ketubbot) and two copies of a poem written for the

Simhat Torah festival. At least one of the marriage contracts

that Goode acquired (NMAH 154631) was exhibited at the

World's Columbian Exposition.

The custom of illuminating ketubbot reached Italy with the

arrival of the Sephardi Jews after their expulsion from Spain in

1492.2 This tradition reached its apogee in Italy in the

eighteenth century.

In Rome there was a very distinct style of ketubbah

illumination.3 First of all, whereas the upper edge of most

ketubbot is in the form of some type of arch, the parchment of

Roman ketubbot is shaped at the bottom. Also, the text in many

Roman ketubbot is framed in some type of archway or portal

motif, likely symbolizing the gateway to a new life for the

couple. The text, which is generally written in square Italian

Hebrew script, is typically set in a rectangular frame.

Also characteristic of ketubbah decoration in Rome in the

late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is the use of

allegorical personifications. These reflect contemporary ideals

of marriage. This imagery is borrowed from Christian tradition

and specifically from Cesare Ripa's Iconologia. It is likely that

there was a collaborative effort in making the ketubbot, with the

Hebrew text written by a scribe and the drawings created by a

Christian artist.

If the bride or groom had a biblical name, frequently the

ketubbah included an appropriate scene. Among the wealthier

families, it was customary to include family insignia.

In Rome, the most popular day to be married was

Wednesday, and all four of these marriages took place on that

day.

Notes:

'Accession 25819, entered July 1892, with catalog numbers 152226-

152250 and 154312; accession 25771, with catalog number 153893. Items with

catalog numbers 152226-152250 were transferred to NMAH.

2

For a discussion of the development of illustrated marriage contracts in

Italy, see S. Sabar, Ketubbah: Jewish Marriage Contracts of Hebrew Union

College Skirball Museum and Klau Library (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication

Society, 1990), pages 2Iff.

3

Ibid., pages 146-147.
116 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 154630

Ketubbah

NMAH 154630; ace. no. 25771

Rome, Italy, 1830

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 83 cm, W 54.3 cm

Museum purchase, 1892

Negative number 92-13066

Wednesday, the fourth of Sivan 5590 (26 May 1830)

Groom: Mehallel son of Joshua Isaac de Sessa

Bride: Virtuosa daughter of Isaac Bina

Witnesses: Joshua Gershon Ashkenazi,1 Moses Milano

The text, inscribed in square Italian Hebrew script, is set in

a rectangular frame with an inner border of dots. A cartouche

above the text contains the Hebrew word for "on Wednesday,"

over which is the traditional wedding blessing "be-simana

tava" In the corners, within separate framed panels, are

bouquets of flowers tied with ribbon. On the left side is the

allegorical figure of Giustizia (Justice) holding scales and a

scepter. On the right side is Victoria (Victory) holding an olive

branch and a crown. On the lower margin are two figures, an

aged man and a youth, representing the stages of life. The

bottom edge of the rectangular parchment is cusped and

decorated with a multicolored vine tendril.

Notes:

'Joshua Gershon Ashkenazi signed as a witness on two of the other ketubbot

at the Smithsonian, cat. nos. NMAH 154331 and NMAH 154333. He was also

a signatory on a ketubbah dated 1813 in the collection of the Hebrew Union

College Skirball Museum (cat. no. 34.99).

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 136.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 57.

Ketubbah

NMNH 154632; ace. no. 25771

Rome, Italy, 1752

Ink, gouache, and gold paint on parchment

H85.1 cm, W 52.7 cm

Museum purchase, 1892

Negative number 92-13076

Wednesday, the eighth of Adar 5512 (23 February 1752)

Groom: Matzliah son of Solomon de Castro

Bride: Rebecca daughter of David Tarmi, of blessed memory

Witnesses: Mehallel Modigliani (?), Hezekiah Amrin

The text, inscribed in square Hebrew Italian script, is set

within a gold-leaf border containing traditional wedding

blessings. The initial Hebrew word, meaning "on Wednesday,"

written in gold, is framed in an elaborated cartouche. At the top

of the ketubbah are two narrow panels with a blessing from

Proverbs 18:22: "Whoever finds a wife finds a good thing and

obtains the favor of the Lord." In the center is a heraldic shield

with an emblem designed as a three-tiered mountain. A

flowering vine, which stems from the cusped lower edge of the

parchment, surrounds the text. The outer margin contains

quotations from Ruth 4:11-12 and Psalms 128:3.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 138.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 59.
NUMBER 52

117

••. .

NMNH 154632

trwwtisanvnnynifttrhs'yittipn^tttynH^w K. • •'-•Js^'^'

Ketubbah

NMAH 154633; ace. no. 25771

Rome, Italy, 1816

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 85.1 cm, W 53.4 cm

Museum purchase, 1892

Negative numbers 92-13073, 92-13074, 92-13075

Wednesday the 20th of Adar (20 March 1816)

Groom: Elijah son of Samuel Sciacchi (?)

Bride: Mazal Tov daughter of Mehallel de Castelnuovo

Witnesses: Joshua Gershon son of David Benjamin Ashkenazi,

Michael Hayyim son of Abraham Megula

The text is inscribed in square Hebrew script within a

rectangular frame filled with multicolored dots. The initial

Hebrew word, meaning "on Wednesday," is set in a cartouche

framed by flower tendrils. Above the text is a narrow band with

NMAH 154633, neg. no. 92-13073

the blessing "be-simana tava" and a blessing from Proverbs

18:22. A heraldic shield with the emblem of a lion holding a

branch is in the middle of the upper margin. This symbol

appears on a number of Roman ketubbot, generally identified

with the Scazzocchio and Fiani families.1 In the upper right

corner is the allegorical figure Fortunata (Fortune) riding a

wheel of fortune and carrying an inverted cornucopia. The

inscription reads, "All depends on merit and good luck." In the

upper left corner is a muse holding a tambourine and a sistrum,

an allegorical figure of Peace. Inscribed above is "Peace and

welcome to far and near." On the lower right is the allegorical

figure Concordia Maritale (Marital Harmony) holding two

burning hearts linked together with a chain. Inscribed above is

"A well-mated couple is chosen by God." On the lower left is
118

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 154633, neg. no. 92-13074

NMAH 154633, neg. no. 92-13075
NUMBER 52

a muse with a tambourine and a flower, the allegorical figure of

Goodness. The inscription above reads, "The good blessings'1

(?) and "And the noble has noble intentions and is constant in

noble acts" (Isaiah 32:8).

The margins are composed of a pattern of interlocking

semicircles embellished with a floral cluster. Biblical and

Talmudic quotes referring to marriage, written in micrographic

script, outline the edges of the semicircles. The text of Ruth

4:11 is written in the outermost border. The'image of Elijah

ascending to heaven in the fiery chariot (2 Kings 2:11-13) is

depicted in the cusped edge of the parchment. The second

figure is the prophet Elisha. The scene was chosen as a

reference to the groom.

Notes:

'Sabar, Ketubbah, page 148.

Bibliography:

Annual Report of the United States National Museum for 1895, page 22.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 34, plate 99.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 56, page 5.

Smithsonian Institution, Celebration, no. 164A.

Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Ketubah" (NMAH 154633).

Ketubbah

NMAH 154631; ace. no. 25771

Rome, Italy, 1837

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 87.5 cm, W 54.3 cm

Museum purchase, 4 June 1892

Negative numbers 92-13069, 92-13070

Wednesday, the 25th of Sivan 5597 (28 June 1837)

Groom: Aaron son of Judah Joseph Corcos

Bride: Quintiliana daughter of Joab de Capua

Witnesses: Joshua Gershon Ashkenazi, Raphael Yohanan

Ephraim Casmilo

The text, in square Hebrew Italian script, is set within a

rectangular frame. The decorative border is composed of panels

that contain figures and floral and geometric motifs. In the

middle of the upper border is a couple representing the ideal of

marital harmony. Along the sides to the right and left is a

rhythmic pattern of semicircles filled with flowers. Two

garlands are hung in the lower margin. The image of Aaron the

High Priest is illustrated in the cusped lower edge of the

parchment, a reference to the groom's name.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 137.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 58.

119

NMAH 154631, neg. no. 92-13069
120 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 154631, neg. no. 92-13070

Poem for Simhat Torah

NMAH 154634, NMNH 154635; ace. no. 25771

Rabbi Abraham ben Jacob Anav (Anau)1

Rome, Italy, 1766

Ink and gouache on parchment

NMAH 154634: H 58.4 cm, W 44.4 cm

NMNH 154635: H 59.7 cm, W 45.7 cm

Museum purchase, 1892

Negative numbers 92-13111, 92-13123, 92-13124

These documents are two copies of an original cantata

written in honor of Isaac Berakhyah Baraffael son of Mordecai

Baraffael on the occasion of Simhat Torah. The copies differ in

that one copy has three allegorical personifications illustrated

and the second copy has a blank space where the figures would

have been added. In addition, there is a variation in the

geometric motifs used in the decorative borders of the two

versions of the poem.

Simhat Torah is a one-day celebration following Sukkot

when the yearly cycle of reading the Torah is completed and

immediately begun again. It is customary to honor two

members of the congregation. One serves as hatan Torah,

"bridegroom of the law"; he reads the concluding section of the

Torah. The second is hatan bereshit, "bridegroom of Genesis";

he reads the first section of Genesis. Isaac Berakhyah Baraffael

was the hatan Torah.2

The text is written in square Italian Hebrew script in three

columns. A register above the text contains an introductory

historical note and praises the student Isaac Berakhyah's family

and the study of the Torah. A chronogram for the year 5527

(1766, because this took place in the fall) appears in the third

line of the text. A heraldic shield with the emblem of a cock

holding a sheaf of wheat in its beak, standing on a three-lobed

mountain, is in the middle of the upper margin.3 This same

motif appears on the title page of a manuscript of an allegorical

play entitled Disputation Between Jephtah and the Ammonites,

written by Rabbi Abraham ben Jacob Anav in 1757-1758.4

The text is written for three singers, who represent Wealth,

Honor, and Life. The three female allegorical figures correspond to these themes. To the right is a figure holding a

cornucopia identified with the Hebrew inscription "Wealth and

riches" (Psalms 112:2). In the center is a figure holding two

orbs with the inscription "The Torah is the Tree of Life"

(Proverbs 3:18). To the left is a female figure and the
NUMBER 52 121

NMAH 154634, neg. no. 92-13111

NMAH 154634, neg. no. 92-13124

inscription "Honor for a man."

The decorative frame of each copy of the poem includes both

bands of floral motifs and a band of geometric motifs. The first

(NMAH 154634) consists of oval lozenges inset with a

diamond shape; the second (NMNH 154635) consists of a

diamond-pattern inset with a flower. In both documents these

motifs are formed of micrography.

Isaac Berakhyah was from a wealthy family of spice

importers and merchants. The family came from Ancona at the

beginning of the eighteenth century. At the time the cantata was

written, Isaac Berakhyah was unmarried, as indicated by the

superscription "ha-bakhur," literally "the young man." Thus it

is plausible that Isaac Berakhyah is the same man as Isaac

(Fortunato) Baraffael, who is recorded as being head of the

family business in 1798. In March 1798 he was accorded the

rank of major in the national guard established by the

revolutionary regime. He resigned shortly thereafter as the

result of a conflict about marching in a parade scheduled for the

Sabbath. There is a listing for Isaac Baraffael as late as 1811,

where he is identified as an alternate in the representative body

set up to be a liaison to the government.

Notes:

'Bathya Bayer, of the Music Department and National Sound Archives,

Jewish National and University Archives, made the attribution to Rabbi Anav

and analyzed the two copies of the Simhat Torah poem. Anav was a rabbi and

teacher in the children's school of the Jewish community in Rome (letter from

Bayer to Richard Ahlborn, 15 June 1971; the letter is in the Judaica research

files in the NMAH Division of Community Life).

2Bathya Bayer indicated that a number of seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury cantatas for those honored on Simhat Torah are known.

3

 A similar motif, consisting of a cock, facing left, atop three stones, found on

an 1813 ketubbah from Rome in the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum

(cat. no. 34.99), has been identified as a family emblem of the di Cave family

(Sabar, Ketubbah, page 151).

4This manuscript is British Museum ms. ad. 27203.

Bibliography:

Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Siyyum" (NMAH 154634).
122 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMNH 154635, neg. no. 92-13123

Prayerbooks

NMAH 154572, NMAH 154568; ace. no. 26095

Bombay, India (Rosh Hashanah liturgy, 1862; Yom Kippur

liturgy, 1867-1868)

Printed paper

H 21.6 cm, W 13.6 cm

Gift of the Reverend Henry Cohen, 1892

Marathi prayerbooks for Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur

were originally loaned by the Reverend Henry Cohen to the

United States National Museum for the World's Columbian

Exposition.1 At the time, Cohen was serving as rabbi at B'nai

Israel, a Reform congregation in Galveston, Texas.

The Prayers of the Jewish New Year's Day, 5623 (1862) and

The Prayers for the Day of Atonement, Translated into

Marathi, volume 1, 5627 (1867), and volume 2, 5628 (1868),

were translated from Hebrew into Marathi by Joseph Ezekiel

Rajpurkar. The books were published by the Bene-Israel

Improvement Society and were printed by the Gunpat

Krushnajee Press in Bombay.

The history of the Bene-Israel community in India is known

only through legend, which traces their origins to the second

century BCE.2 Whatever the actual date of their settlement, the

Bene-Israel did remain isolated as a Jewish community. In

time, they adopted many customs of their Hindu neighbors, and

Marathi became their native language. Nevertheless, they

continued to observe some fundamentals of the Jewish

tradition, such as circumcision, the Sabbath, and the dietary

laws.

In the nineteenth century there was an effort to have the

Bene-Israel return to a more traditional Judaism. The movement was spearheaded by Solomon Shurrabi, who acted as

religious instructor in Bombay for 20 years after being

shipwrecked in 1836. Prominent among those supporting

religious and educational institutions for the Bene-Israel was

David S. Sassoon (1792-1864). The Sassoon family, originally

from Baghdad, was known for both great expertise in

commerce and tremendous philanthropic efforts. Part of the

educational mission was the translation of Hebrew liturgy and

English works of Jewish interest into Marathi. Ezekiel was

responsible for the translation of more than 20 such works.3

Joseph Ezekiel Rajpurkar (1834-1905) was born in Bombay. He studied at the Free Assembly School. In 1856 he

became a teacher in David Sassoon's Benevolent Institution in

Bombay. He served as headmaster at the school from 1861 to

1879. In 1879 he was appointed Hebrew examiner at the

University of Bombay. Ezekiel was also secretary to the

Bene-Israel Improvement Society.
NUMBER 52 123

Henry Cohen was born in London. At 18 he traveled to

Africa and worked as an interpreter in the French legation; he

was wounded during the Zulu wars. He moved to the British

West Indies and served as the rabbi in Kingston, Jamaica, for

one year (1884-1885). From there he moved to Woodville,

Mississippi, before assuming the pulpit in Galveston in 1888.

Cohen was well known for his heroic efforts on behalf of the

victims of the 1900 flood in Galveston. Beginning in 1907 he

began working with the Jewish Immigrants Information

Bureau, which was to assist over 10,000 Jews who immigrated

to the United States through what was known as the Galveston

Plan. This short-lived effort, initiated and financed by Jacob

Schiff, was an attempt to divert immigrating European Jews

away from New York and other Eastern seaports and toward

the Southwest in order to reduce the concentration of Jewish

immigrants in the big cities of the Northeast and Midwest.

Throughout his career in Texas, Cohen was also very active in

trying to reform the penal system.

Notes:

^Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Henry Cohen"; Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v.

"Henry Cohen (1863-1952)."

Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Beni-Israel." This article was written by Joseph

Ezekiel.

3Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Joseph Ezekiel Rajpurkar."

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," nos. 102-103.

Thanksgiving to the Almighty for the Diamond Jubilee of

Empress Victoria

NMAH 158343; ace. no. 32757

Composed by Joseph Ezekiel

Bombay, India, 1897

Printed paper

H 34 cm, W 21.3 cm

Gift of the Reverend Henry Cohen, 23 October 1897

Negative number 92-13053

The prayer for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee offered at

the Gate of Mercy Synagogue, Bombay, India, on Sunday, 20

June 1897, is an original composition by Joseph Ezekiel in

Marathi, Hebrew, and English. The order of the service recited

(in addition to the Ezekiel prayer) is given in the Marathi

\S8iH3

.—i~nm m m •

^ennn ~\i't* rvun

vps npitvvr m:m

Her Majesty the Empress Victoria,

"GATE OF M.EPVCY" SYNAGOGUE, BOMBAY,

On Sunday, 20th June 1897.

COMPOSED AT THK 1IKQDEKT 01' TOE WiRDEKS

rj7iJa"'issuing to tijc

DIAMOND

JOSEPH EZEKIEL.

NMAH 158343

section of the broadside and includes selections from the

Psalms and "HaNoten Teshua," a traditional prayer for the

government.

The prayer Ezekiel composed includes variations on biblical

verses, including Numbers 15:22, Psalms 95:2, and Psalms

27:14.
124 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

, .

NMNH 154758

Torah ark curtain

NMNH 154758; ace. no. 26818

Ottoman Turkey, late nineteenth century

Velvet, metal thread

H 279.4 cm, W 184.2 cm

Museum purchase from John Durand, 1893

The iconographic composition of a portal and hanging lamp

is widely used on Torah ark curtains from the Ottoman Empire;

the style is derived from Islamic prayer rugs. The motif

acquires a Jewish iconographic meaning with the addition of

biblical verses referring to the Temple and the sha'ar (a

gateway or portal).

The symbol of a sacred sha'ar is a very old one in the Jewish

tradition. This imagery is first used in the Bible when Jacob

exclaims, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than

the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven" (Genesis

28:17).

The meaning of the symbol evolved over time to evoke not

only the concept of the gateway to the heavenly abode but also

the mishkan, the portable sanctuary used in the desert (Exodus

25-31) and subsequently in the Temple in Jerusalem, where

the Ark of the Covenant was kept in the "Holy of Holies."

Similarly, the motif of a lamp finds its origins in the Bible, from

the imperative to maintain a continuously burning light

(Exodus 27:20). The eternal light that is hung in the synagogue

in front of the Torah ark derives from this source.

In the top center is the verse "But the Lord is in His holy

Abode—be silent before him, all the earth!" (Habakkuk 2:20).

On the right side is "This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous

shall enter into it" (Psalms 118:20). On the left side is "Open

the gates, and let a righteous nation enter, [a nation] that keeps

faith" (Isaiah 26:2). In addition, above the lamp is the verse "I

have set the Lord always before me" (Psalms 18:8).

An unusual addition is the names of four archangels,

Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel, in roundels in each

corner of the portal. Nuriel, the name of the fifth archangel not

noted on the parokhet (ark curtain), means literally "God is my

lamp," so perhaps Nuriel is indeed included, obliquely, in the

lamp motif.

Heavy gold couching, as used on this ark curtain, was one of

the most frequently used types of Ottoman embroidery.

Couching evolved from the Byzantine tradition and was

widespread in Turkey well into the twentieth century.1 The use

of plants to form the border around the portal is standard in

Torah ark curtains and also derives from Islamic prayer rugs.2

This Torah ark curtain was purchased just prior to the

World's Columbian Exposition. It was included in the

landmark exhibition on comparative religion organized by

Cyrus Adler for the United States National Museum at the

exposition and was a prominent feature in subsequent

exhibitions in Atlanta in 1895 and Tennessee in 1898.

Notes:

'Esther Juhasz, "Textiles for the Home and Synagogue," in E. Juhasz, ed.,

Sephardi Jews in the Ottoman Empire (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1990), pages

69ff.

2

Ibid., page 80.

Bibliography:

Annual Report of the United States National Museum for 1895, pages

755-768.

Adler and Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit at

the Cotton States International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," page 994, plate 16.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 6.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 1.

Smithsonian Institution, Celebration, no. 204A.

Esther Juhasz, ed., Sephardi Jews in the Ottoman Empire (Jerusalem: Israel

Museum, 1990), no. 53.
NUMBER 52 125

Rabbi's costume

NMNH 154761; ace. no. 26818

Istanbul, Turkey, c. 1850-1875

Turban: wool, satin, silk tassel; D 25.4 cm

Jacket: wool, satin lining; L 57.2 cm, W 153.6 cm

Trousers: wool, cotton lining; L 79.7 cm, W 99.3 cm

Robe: silk, cotton lining; L 134.3 cm

Shawl: wool; L 321.3 cm, W 133.3 cm

Shoes: leather; L 29.8 cm (probably late nineteenth century)

Museum purchase from John Durand, 1893

Beginning with the rise of Islam in the seventh century,

nonbelievers living under Islamic rule, primarily Christians and

Jews, were relegated to a tolerated status. As stipulated in the

Pact of "Umar,1 in the hierarchy of the Islamic world the

dhimmi,2 as they were designated, had to follow certain

practices. These rules established the modus vivendi between

the Muslims and the conquered communities, which allowed

religious rites to be performed within certain behavioral

parameters.

Among the numerous stipulations of the Pact of "Umar

regarding conduct of the dhimmi was the wearing of distinctive

clothing.3 This came to mean wearing special badges or outer

garments of a particular color.4 There were variations in other

aspects of the law as well by the ninth and tenth centuries, when

Islamic rule grew from a military aristocracy to an empire,

which evolved into many different regimes.

A photograph taken in 1873 shows the Haham de Smyrne

(Izmir) in a similar costume. He is wearing a cashmere sash tied

around his waist over a striped robe called entari.5

The rabbi's costume was purchased by Cyrus Adler

specifically for the World's Columbian Exposition. It was

described as a "Costume of a Rabbi in Mohammedan

Countries." Adler did not purchase any Judaica when he was in

Turkey on behalf of the U.S. National Museum. However,

when he met with members of the Jewish community and

attended synagogue, he certainly saw items similar to the Torah

ark curtain (NMNH 154758) and this rabbi's costume (later

purchased through Durand, a dealer in Paris). The costume is in

pristine condition and may never have been worn.

Notes:

'The Pact of 'Umar was established by 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, caliph

(634-644) of the Sunni line of the caliphate. The text that is known is from a

century later, from 'Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (710-720). A translation from the

nineteenth century is found in N. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History

and Source Book (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1979), pages

157-158; see also page 25.

2Dhimma is Arabic for the relationship between the protector and the

protected dhimmi. It established the legal status of the ahl al-kitab. the "people

of the book," Jews and Christians, who agreed to live under its protection

{Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Dhimma").

'Clothing was a sign of social status. For example, the turban ("imama)

became known as the "crown of the Arabs," faj al-'arab (Stillman, The Jews of

Arab Lands), page 157.

* Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Dhimma." The discriminatory signs, ghiyar,

worn by non-Muslims are considered the most characteristic way of

imposing legal restrictions on nonbelievers.

5A. Rubens, A History of Jewish Costume, second edition (London: George

Weidenfeld and Nicolson), figure 48.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 145.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 64.

Vivian B. Mann, ed., A Tale of Two Cities: Jewish Life in Frankfurt and

Istanbul, 1750-1870 (New York: Jewish Museum, 1982), no. 188.
126 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Esther scroll and case

NMAH 154763; ace. no. 26816

Jerusalem, Eretz Yisrael, late nineteenth century

Case: olive wood, ink inscription; L 20 cm, D 7 cm

Scroll: ink on parchment; H 10 cm

Gift of David Sulzberger, 1893

Negative number 92-13063

This Esther scroll with case is typical of the olive wood

souvenirs that were made in Jerusalem in the late nineteenth

century. The relief on the case includes the standard popular

iconography of the Western Wall and other holy sites in

Jerusalem. This same program is found on maps, in books, and

on seals, ceremonial objects, and a variety of miscellaneous

decorative items for visitors to the Holy Land.'

Written in ink above the scene is a Hebrew inscription:

"Jerusalem the Holy City, may it be rebuilt and reestablished";

below is "The Western Wall."

The Esther scroll was originally recorded as a loan to the

museum for exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition. The

scroll is in mint condition, which suggests that it was never

used.

Notes:

'A survey of objects of this type is found in Y. Fisher, ed., Omanut

ve-Umanut be-Eretz Yisrael ba-Me'ah ha-19 (Jerusalem: Israel Museum,

1979).

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 124.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 40.

Smithsonian Institution. Celebration, no. 99.

Torah shield

NMAH 154765; ace. no. 26815 (or 26818)

London, England, dedicated 1888

Silver with glass stones; hallmarks: N, JSH, Victoria, leopard's

head

H 35.5 cm, W 33 cm

Gift of Dr. Sabato Morais, 1893

Negative number 92-12999

The design of the Torah shield is modeled on the hoshen,

breastplate, of the high priest as described in Exodus 28:15-21.

Each of the stones represents one of the twelve tribes. There is

a further reference to the garb of the high priest, for on the gold

frontlet of the priestly headdress were engraved the words that

are found on the inscription at the top of the Torah shield:

"Holy to the Lord" (Exodus 28:36).

The donor inscription is on the front of the Torah shield in

Hebrew, and an English version is on the back. The English is

not an exact translation, as the secular names are given instead

of the Hebrew names of the family members, and the Hebrew

does not record their death dates. The inscription reads: "This

Breast Plate is Presented by / Alfred A. Marcus, daughter Mary

Ann, and son Simeon of Boston in sacred and / Holy memory

of Kate Marcus, God rest her soul, who died at Boston U.S.A.

Nisan 11, 5647 [5 April 1887]./Late parents of/Alfred A.

Marcus / and his darling / wife Kate / Simeon Marcus died in

London, Elul 16, 5612 [31 August 1852]/His beloved wife

Ellen died in London, Shebat 6, 5632 [16 January 1842]. Judah

Benjamin / died in Graham's Town, Cape of Good Hope,

South Africa, Heshban 10, 5598 [8 November 1837]. / And his

beloved wife Mary Ann, died in London, Iyar 11, 5637 [24

April 1877]."

Alfred Marcus left his native England and went to South

Africa, where he made his fortune.1 He arrived in Boston in the

1860s with his wife and children. Dubbed "the Africaner,"

Marcus's largesse was well known.2 This Torah shield was

apparently one of several dedicated by Alfred Marcus on Yom

Kippur in 1888 at Congregation Sharei Tefila in Boston.

Tragically, Marcus lost both his children and his fortune as

well. Even the Sharei Tefila synagogue was razed during his

lifetime (Sharei Tefila had merged with Mishkan Israel to

become Mishkan Tefila).

It is not known how the Torah ornaments dedicated by

Marcus were dispersed, but this Torah shield somehow made

its way to Sabato Morais in Philadelphia.3

Notes:

'An article on Marcus entitled "The Fabulous Marcus the Africaner" was

written by Mignon Rabinovitz, whose husband served as rabbi at Mishkan

Tefila. This article is in the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Judaica

Reference File.

2Other ceremonial items dedicated by Marcus include a Torah shield and

omer calendar currently at the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, and

an omer calendar currently at the Jewish Museum in New York. The

circumstances of the acquisition of these objects is not known. The objects at

the Touro Synagogue were located by Martha B. Katz-Hyman in 1981 as part

of a research project at the American Jewish Historical Society.

3

 An identical shield and a pair of Torah finials surfaced in Boston during

World War II, when they were donated to the Russian Relief Committee.

Apparently they had been acquired in the 1890s by a non-Jew whose daughter

found them stored in an attic and donated them to the relief fund. This set of

Torah ornaments, returned to the possession of Mishkan Tefila in Boston, was

subsequently stolen. A third shield, which became the property of a London

synagogue, is in the collection of the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum

(HUCSM 7.28).
NUMBER 52 127

NMAH 154765

NMAH 154763
128 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 154990

Torah shield

NMAH 154990; ace. no. 28902

Istanbul, Turkey, dedicated 1863-1864

Silver; hallmark: sah

H 29 cm, W 25.4 cm

Museum purchase, 1894

Negative number 92-13000

The gable form of the Torah shield and the iconographic

program are atypical for examples from the Ottoman Empire,

although the shield is similar in workmanship.1 The composition of the shield is much more akin to Polish examples of the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Two columns at either side have acanthus leaf capitals and

flowered vines wound around the shafts. In the upper central

field, which is ornamented with C scrolls, is a miniature ark,

surmounted by a crown and flanked by birds (a likely reference

to the Ark of the Covenant and the cherubim (Exodus

25:10-22)). A hinged attachment, possibly for a curtain, is

affixed above, on the right. This may refer to the parokhet, the

NMAH 154990

curtain that served as a partition before the Holy of Holies

(Exodus 26:31-34). The doors are engraved with the Ten

Commandments. The date of the dedication is engraved on the

inside of the door panels.

The names of the holidays are visible through a curved

window. The names, which are in niello work, are on a rotating

disk manipulated from the back of the shield. Above is the

phrase "The day of the Holy Sabbath."

Below the ark, a pair of lions wearing crowns, depicted en

face, support a medallion engraved with a bouquet and the

dedicatory inscription "This was donated by Beile, daughter of

Elkanah Barukh, son of Moses HaLevi." The name of the donor

seems to indicate an Ashkenazi source for the Torah shield.

The Torah shield was purchased by Cyrus Adler at the

World's Columbian Exposition from Albert R. Souhami,

concessionaire of the Turkish village on the Midway Plaisance.2

 Adler had met Souhami when Adler was on assignment

in Turkey to negotiate on behalf of the exposition. On the

reverse of the shield is a sales tag, reading "No. 67, 150." Adler

paid $100 for the shield, which was a considerable sum to pay

for a single ceremonial object at that time.

Notes:

'Compare Torah shields of the same period as illustrated in Juhasz, Sephardi

Jews in the Ottoman Empire, nos. 32, 33, 35.

2

SIA, RU 201, Box 11, Folder 6.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "Biblical Antiquities: A Description of the Exhibit at

the Cotton States International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895," page 994, plate 15.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," pages 709-710, plate 68.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 6, plate 2.

Mann, A Tale of Two Cities, no. 202, plate 14.
NUMBER 52 129

NMNH 15821 7, neg. no. 92-13119

Manuscript for Berit Milah and Pidyon Ha-Ben

NMNH 158217; ace. no. 299660

Eliezer Feibelne (?)

Central Europe, 1839-1840

Binding: gold-tooled leather

Folio: ink, tempera, and gold leaf on parchment

H 14.3 cm, W 9.1 cm

Museum purchase from William E. Benjamin, 1895

Negati ve numbers 92-13119-92-13121

This item is a small manuscript for the circumcision

ceremony and the ceremony for the redemption of the firstborn.

There are 20 parchment folios, with an illuminated title page,

31 letter panels, and 2 marginal illuminations. The text is

written in square Ashkenazi script.

On the title page is "The book of Berit Milah and Pidyon

Ha-Ben" within a portal. Above the arched lunette of the portal

are two putti holding a garland. Above the lunette is a rainbow

with the inscription "This is the sign of the covenant" (Genesis

9:12). Aaron and Moses appear in niches on columns flanking

the portal.

In the lower portion of the title page is a circular medallion

supported by two rampant lions. The medallion contains a

dedication in micrographic script forming the letters MBB, The

micrography reads, "Thispinkas was made by Eliezer Feibelne

[?], the scribe, son of [?] in honor of Mordecai son of Moses in

the year 5600 [1839-1840]." A signature, MB Benham, is on

the inside cover, facing the title page.
130

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMNH 158217, neg. no. 92-13120

NMNH 158217, neg. no. 92-13121
NUMBER 52 131

M-ie &L>e\( Jt&uMvr der a-itert, xtrLctT^uerLj-ud^yL tfckulen.irLfiCrth.^ iuzejte von. atUfen. her an^^Teken

jamb iKver MScliJvilerl. Verja.rnrrUu3rqerL . jQnno .??or. '' >-"-^-.v_ L^ 7zl.x J/ / «<_ _. .-_

NMAH 158448

Synagogue Prints

NMAH 158440-158448; ace. no. 34414 (1898)

NMAH 158467-158468; ace. no. 34508 (1899)

Cyrus Adler expanded the research files on European

synagogues with the purchase of a group of graphics. The prints

were primarily book illustrations, all purchased from William

Wesley and Son, London.

The Old and New Synagogues in Furth

NMAH 158448

Nuremberg, Germany, 1705

Copper plate engraving on paper; lower center and lower right,

Johan. Alexand. Baener

Paper: H 19.7 cm, W 36 cm

Plate: H 16.9 cm, W 26.5 cm

Negative number 92-13059

The print depicts a wedding scene taking place in front of the

old and new synagogues of Furth.

Das Gebaeude der fiinf Synagogen in Rom

NMAH 158440

Germany, mid-nineteenth century

Wood engraving on paper; lower right, Hartlieb X.A.

Paper: H 14.6 cm, W 23 cm

Plate: H 10 cm, W 14 cm

In July 1555 all the Jews of Rome were forced to move to the

ghetto and were officially permitted to have only one

synagogue. Later Pope Pius V agreed to have one building that

would actually house five different synagogues to satisfy the

Jews who wanted to use different rites. This arrangement was

known as the "Cinque Scole." A complicated series of

structures developed, all of which were restored in 1868.1

Notes:

'Carole Herselle Krinsky, Synagogues of Europe: Architecture, History,

Meaning (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), pages 363-364.
132 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

The Ancient Synagogue of Toledo

NMAH 158441

England, mid-nineteenth century

Lithograph; lower left, C. Moody, litho; lower right, Drawn by

Rawl[inson]

H 13.9 cm, W 17.8 cm

The Toledo synagogue was built about 1200. It was taken

out of Jewish hands about 1411 and turned into the convent of

Santa Maria La Blanca in the second half of the sixteenth

century. The print is based on a painting by Bernardo Villamil

y Marraci.1 The synagogue building has been restored.

Notes:

'Rachel Wischnitzer, The Architecture of the European Synagogue (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1964), page 21.

Die Alt-Neuschul

NMAH 158442

Germany, mid-nineteenth century (?)

Steel plate engraving on paper; lower left, nach d. Natur v. C.

Wuerbs; lower right, gest. v. S. Langer

Paper: H 20 cm, W 25 cm

View of the back of the Altneuschul in Prague, built in the

thirteenth century, a landmark of medieval Jewish settlement in

Europe.

interior was desecrated on 1 April 1933, and the synagogue was

destroyed on Kristallnacht.

Great Synagogue, Duke's Place, London

NMAH 158445

London, England, 1809

Hand-colored aquatint and etching on paper; lower left, Pagin

and Rowlandson del and sculp

Paper: H 28 cm, W 34 cm

Plate: H 20 cm, W 25.7 cm

The Duke's Place Synagogue, designed by James Spiller,

was dedicated on 26 March 1790.1 Rowlandson stereotypically

caricatured the worshipers. The synagogue was destroyed in an

air raid on 11 May 1941.

Notes:

'Wischnitzer, The Architecture of the European Synagogue, page 167.

The Central Synagogue, Great Portland Street, London

NMAH 158446

London, England, late nineteenth cetury

Wood engraving on paper

H 30.5 cm, W 20 cm

Die Neue Synagoge in Cassel

NMAH 158443 A- 158443F

Germany, 1840

Steel plate engraving on paper; lower margin, nach der Natur

ges. und litt von maler Loewer in Cassel

H 30 cm, W 45 cm

There are a total of six engravings of the synagogue in

Cassel, including a view of the exterior and the street and

elevations. The new synagogue, built in 1839, was designed in

the Romanesque Revival style by A. Schuchardt.1 The

synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht.

Notes:

'Wischnitzer, The Architecture of the European Synagogue, page 197.

Die Neue Synagoge in Mannheim

NMAH 158444

Germany, mid-nineteenth century

Engraving and etching on paper; center margin, L. Lang del.

H 52 cm, W 37 cm

The "new" synagogue in Mannheim was built in 1855. The

The Central Synagogue in Great Portland Street was a

branch of the Great Synagogue in Duke's Place. Dedicated in

1870, it was designed by N.S. Joseph in the Moorish style.1 The

synagogue was destroyed in an air raid in 1941.

Notes:

'Wischnitzer, The Architecture of the European Synagogue, page 209.

The New Synagogue, Great St. Helen's, London

NMAH 158447

London, England, nineteenth century

Steel plate engraving on paper; lower left, G. [?] Bell del; lower

right, Walmsley

Paper: H 28.5 cm, W 21.5 cm

Plate: H 18.5 cm, W 14 cm

The New Synagogue congregation was founded in 1761 as

the result of secession from the Great Synagogue. This building

was dedicated in 1837.1

Notes:

'Barnett, Catalogue of the Permanent and Loan Collections of the Jewish

Museum, London, page 5.
NUMBER 52 133

De twee groote Synagogen der Hoogduitsche Jooden, en het

oude—7yds—Huiszitten—Aalmoesseniers—huis van agteren, in't verschiet

NMAH 158454

Amsterdam, Holland, eighteenth century

Engraving on paper; lower left, J. de Beyer delin. ad vivum

Paper: H 36 cm, W 37 cm

Plate: H 28 cm, W 30.1 cm

The title translates as "A view of the great synagogues of the

Ashkenazi Jews in the old side [of Amsterdam]—the property—the almshouse—from behind and in the distance." The

Ashkenazi synagogues, the first of which was built in 1671,

were damaged during World War II, have been reconstructed

and now house the Jewish Historical Museum.

Portugeesche Jooden Synagoge

NMAH 158455

Amsterdam, Holland, mid-eighteenth century

Etching and engraving on paper

Paper: H 24.5 cm, W 29.7 cm

Plate: H 14.6 cm, W 18.7 cm

The first Portuguese Synagogue, for the Sephardi community, was built in 1639. In 1671 a second building was

constructed.

Portugeesche Jooden Kerk te Amsterdam

NMAH 158467

Amsterdam, Holland, mid-eighteenth century

Etching on paper

Paper: H 22.6 cm, W 29.7 cm

Plate: H 17.5 cm, W 25 cm

Another view of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam.

Hoogduitsche Jooden Kerk te Amsterdam

NMAH 158468

Amsterdam, Holland, mid-eighteenth century

Etching on paper

Paper: H 18 cm, W 27 cm

Plate: H 16.5 cm, W 24.5 cm

A view of the Ashkenazi synagogue in Amsterdam,

illustrating the facade of the synagogue and its environs.

Medal of the Second Zionist Congress

NMAH 158460; ace. no. 34414

Samuel Friedrich Beer

Paris, France, 1898

Bronze; hallmark: Beer, Paris 1898

D 6.4 cm

Museum purchase, 1898

On the obverse of this medal, which was sculpted by the

Czech Samuel Friedrich Beer (1846-1912), is an allegorical

scene in a pastoral setting. The central female figure, in

diaphanous drapery, gestures to a rising sun and seated figures,

including an aging man, a pregnant woman, and a child. A

youth on the left of the composition looks on. On the reverse is

the inscription "I will take the children of Israel from among the

nations ...andbring them into their own land" (Ezekiel 37:21).

Cyrus Adler purchased this medal and three stickpins

(catalog nos. NMAH 158462-158464) from the Second

Zionist Congress, held 28-30 August 1898 in Switzerland, as

well as reproductions of delegates' cards from the First and

Second Zionist Congresses (catalog nos. NMAH 158458,

158459). It is interesting that Adler made these purchases, as he

was a staunch critic of the Zionists' efforts to establish a

modern Jewish state in Palestine. At that time Adler was a

proponent of a plan to resettle Jews, who were then suffering

persecution in a number of countries, in "colonies" in Syria or

Mesopotamia.' Adler apparently purchased these items when

he was in London in the summer of 1898, where he attended the

founding conference of the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature as the United States representative. Despite his

personal opposition to the Zionists' goals, as a curator Adler

apparently recognized the historical value of these items.

Notes:

'A draft of a letter from Adler to Theodor Herzl, the founder of the World

Zionist Organization, just prior to the First Zionist Congress in 1897 expresses

his view and his willingness to be helpful to Herzl if he would consider "the

notion of colonizing either in Syria or Mesopotamia" (Robinson, Cyrus Adler:

Selected Letters, volume 1, pages 73-75).

Bibliography::

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," nos. 167-169.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," nos. 76-80.
134 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 262188

Sukkot plate

NMAH 262188; ace. no. 52129

England (manufacture), United States (decoration), early

twentieth century

Porcelain

D 22.7 cm

Gift of Mary M. Cohen on behalf of Congregation Mikveh

Israel, 10 November 1910

Negative number 92-13102

This plate was part of a set commissioned by Congregation

Mikveh Israel for use in the synagogue's communal sukkah.

The decoration on the rim consists of two palm branches,

representing the lulav, enclosing a medallion with the

monogram MI and the inscription "May the Lord found it well,

the Association of the Holy Community of Mikveh Israel,

Philadelphia, 5670 [1909]." Above the medallion is an etrog.

The plate was manufactured in England by Johnson

Brothers, and the special Sukkot motif, which was designed by

Miss Katherine M. Cohen, was added by the Tatler Decorating

Company of Trenton, New Jersey. The gift to the Smithsonian

was made by Mary M. Cohen, president of the Sisterhood of

Mikveh Israel, through Cyrus Adler, who was a lifelong

member of the synagogue.

Mikveh Israel is one of the oldest congregations in the

United States; its history dates back to the colonial era. From its

inception, Mikveh Israel played a leading role in the growth

and development of the American Jewish community, and

many important Jewish figures have been associated with this

congregation.

.

'

mf "H

NMAH 216162, neg. no. 92-13071

Ketubbah

NMAH 216162; ace. no. 39535

Livorno, Italy, 1719

Ink, gouache, and gold leaf on parchment

H 94 cm, W 59 cm

Bequest of S.S. Howland, 1902

Negative numbers 92-13071, 92-13072

Wednesday, the fourth of Tammuz, 5479 (23 June 1719)

Groom: David son of Abraham Rodriguez Miranda

Bride: Esther daughter of Moses Franco

Dowry: 8,500 pezze, with increment of 12,750 pezze

The Jewish community in Livorno dates to 1593, when the

Medici rulers, who were to transform the town into Tuscany's

major port, invited Jews to settle there. The Jews were accorded

many rights and privileges they did not enjoy elsewhere,

including self-jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases!
NUMBER 52 135

NMAH 216162, neg. no. 92-13072

Moreover, Livorno had no walled ghetto. Marranos, the hidden

Jews whose ancestors had fled the Inquisition in Spain, were

also welcomed.

The prosperity of the Jewish community is evidenced in the

elaborate ornamentation of many Livorno ketubbot. As is often

the case with these documents, this particular marriage contract

is richly decorated and includes the tenaim, betrothal conditions, as well as the ketubbah text. The conditions listed here

are standard for Livorno ketubbot, including stipulations

covering divorce and death.' The groom signed in Italian. The

elaborate signatures of the witnesses have not been deciphered.

The text is framed by a baroque gabled facade. On the frieze

above the text is the standard phrase, "With a good sign and

favorable fortune." Columns on high pedestals appear on either

side of the text. Each pedestal is inscribed with Hebrew verses

recalling biblical figures, namesakes of the bride and groom.

On the right: "And David had great success in all his ways, and

the Lord was with him" (1 Samuel 18:14). On the left: "Esther

obtained favor in the sight of all that looked upon her" (Esther

2:15).

The gable displays two trumpeting angels on a balustrade.

Set between them are emblems representing the families. On

the right are two leopards holding a crowned shield containing

a single spiral column; on the left is a fountain on a purple

ground. In the niche above is an original Hebrew poem about

the bravery of David and the beauty of Esther. The gable is

crowned with an ornate cartouche containing the monograms of

the bride and groom. On the bottom margin is "And their seed

shall be known [among the nations]" (Isaiah 61:9).

S.S. Howland, who resided in Washington, D.C., traveled

widely and was an avid collector. It is not known how this

ketubbah came into his possession. Howland formed a

collection of Buddhist religious art, which was given to the

Smithsonian in 1904. It is notable that in the introduction to the

catalog of Howland's collection, Casanowicz indicates that

"most of the objects were obtained by him from their original

possessors."2 The implication is that the objects' documentation had been properly collected.

Notes:

'The five standard clauses are listed in Sabar, Ketubbah, page 109.

2

Immanuel Casanowicz, "A Description of the S.S. Howland Collection."

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 139.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 60.
136 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 168312

Hanukkah lamp

NMAH 168312; ace. no. 28093

Italy, seventeenth or eighteenth century

Bronze

H 21.6 cm, W 21.6 cm, D 6.4 cm

Gift of Samuel B. Dean, 1894

Negative number 92-13275

Among the many types of Hanukkah lamps developed in

Italy during the Renaissance, there is a distinct group that was

influenced by architectural models. This example is representative of lamps with the backwall designed as a portal or gateway.

The rounded arch also is associated with ancient Jewish

architectural tradition symbolic of the Holy Temple in

Jerusalem.1 The flat backwall serves as a reflector for the

Hanukkah lights.

This lamp came into the Smithsonian as part of a larger

collection of heating and lighting devices presented by Samuel

B. Dean of Arlington, Massachusetts.

Notes:

'Landau, Architecture in the Hanukkah Lamp, page 8, figure 27. In her

discussion of the architectural models, Landau cites the Church of San Andrea

in Mantua as a paradigm.

Jonas Friedenwald tribute document

NMAH 285049.1; ace. no. unknown

Wolf Heller

Safed, Eretz Yisrael, late nineteenth century

Ink, gouache, and metallic paint on paper

H 54 cm, W 57.5 cm

Negative numbers 92-13113, 92-13114

This tribute document in honor of Jonas (Jonah) Friedenwald

(1803-1893) was made in Safed by Wolf Heller. The

composition includes the conventional nineteenth-century

representations of Jerusalem and other holy sites in Eretz

Yisrael.

In the upper half, two rampant lions support a sevenbranched menorah. Each of the lions stands on a building (to

the right, Rachel's tomb; to the left, the tomb of Rabbi Meir

Ba'al HaNes).1 In the lower half are the Western Wall and the

Temple Mount, to the right, and the tomb of Rabbi Simeon Bar

Yochai,2 to the left. A delicate flowering vine frames the

illustration.

Friedenwald, who was born in Germany, settled in Baltimore

in 1832. He became a successful businessman and was well

known for his philanthropic deeds. Friedenwald was a founder

of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and of the Chizuk Amuno

Congregation. The congregation honored him on his ninetieth

birthday with a celebration attended by many dignitaries,

including Sabato Morais and Benjamin Szold, who was a

featured speaker.3

The maker of the document, Wolf Heller, was the grandson

of Samuel Heller, who had served as chief rabbi of the Hasidic

community in Safed, Eretz Yisrael. Ironically, Samuel Heller

was the author of Sefer Taharat ha-Kodesh, published in 1864,

which condemned the use in synagogues of illustrations of

humans or animals.

The original accession records for this object have been lost.

It may have been a gift of Jonas Friedenwald1 s grandson, Harry

Friedenwald.

Notes:

'Rabbi Meir Ba'al HaNes was a second-century scholar (tanna), a student of

Rabbi Akiva, and the husband of the learned Beruriah. He traveled widely, and

it was he who expressed the concept "When in Rome, do as the Romans do"

(Genesis Rabbah XLV1II). His tomb, near Tiberias, became known as a site of

miraculous deeds.

2Rabbi Simeon Bar Yochai was a second-century scholar, one of the five

students of Rabbi Akiva who survived the Bar Kochba revolt. According to

tradition, he was buried in Meron, and a popular festival is held there each Lag

B'Omer.

3A.L. Levin, Vision: A Biography of Dr. Harry Friedenwald (Philadelphia:

Jewish Publication Society, 1964), pages 138-140.
NUMBER 52

137

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3XT

WOLE HELLER, s

NMAH 285049.1, neg. no. 92-13113

LF HELLER, s

NMAH 285049.1, neg. no. 92-13114
138 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Prayerbook for the military

NMAH 300827; ace. no. 61648

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1917

Printed on paper; bound in cloth

H 15.7 cm, W 10.5 cm

Gift of Cyrus Adler, 11 October 1917

A small pocket-sized Abridged Prayer Book for Jews in the

Army and Navy of the United States was published by the

Jewish Publication Society during World War II. The prayerbook contains daily and festival prayers, as well as American

patriotic hymns, prayers in English for the government, and a

Jewish calendar for 1917-1920.

Bible for the military

NMAH 302600; ace. no. 62178

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1918

Printed on paper; bound in cloth

H 13 cm, W 9 cm

Gift of Cyrus Adler, 28 March 1918

A year after publishing the prayerbook for those serving in

the United States military, the Jewish Publication Society

issued Readings from the Holy Scriptures for Jewish Soldiers

and Sailors. The Readings contains portions from the

Pentateuch, Prophets, Psalms, and other books of the Bible.

Cyrus Adler was a founder of the Jewish Publication Society

and an integral member of its editorial board, which spent

nearly a quarter-century preparing an English translation of the

Hebrew Bible. The project was initiated in 1893, and the JPS

Holy Scriptures was finally issued in 1917. The Readings were

excerpted from the new translation.

Mizrah

NMAH 314398; ace. no. 64944

Albert Pike

Richmond, Virginia, 1862

Ink on paper

H 88.6 cm, W 64.7 cm

Gift of Mrs. Simon Kann, 1920

Negative numbers 92-13078-92-13080

The Albert Pike mizrah is a tour de force of integration of

text and image, created primarily with micrographic script.

Included is the entire book of Genesis and a selection of verses

from the prayerbook and the Bible that refer to daily ritual,

ethical behavior, and charity. It also happens that the origin of

this mizrah is rather controversial.

When the mizrah was acquired in 1920 from the daughter of

the maker, it was recorded that this work had been made by her

father when he was 16 years old and that it was a Judaic item.

In fact, when the museum acquired a printed copy of the mizrah

(NMAH 154417) from Aaron Friedenwald in 1890, it was

presumed to be of Jewish provenance, and it appeared in

several museum publications as such. Subsequent research

reveals that it is very likely that the Albert Pike who made this

mizrah was not Jewish but was obsessed with mysticism and

ancient texts.

Albert Pike was born in 1809 near Boston. His father,

Benjamin, was a ne'er-do-well cobbler, and his mother, Sarah

Andrews Pike, was a deeply pious woman whose mission

became to protect her son from his father's influence. It was her

goal that he become a minister, and she read to him daily from

the Bible. As a young man, Pike was sent to live with an uncle,

who was to prepare him to enter Harvard. Pike studied Hebrew,

Latin, and Greek, and in fact he passed the junior-year exam

with ease. His Harvard career went awry when the university

insisted that he retroactively pay for the freshman and

sophomore years as well. Because he could not afford the

tuition, Pike went into a frenzy of rebellious activity and was

soon dismissed from the university.

Like many others of his generation who sought adventure,

Pike headed west to the frontier in 1831. When his funds ran

out, he started teaching school at Fort Smith, Arkansas, then

worked on a newspaper and began to study law. In 1834 he

married and settled down to practice in Little Rock, Arkansas.

With money from his wife, he purchased the newspaper where

he had worked, and he became active politically. Pike became

the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted

Scottish Rite and was known as the "Second Creator" and

"Moses" of the rite and the "master genius" of Freemasonry.1 It

is noteworthy that unlike in some European countries in which

Masonry was based on Christian principles and therefore no

Jews were admitted, in the United States there were Jews active

in Masonry from the eighteenth century on.

Although Pike's fascination with ancient rites makes it

plausible that he made the mizrah, the timing is something of a

mystery. Pike signed the work twice: in Hebrew he wrote,

"Abraham, son of Moses, 5622 [1862]," and in English he

wrote, "Designed and executed by A. Pike, Richmond, January

6, 1862."2 At that time Pike, who had been involved with

Native Americans since his foray to the West, was appointed

the Confederacy's commissioner of Indian affairs and brigadier

general in command of Indian regiments. It is difficult to

imagine Pike doing the precision work needed to produce this

work while serving in this position.

Ironically, in March 1862, two months after this work was

completed, Pike unwillingly led his troops into battle in Pea

Ridge, Arkansas. Some of the Indians under his command

mutilated the Union dead, and Pike revealed the atrocities in a

letter of apology to the Union commander, an act that caused

Pike's life to unravel. Within several months he was relieved of

his position, his property was confiscated by Union soldiers,

and his marriage disintegrated. In an attempt to grapple with

these overwhelming events, he fled to the Ozark Mountains and

began an intensive, obsessive study and translation of classic
NUMBER 52 139

Lvi

liil

i:^_

NMAH 314398, neg. no. 92-13080

t%mjlif ago % Mfe"

NMAH 314398, neg. no. 92-13078

ancient religious texts, including those of the kabbalah.

The authorship of the work may never be definitely

proven—was it indeed this Albert Pike, or perhaps another,

Jewish Albert Pike who lived in Richmond, Virginia?

Whichever Albert Pike made it was a master artisan and very

well versed not only in the Bible but in Jewish liturgy also.

Notes:

'The primary source for Pike's history is Mark C. Carnes, Secret Ritual and

Manhood in Victorian America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989),

pages 134ff. I am grateful to David Shayt for making the discovery about Albert

Pike. There are a number of mizrahs that were made in the United States in the

second half of the nineteenth century that incorporate Masonic symbols; these,

however, have a known Jewish provenance. See Alice M. Greenwald, "The

Masonic Mizrah and Lamp: Ritual Art as a Reflection of Cultural

Assimilation," Journal of Jewish An, volume 10 (1984), pages 87-101.

2

ln heavy ink at the bottom of the mizrah is "Copyright 1890 by A. Pike,"

apparently added so printed copies could be made.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 155 (NMAH 154417).

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum,'' nos. 67 and 70.

•

NMAH 314398, neg. no. 92-13079
140 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 314490

Mizrah

NMAH 314490; ace. no. 65066

Aaron Pasmanik

United States, dated 1882-1883

Ink and watercolor on paper; applied gilt border

H 46 cm, W 38 cm

Bequest of Henry S. Hartogensis, 1920

Negative number 92-13081

Mizrah literally means "east." The custom of signifying the

eastern wall, which symbolically indicates the direction of

prayer toward Jerusalem, developed in Ashkenazi communities. Although frequently the maker of a mizrah is unknown, it

is interesting that there are a number of nineteenth-century

examples made in the United States for which the artist has

been identified,1

This mizrah incorporates elements from the Holy Temple. A

portal effect is created by two columns, likely representing the

pillars Jakhin and Boaz, which flanked the temple entrance, and

an inscription with the four-letter name of God and a section

from Psalms 113:3: "From the rising sun unto the going down

thereof."

The fanciful capitals of the columns, with segmented circles

and C scrolls forming a heart, are akin to American folk art

designs.

In the center of the mizrah is the portable Ark of the

Covenant, which according to tradition held the two stone

tablets with the Ten Commandments. Here the image of the

Decalogue is superimposed on the ark and is surmounted with

a six-pointed star containing the inscription "From this

direction [i.e., the east] is the spirit of life." The initial letters of

the words of this Hebrew phrase create the acronym mizrah.

Below the ark is a seven-branched menorah with Hebrew

letters above each branch abbreviating the verse "The seven

lamps shall give light in front of the candlestick" (Numbers

8:2). At the base of the menorah is a heart-shaped medallion

with a Hebrew inscription in micrographic script: "Aaron

Pasmanik, shohet and examiner, 5543 [1882-1882]."

It is not known how Hartogensis came into possession of the

mizrah. Casanowicz identified Baltimore as the source of the

mizrah, but it is possible he just made that association

because Hartogensis was from Baltimore. Casanowicz cited the

date of the mizrah as 1876, which appears to be incorrect.2

Henry S. Hartogensis was born in 1829 in s'Hertogenbosch,

Holland, and came to America at age 19.3 In Holland his family

had been in banking, and when he settled in Baltimore, he

began a financial stationery business. Later he and his sons

were in the sporting goods business. He was extraordinarily

active in communal affairs and was well known for his

benevolent acts. Hartogensis was a founder of several

synagogues, among them Chizuk Amuno, which he helped

establish with his friend, Jonas Friedenwald. Hartogensis was

manager of the Hebrew Free Burial Society for over 25 years

and served as an officer of the Society for the Education of Poor

and Orphaned Hebrew Children (Hebrew Education Society),

as well as serving for 35 years as secretary of his lodge of the

Knights of Pythias, doing much to aid widows, orphans, and

the sick.

Notes:

'For several examples, see N.L. Kleeblatt and G. Wertkin, The Jewish

Heritage in American Folk Art (New York: Jewish Museum and Museum of

American Folk Art, 1986), nos. 26, 38, 46, 49, 51, 60, and 61.

2Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 68.

'Information on Henry S. Hartogensis is from Isidor Blum, The Jews of

Baltimore (Baltimore: Historical Review Publishing Co., 1910), pages

281-285, and Matthew Page Andrews, Tercentenary History of Maryland,

volume 3 (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1925), page 512.

Bibliography::

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 68.
NUMBER 52

141

NMAH 314492

Micrographic illustration

NMAH 314491; ace. no. 65066

Hilel Braverman

France, mid-nineteenth century

Lithograph

H 36 cm, W 30.5 cm

Bequest of Henry S. Hartogensis, 1920

The art of micrography, of writing minute script into

geometric or representational imagery, has its roots in

antiquity, growing out of a tradition of using the written word

as decoration.' There are basically two types of micrography

that have been used in items of Judaica. The first category is

similar to calligrams, which were used in ancient Greece and by

the early Christians; the design is shaped by using unequal lines

of text. The second group, which is distinctly Jewish, uses

minute script to completely draw the images.

In this illustration, the image of King David playing a lyre is

drawn in micrographic script using the text of Psalms 107-150.

This identification is given in a French inscription: "Portrait du

Roi David / contenant Ie cinquieme livre des Psaumes / Ecrit en

petits caracteres par Mr. Hilel Braverman."2

Notes:

'L. Avrin, Micrography as Art (published in one volume with C. Sirat, La

lettre hebraique et sa signification (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche

Scientifique, 1981)), pages 43-63, gives a succinct history and techniques of

micrography in Jewish art.

2

Ibid., no. 95b.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 69.

Torah pointer

NMAH 314492; ace. no. 65066

Germany (?), nineteenth century

Ivory, metal chain

L 27.4 cm (pointer)

Bequest of Henry S. Hartogensis, 1920

Negative number 92-13011

This Torah pointer is embellished with a narrow band of

lotus flowers in the middle of the shaft and a wide band of

alternating beaded and rectangular panels. A band of palmettes

adjoins the hand of the pointer, which simulates a fist, with

knuckles and nails articulated in the ivory.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 10.
14

2 SMITHSONIA

N STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 314493

Purim charity plaques

NMAH 314493 and NMAH 314494; ace. no. 65066

Baltimore, Maryland, late nineteenth century or early twentieth

century

Painted tin

H7.1 cm, W 13.4 cm

Bequest of Henry S. Hartogensis, 1920

Negative number 92-13038

These plaques were used as part of the effort to raise money

for the poor during the Purim holiday, a custom that derives

from verse 9:22 in the Scroll of Esther: "They were to observe

them as days of feasting and merrymaking, and as an occasion

for sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor."

Possibly the plaques were used as signs on a tzedakah box for

collection of money or as some sort of token at a fund-raising

event, typically a Purim masquerade ball.

1

 A Purim Associa-

tion to sponsor a yearly gala to raise funds for charitable causes

was organized in Baltimore by Joseph Friedenwald in 1868.

One of these plaques is inscribed in Hebrew with "ma 'ot

Purim" ("Purim money") and the second with "mahzit shekel"

("a half-shekel"). Using the term shekel provided a biblical

link. Described in Exodus 30:11-15, the half-shekel was

originally a type of tax to be paid by each Israelite over 20 years

of age to provide funds to maintain the sanctuary and the

priests. Additionally, a reference to shekalim is made when the

wicked Haman offered a substantial sum of money to King

Ahasuerus for the Jews (Esther 3:9).

Notes:

'The Warshaw Collection in the National Archives Center contains two

contemporaneous items from Purim balls: a program, the "Purim Gazette,"

from an event held at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on 10 March

1887, sponsored by the Young Men's Association of Temple Beth El; and a

ticket for a charity ball in aid of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, under

the management of the Purim Association, also held at the Metropolitan Opera

House, on 28 February 1888. For several other examples from this period, see

also S. Epstein, ed., Purim: The Face and the Mask (New York: Yeshiva

University museum. 1979), nos. 274-278.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," nos. 44, 45.
NUMBER 52 143

NMAH 326825

Seder plate

NMAH 326825; ace. no. 83695

Germany, eighteenth century

Pewter; hallmarks: MD, unidentified mark on rim (heraldic

shield with crescent, star, heart, and IA)

Gift of Miss L. Lieberman, 1924

Negative number 92-13036

The inscriptions and decorations on this plate seem to have

been added at a later date. On the cavetto are the Hebrew

inscriptions "Priest, Levite, Israelite" and "Solomon Lev,

Hanan Engelmeyer, Baltimore, Abraham, Belah, Judah son of

Solomon, M.H.F."1 The names appear to have been added at

different stages, and not by a single engraver.

Along the rim is the order of the Passover seder. Some of the

words are enclosed within frames. Some of the Hebrew may

have been added after the inscription about the seder service, as

these words cover the touch mark and the letters MD, which

may have been the original owner's mark.

Notes:

'A similar monogram is found on NMAH 130299.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 32.

Ketubbot

NMAH 326826 and NMAH 326827; ace. no. 83695

Baltimore, Maryland, 1839

Ink on parchment

Gift of Miss L. Lieberman, 1924

NMAH 326826: H 20 cm, W 16.5 cm

NMAH 326827: H 20.2 cm, W 17.3 cm

NMAH 326826

Groom: Yom Tov son of Nathan

Bride: Yutla daughter of Rabbi Naftali

Witness: Zvi son of Judah and Abraham (?)

NMAH 326827

Groom: David son of Moses

Bride: Beila daughter of Hirsch

Witnesses: Hayyim son of Naftali and (?)

Two weddings held on Sunday the 14th of Tishre 5600 (22

September 1839) are documented with these ketubbot from

Baltimore. The ketubbot were written by the same scribe, who

is unknown.

In addition to the seder plate and the two ketubbot, Miss

Lieberman also donated a passport from Bremen dated 1834,

which unfortunately is now missing.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," nos. 61, 62.
144

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMNH 217676 NMNH 217677

Torah tiq with rimmonim

NMNH 217676,217677; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Probably Tunisia, nineteenth century

Case: Wood with gesso, paint, and gilt; metal barrel and pin

hinges

Finials: Wood with gesso, paint, and gilt

Case: H 88 cm, D 36 cm

Finials: H 41.6 cm, D 9.7 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

Negative numbers 92-13001, 92-13002

The practice of using a tiq (a case) for the Torah scroll is

widespread among Jewish communities in Asia and North

Africa. Scholars have traditionally identified the origin of this

tradition as dating to the tenth century in Iraq.1 The earliest

documentary evidence is found in the lists of the Cairo

Genizah, dating from between the tenth and twelfth centuries.2

Graphic examples from illuminated manuscripts from Spain of

the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries depict both tiqim and

Torah mantles in use.

According to Jewish law, the sacred Torah scroll is to be

protected and adorned, and the tiq serves both of these

functions. Generally the tiq is made of wood, but it is often

overlaid with silver or fabric with silver appliques. The Torah

scroll is read in the synagogue with the tiq remaining in an

upright position on the reader's stand. The scroll is not removed

from the case.
NUMBER 52 145

This case is polygonal, divided into 12 panels. The

decoration is composed of floral borders surrounding panels

embellished with two vertical garlands composed of floral

lozenges and vines. The crest of the case is openwork, made up

of vertical fleurs-de-lis overlaid with floral lozenges, representing the keter Torah, crown of the Torah. The rimmonim have

spiral shafts and central acanthus leaf knops; the body is

composed of vertical scrolls of acanthus leaves and rosettes.

The interior of the case is painted with floral motifs.

According to the original accession records, this tiq was

acquired in Tunis.3 The case bears some similarity to Sephardi

examples in Italy.4 A second tiq (NMNH 315221), similar in

type but in extremely poor condition, came into the museum in

the first Deinard loan in 1920.

There is a Torah scroll in the case that is clearly not original

to this tiq.

Notes:

'C. Roth, ed., Jewish Art: An Illustrated History, revised by B. Narkiss

(Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society, 1971), page 120.

2

S.D. Gotein, "The Synagogue Building and Its Furnishings According to the

Records of the Cairo Genizah," Erelz-Israel, volume 7 (1964), pages 79-97

(Hebrew).

included among the 25 items given by Mayer Sulzberger to the Jewish

Theological Seminary Library in 1904 were two tiqim. which were identified as

being from North Africa; S503 has an inscription with an 1820 date, and S508

has a date of 1832-1833. Like the Smithsonian's Torah case, both of these are

12-sided and are made of wood with gesso, paint, and gilt. It is not known

where or how Sulzberger acquired these tiqim, but it is certainly possible that

they were purchased from Deinard.

4Vivian B. Mann, ed., Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), no. 121, and Klagsbald,

Catalogue raisonne de la collection juive du Musee de Cluny, no. 122. It is

possible that this tiq may have been made in Italy for use in North Africa.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 20.

Haggadah

NMAH 217678; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

London, England, 1813

Printed paper and etchings; gold-tooled leather binding

H 24.3 cm, W 19.5 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

This haggadah for Passover, in Hebrew and Spanish

according to the Sephardi rite, was edited by Jacob Medula of

Amsterdam. There are seven etchings with scenes of the

Exodus, Mount Sinai, Jerusalem, and the Israelites wandering

in the desert. There are also five maps of the Exodus route,

Sinai, and Jerusalem. The haggadah was printed by L.

Alexander, London.1

Notes:

'Listed in A. Yaari, Bibliographia shel haggadol pesah (Jerusalem:

Bambergerand Vahrman, 1960), no. 381.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 74.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 28.
146 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Sukkah Decorations

After the Exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews wandered in the

Sinai Desert for 40 years. The central historical emphasis of the

festival of Sukkot is the remembrance of that experience and

the makeshift sukkot that provided them with shelter. In

celebration of Sukkot, a sukkah (booth) is built, in which,

according to Jewish law, one is to eat and even sleep during the

weeklong holiday. Sukkot also marks the autumn harvest

festival, and typically the sukkah is adorned with fruits and

vegetables as a sign of thanksgiving.

Special customs of decorating the sukkah have evolved in

different communities. In Italy in the eighteenth century, it

became the practice to embellish the sukkah with paper panels

illustrating themes and motifs pertinent to the holiday. Written

in series, with each verse or stanza on a separate panel, the texts

include both biblical passages and original verses. Because of

the ephemeral nature of these panels, which were subject to the

vicissitudes of the weather, very few of these sukkah

decorations have survived.1

The Smithsonian has a remarkable collection of these

decorations, representing eight different series of sukkah

panels. They vary in technique, from the work of folk artists to

professional craftsmanship. The sukkah panels are all from the

Deinard Collection. A number of the sukkah panels came into

the Smithsonian as part of a purchase from Deinard in 1902,

and it is presumed they were all in his possession by that time.

Though the exact provenance of the panels is unknown, it is

possible that the majority of them may even be from one

communal sukkah? A seventeenth-century responsum notes a

Sephardi custom of several families sharing a sukkah, which

was likely necessitated by the lack of space in the ghetto.3

Based on stylistic considerations and the spellings in some of

the poems, it has been suggested that the sukkah panels are

from the Piedmont province.4

Notes:

'See S. Makover, "The Iconographic Program of a Series of Italian Sukkah

Decorations," in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies

(Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1985), page 38.

2One group is clearly distinct from the rest in medium and style. The artist

and calligrapher of a second series has been identified as Israel David Luzzatto

from Trieste; items with catalog numbers NMAH 333966G, H, I, J, K, and O

are part of a set, with a single panel in the Jewish Museum in New York (S256),

which includes an inscription identifying Luzzatto (Kleeblatt and Mann,

Treasures of the Jewish Museum, pages 86-87).

3Makover, "The Iconographic Program," page 39.

4David Cassutto, long associated with the Italian Jewish Museum in

Jerusalem, reviewed the photographs of the sukkah panels and made this

observation.

Sukkah decorations with micrography

NMAH 217679, NMAH 217680, RSN 82631Z01; ace. no.

207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Italy, eighteenth century

Ink and gouache on vellum, with paper border, on wood board

NMAH 217679: H 75 cm, W 59 cm

NMAH 217680: H 60.5 cm, W 58 cm

RSN 82631Z01: H 59 cm, W 57 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

Negative numbers 92-13096, 92-13097

These three sukkah panels are substantially more elaborate

than other known examples. These are much larger in size than

the other panels; they are the only examples executed on

vellum; and they are composed of an intricate micrographic

program. These three form a series with two other panels in the

collection of .the Jewish Museum in New York.

The central motif of NMAH 217679 is the initial words of

the Ten Commandments set in a double arcade to represent the

Tablets of the Law. Above each column of text are two crowns.

A third, larger crown, labeled "crown of the Torah," appears

above the arcade, flanked by two birds. Together these crowns

refer to "the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood, and the

crown of kingship" (Ethics of the Fathers 4:17). All of the

decorative elements of the panel are formed with micrographic

script drawn from the text of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). The Book

of Ecclesiastes is read on the intermediary Sabbath of Sukkot.

The link between the Ten Commandments and Kohelet is

surely based on the last verse of the book: "Fear God and keep

His commandments" (Ecclesiastes 12:13).'

There is a similar sukkah panel with an architectural motif in

the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York (F5851).2 In

the New York panel, Psalm 76 is written within a monumental

arch. Psalm 76 is associated with Sukkot because of the phrase

in verse 3, "In Shalem also is his tabernacle [sukkah]." The

decorative elements, arch, flowers, and scrollwork are composed of verses from 1 Samuel 1:20, telling the story of

Jonathan and David; much of it is in micrography.

Inscribed in the center of NMAH 217680 is the verse "You

shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in

booths" (Leviticus 23:42). Two concentric circles composed of

Hebrew script from Leviticus 23:40-44 form a medallion

around the inscription. Between the circles is a frieze of

fleurons and semicircles outlined with micrographic text from

Shir haShirim (Song of Songs). This text is continued in the

scroll tendrils in each corner. Along the borders is the Hebrew

text of Proverbs 6:12-18.

RSN 82631Z01 is identical in decorative program to NMAH

217680. Inscribed in the center is the verse "After the

ingathering from your threshing floor and your vat... you shall

hold the Feast of Booths for seven days." The remaining texts

are from Proverbs. Forming the concentric circles is the text of

Proverbs 11:30 and 12:10; within the circles are verses from

Proverbs 15; and along the outside borders is the text of

Proverbs 14:20. The scrolling tendrils contain text from various

sections of Proverbs as well.
NUMBER 52

147

NMAH 217679, neg. no. 92-13097

NMAH 217679, neg. no. 92-13096

A sukkah panel with the same iconographic program is in the

collection of the Jewish Museum in New York (S1443). The

texts on the Jewish Museum panel include Leviticus 23:42 in

the central medallion, surrounded by Leviticus 23:40-44 and

Deuteronomy 16:13. The panel also includes the Book of Ruth

within the concentric circles and in the upper left comer. The

text in the other corners is Proverbs chapters 8-11, and the

border inscription is from Proverbs 11:24-30.3

Notes:

'The observation is from Makover, "The Iconographic Program," page 42.

2This sukkah panel is described in comparison to the Smithsonian panel

NMAH 217679 in Mann, Gardens and Ghettos, no. 109.

3New York Jewish Museum, Gardens and Ghettos, no. 108, pages 260ff.

Gabriel Goldstein, author of the catalog entry on the New York panel,

conjectures that because there are panels in this group with the Song of Songs

(NMAH 217680), read on Passover, and the Book of Ruth (S1443), read on

Shavuot, as well as Ecclesiastes (NMAH 217679), read on Sukkot, there may

originally have been other panels with texts from the other megillot (scrolls),

Esther and Lamentations. In developing his theory, Goldstein overlooked the

text of the third panel with the same program (RSN 82631Z01), which quotes

Proverbs and not one of the megillot.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 107.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 36.

.A* JEM *lift*» -£» S._

RSN 82631Z01
148 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH217682A

NMAH217681A

Sukkah decorations

NMAH 217681A-D; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Italy, nineteenth century

Watercolor, gouache, metallic paint, and applique on paper

NMAH 217681 A: H 19.9 cm, W 27.3 cm

NMAH 217681B: H 20.1 cm, W 27.9 cm

NMAH 217681C: H 20.1 cm, W 27.8 cm

NMAH 217681D: H 19.6 cm, W 27.4 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13098 (NMAH 217681 A)

The four cardinal directions, east, west, north, and south, are

marked by this series of sukkah panels. Each of the

designations is calligraphed in the center of the panel within a

border of a flowering vine, with clusters of four-petaled rosettes

and pomegranates, and with composite flowers in each corner.

The plaques are edged with a narrow strip of applied paper

painted with metallic paint to resemble a bronze frame. The

lettering seems to have been overpainted at a later date.

This series is similar in materials and style to the series

NMAH 217682A-C, NMAH 333966S/T, and NMAH 217684,

inscribed with Psalm 76, as well as to sukkah panel NMAH

333966W, which has the Hebrew blessing "And blessed shall

you be in your goings" (Deuteronomy 28:6).

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 107.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 36.

Sukkah decorations

NMAH 217682A-C, NMAH 333966S,T

Italy, nineteenth century

Watercolor, gouache, metallic paint, and applique on paper

NMAH 217682A: H 29.4 cm, W 41 cm

NMAH 217682B: H 29 cm, W 41 cm

NMAH 217682C: H 29.7 cm, W 44.2 cm

NMAH 333966S: H 29.5 cm, W 41.3 cm

NMAH 333966T: H 29.5 cm, W 41.4 cm

NMAH 2I7682A-C: Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

NMAH 333966SJ: Loan, January 1927, Deinard Collection;

ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 94763)

Negative number 92-13099 (NMAH 217682A)

These sukkah panels feature a strange doggerel in six parts

about clearing rats out of the sukkah. Each of the verses is

numbered. The central inscription is enclosed within an oval. A

flowering vine, with tulips, carnations, and roses, forms a wide

border. Composite flowers are in each corner. Details of the

flowers are highlighted in gold paint, as is the simulated frame.

Panels NMAH 217682A and B have two C-scroll cartouches in

the middle of the upper and lower border. These all have the

identical inscription "My help comes from the Lord who made

heaven and earth" (Psalms 121:3).

This series is similar in materials, design, and script to

NMAH 217681A-D, NMAH 217684, and NMAH 333966W.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 107.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 36.
NUMBER 52 149

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Sukkah decorations

NMAH 217683A-C; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 94763)

NMAH 333966L-N; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Italy, nineteenth century

Ink, watercolor, gouache, and metallic paint on paper

H 31 cm, W 43 cm (each panel)

NMAH 217683A-C: Loan, January 1927, Deinard Collection

NMAH 333966L-N: Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13105 (NMAH 333966L)

This series is composed of six sukkah panels, each

containing an original celebratory rhyming poem about Sukkot.

The verses build to a climax, the final line stating: "A redeemer

will He bring, as the prophet says, and raise up the tabernacle

of David that is fallen" (Amos 9:11). The verses of the poem

are set within a vine scroll adorned with carnations, roses, and

tulips. A composite flower is in the middle of each side of the

vine.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 107.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 36.

Sukkah decoration

NMA H 217684; ace. no 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Italy, nineteenth century

Watercolor, gouache, metallic paint, and applique on paper

H 43 cm, W 29.5 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13100

On this single sukkah panel, the text of Psalm 76 is set in an

NMAH 217684

aedicule of spiral columns with garlands of laurel leaves. The

columns are carried on consoles in the form of caryatids. There

is also a mask set into each of the capitals. Atop each column

is a vase bearing an elaborate composite flower. The pediment

of the aedicule is formed by a lozenge intersected with scrolls

and flanked by two peacocks. In addition, there are paper-cut

appliques in the form of scroll-like emblems, painted to

simulate gold. The panel is edged with a narrow strip of applied

paper, painted to resemble a metal frame.

This panel is similar in materials, design, and script to

NMAH 217681, NMAH 217682A-C, and NMAH 333966S,

T, W.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 107.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 36.
150 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 333966C NMAH 333966H

Sukkah decorations

NMAH 333966A-F; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 94763)

Italy, nineteenth century

Watercolor and gouache on paper

NMAH 333966A: H 32 cm, W 43 cm

NMAH 333966B: H 32 cm, W 43.2 cm

NMAH 333966C-E: H 32 cm, W 42.5 cm

NMAH 333966F: H 32.5 cm, W 43 cm

Loan, January 1927, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13103 (NMAH 333966C)

This series is characterized by the inclusion of images of the

arba minim, the four species of plant used on Sukkot, as

prescribed in Leviticus 23:40: "You shall take the product of

hadar trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and

willows of the brooks, and you shall rejoice before the Lord

your God seven days."

Motifs representing these species are in the four comers;

each is labeled for identification.1 Along the right and left sides,

in the middle, is an image of the lulav, the palm branch bound

together with the myrtle and willow. A six-pointed star is at the

center of the bottom border. The simple lettering and

rudimentary handling of the imagery suggests that this series is

the work of a folk artist, who may have copied some of the

motifs from another source.

The central motif of each panel is a Hebrew inscription

within an oval wreath. The inscriptions are as follows: NMAH

333966C, Leviticus 23:40;2 NMAH 333966A, Leviticus 23:42;

NMAH 333966B, Leviticus 23:43-44; NMAH 333966E,

"Blessed shall you be in your comings and"; NMAH 333966D,

"Blessed shall you be in your goings" (Deuteronomy 28:6);

NMAH 333966F, "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the

universe, who has granted us life and sustenance and permitted

us to reach this season."

Notes:

'Because these sukkah panels are in very poor condition, the images and

inscriptions are visible on only a few of them.

2The original catalog numbering of the panels was apparently done at

random, and they have been reordered here to follow the proper sequence.

Sukkah decorations

NMAH 333966G-K,O; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 94763)

Israel David Luzzatto

Trieste, Italy, c. 1775

Ink and watercolor on paper; linen canvas

NMAH 333966G: H 36.5 cm, W 49.6 cm

NMAH 333966H: H 35 cm, W 50 cm

NMAH 3339661: H 36 cm, W 57 cm

NMAH 333966J: H 36 cm, W 49.2 cm

NMAH 333966K: H 38.5 cm, W 50.1 cm

NMAH 333966O: H 50.5 cm, W 36 cm

Loan, January 1927, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13104 (NMAH 333966H)

This is the only group of sukkah decorations in the

Smithsonian's collection for which the maker has been

identified. The attribution to Israel David Luzzatto (1746-

1806) is based on a sukkah panel, clearly the work of the same

hand, in the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York.1

The New York panel is entirely different in format from the

Smithsonian group. Larger and more elaborate, the Jewish

Museum panel contains the entire book of Ecclesiastes written
NUMBER 52 151

in micrographic script in the form of an astrolabe. The

connection between the panels is based on the lettering and the

floral elements.

The six panels in the Smithsonian's collection are all the

same in composition, with a Hebrew inscription set within an

oval garland. The garland is formed of composite flowers

alternating with urns and oval medallions. Each medallion

contains a word, all of which together make up the quotation

"You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall

live in booths" (Leviticus 23:42). The central inscriptions are

verses from Psalm 76. There is no panel with verses from

Psalm 76:1-2, but it is possible that the series actually starts

with Psalm 76:3, which contains the reference that links this

psalm to Sukkot: "In Shalem also is his tabernacle."

Notes:

'The attribution was made by Vivian Mann in Kleeblatt and Mann, Treasures

of the Jewish Museum, page 86. The catalog number of this pane! in the Jewish

Museum is S256.

Bibliography:

Kleeblatt and Mann, Treasures of the Jewish Museum, page 86.

Sukkah decorations

NMAH 217685; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

NMAH 333966R; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 94763)

Italy, nineteenth century

Watercolor and gouache on paper

NMAH 217685: H 30.7 cm, W 45 cm

NMAH 333966R: H 31.5 cm, W 44.5 cm

NMAH 217685: Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

NMAH 333966R: Loan, January 1927, Deinard Collection

Each of these two panels is inscribed in calligraphic script

with a phrase from the verse "Blessed shall you be in your

comings and blessed shall you be in your goings." The

rectangular border is formed of a flowering vine. The script is

similar to that of the single panel NMNH T1155O with the

Hebrew word for "north." The script is also similar to what

appears to be overpainting on NMAH 217681A,B.

Sukkah decorations

NMAH 333966P,Q; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 94763)

Italy, nineteenth century

Watercolor, gouache, and applique on paper

H 32.5 cm, W 44.5 cm (both panels)

Loan, January 1927, Deinard Collection

Each of these sukkah panels is inscribed with a blessing set

within a large oval. The lines of the inscription are separated

from one another by a budding vine motif, and there are

fleurons in the four comers. The panel is edged in marbled

paper, simulating a frame.

The inscription on NMAH 333966P is the Shehehiyanu

blessing ("Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the

universe, for keeping us in life, for sustaining us, and for

helping us to reach this day"); that of NMAH 333966Q is the

blessing "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe,

who has sanctified us with the commandments, and commanded us to dwell in booths."

Sukkah decorations

NMAH 333966U,V; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 94763)

Italy, nineteenth century

Watercolor and metallic paint on paper

NMAH 333966U: H 26.9 cm, W 36.5 cm

NMAH 333966V: H 26.5 cm, W 36.5 cm

Loan, January 1927, Deinard Collection

The inscriptions on these two sukkah panels are set within an

oval frame with a cusped edge. In the corners are flowering

branches. The inscription on NMAH 333966U is Leviticus

23:2; on NMAH 333966V it is the Shehehiyanu blessing.

Synagogue laver

NMNH 217687; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Tunisia, nineteenth century

Pewter

H 15.9 cm, D (rim) 11.5 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

The cup is identified with a Hebrew inscription, partly

abbreviated, that reads "The Al-Fasi Synagogue, Tunis." In the

catalog description of this cup, the association is made by Adler

and Casanowicz with a laver used in the Tabernacle and

Temple for the ritual washing of the priests before entering the

sanctuary to offer sacrifices (Exodus 30:17-21). Adler and

Casanowicz noted the continuity of Jewish tradition with this

ancient rite, remarking, "Some synagogues have in the

vestibule a laver for the worshippers to wash their hands before

performing the prayer which has taken the place of sacrifices."'

Notes:

'Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in

the United States National Museum," pages 711-712.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 43.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 11.
152 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Amulets

As part of the 1902 purchase from Ephraim Deinard, the

museum acquired six manuscript amulets from Tunisia.

According to traditional belief, protection against the evil eye is

possible through the power of the shemot (the names of God),

the angels, and the use of various biblical verses. Deciphering

the inscriptions can be very difficult; not only is each amulet a

complex formulation of these elements, but also the shemot and

the verses are often written as abbreviations. Three devices are

generally used. Notarikon (from the Greek for "abbreviation")

uses the initial letters of the words alone, which is considered to

be equally effective as the complete citation. Temurah is

cryptic writing in which substitution is made by means of

various codes—for example, atbash, where the first letter of the

Hebrew alphabet, aleph, is substituted for the last, tof, the

second, bet, for the next to last, shin, and so on. Gematria is

based on the manipulation of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet

by means of numerical equivalents; thus, for example, Shaddai,

a name for God, has the same value as the name of the

archangel Metatron, which can then be cited.'

Immanuel Casanowicz was apparently fascinated by the

amulets; he researched the various biblical verses typically

used on amulets, investigated the forms of abbreviations, and

then carefully outlined (and in two cases diagrammed) the

amulets. Although very few of Casanowicz's research documents remain from his long career at the Smithsonian, his notes

and illustrations of the amulets were carefully maintained with

the objects.2 Casanowicz published his analysis of amulets in

two separate articles.3

Notes:

'T. Schrire, Hebrew Magic Amulets: Their Decipherment and Interpretation,

second edition (New York: Behrman House, 1982), pages 91-92.

2There are various correspondence files maintained at the Smithsonian

Institution Archives, and the few extant Casanowicz research files are in the

National Anthropology Archives.

'Immanuel Casanowicz, "Jewish Amulets in the United States National

Museum," Journal of the American Oriental Society, volume 36(1916), pages

154-167, and "Two Jewish Amulets in the United States National Museum,"

Journal of the American Oriental Society, volume 37 (1917), pages 43-56.

Amulet

NMNH 217688; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Tunisia, nineteenth century

Ink on parchment

H 34.3 cm, W 21.6 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

This amulet is apparently a standard item written by a scribe,

with spaces left blank for inserting the name of the person to be

protected. This was a common practice. Deinard may have

acquired this item directly from the scribe, because it was never

used.

ft

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Casanowicz research notes on amulets, (neg. no. 92-13122)

The text is written in two columns and in the form of a

menorah, a rectangle with a row of triangles, two squares (each

divided into 16 squares), and a circular medallion.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Two Jewish Amulets in the United States National Museum,"

pages 48ff., plate 2.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 176.

Amulets

NMAH 217689, NMAH 217690; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace.

no. 39909)

Tunisia, nineteenth century

Ink on parchment

NMAH 217689: H 34.3 cm, W 21.6 cm

NMAH 217690: H 23.3 cm, W 12.5 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

These two amulets were written for Daniel son of Berakhah

against evil spirits, sickness, the evil eye, and magic. It is
NUMBER 52 153

NMNH 217691

customary for the person's identification to include the

mother's name. Each of these amulets is a palimpsest, a reused

manuscript, with the name of the original person erased and

Daniel's name inserted. In both cases, text and drawings are

used in the formulary.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Two Jewish Amulets in the United States National Museum,"

pages 43ff.

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 177.

Amulet

NMNH 217691; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Tunisia, nineteenth century

Ink on parchment

H24.1cm,W24.1cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13115

This amulet was prepared for Deborah, daughter of Rachel.1

The dedication reads, "In this month of Kislev, in the name of

all, protect Deborah daughter of Rachel from all aches and

pains, both physical and mental, in all parts of her body."

In each corner there are squares divided into sixteen boxes,

including inscriptions written according to the methods of

notarikon and temurah. Along the border of the amulet and

between the four magical squares are seven-line inscriptions

with invocations to the divine name and to guardian angels.

The central portion is devoted to an elaborate geometric design

composed of micrographic script. The text includes verses of

Genesis 49:22, triads of the 42-letter name of God, and

variations of the divine name Shaddai.

Notes:

'A complete translation of this amulet was prepared by Nathan Snyder in

1976.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 179.

Casanowicz, "Jewish Amulets in the United States National Museum," page

161.

M.R. Josephy, Magic and Superstition in the Jewish Tradition (Chicago:

Maurice Spertus Museum of Judaica, 1975).
154 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

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NMNH 217692

Amulet

NMNH 217692; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Tunisia, nineteenth century

Ink on parchment

H 19 cm, W 20 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

Negative number 75-084

This amulet, made for Hannah daughter of Rachel, contains

an elaborate design in micrographic script. The shield-shaped

form is surmounted by a crown and surrounds a pear-shaped

element enclosing segmented circles. Along the outer borders

are the blessings of Aaron, the high priest (Numbers 6:24-26),

the dedicatory inscription, and a series of mystical names,

formulas, and psalms written in the kabbalistic system of

gematria and notarikon.

Bibliography:

Casanowicz, "Jewish Amulets in the United States National Museum," pages

154ff.

Adlerand Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 180.

Amulet

NMNH 217693; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Tunisia, nineteenth century

Ink and watercolor on paper

H45.1 cm, W 36.5 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

Negative number 78-16715

This folk-art amulet is to protect a woman in childbirth and

her newborn son.1 This amulet too is a "form," with the name

of the woman in childbirth still left blank in two places. The

bearer of the amulet is not indicated.

The central text contains invocations to God, the prophet

Elijah, and the patriarchs against Lilith; it also contains

passages from Psalms 91 and 120.2 Lilith is considered to be

the mother of all demons. According to Jewish mysticism, she

was created at the same time as Adam and was his first wife.

Because Lilith demanded equal rights, Adam rejected her.

Lilith deserted Adam and established her own kingdom. The

cruel Lilith destroyed her own progeny, and all of the children
NUMBER 52

155

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NMNH217693

of the daughters of Eve are susceptible to her evil ways. Baby

boys need protection against Lilith until their circumcision and

girls until they are 20 days old. After that time, her power to

destroy the child diminishes.3

In the upper margin there is a frieze with segmented circles

at each end; there are also three panels containing quotations

from Psalms 91:11 and Psalms 34:8 and the inscription "May

the witch not live." Between the panels are tulips. The lower

margin is composed of three squares. The two corner squares

each contain an octogram within a circle. The one on the right

contains the divine name Shaddai and the inscription "Who

guards the doors of Israel from all evil," which is an acronym

of Shaddai, the names of the archangels, and the names of the

patriarchs. On the left is the name Shaddai and the inscription

"Who guards the children of Israel from Lilith," the names of

Sanvai, Sansanvai, and Semanglof (the angels who were sent to

seize Lilith), and the reference "Adam and Eve to be included

and Lilith to be excluded [from the birthing room]." The central
156 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

square contains an image of hands in the priestly blessing with

the blessings of Aaron from Numbers 6:24-26.

Notes:

'For similar examples of folk-art amulets from North Africa, see A.

Miiller-Lancet, La viejuifau Maroc, nos. 82-84.

2This amulet was deciphered by Nathan Snyder in 1976.

3

Schrire, Hebrew Magic Amulets, pages 114-115.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 174.

The following three amulets were likely acquired by Deinard

at the same time and were accessioned into the Smithsonian's

collection as part of his later loans.

Amulet

NMAH 334040; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 95111)

North Africa, nineteenth century

Ink on cut-out parchment

H 12 cm, W 7.9 cm

Loan, 1927, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13109

This cut-out shiviti-type amulet, so called in reference to the

initial words of the verse from Psalms 16:8, "I have set [shiviti]

the Lord always before me," was written for Mayer son of

Reuben. On the upper portion is the quotation from Psalms

16:8. Below is the text of Psalms 67 in the form of a menorah.

Above the menorah, on either side, are schematic birds, and at

the base of the menorah are lion-like forms. Both the birds and

the lions are images typically used to refer to the cherubim that

were atop the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle (Exodus

25:18-22). Around the cut-out patterns and along the borders

are verses from Psalms 145, Deuteronomy 23:4, and Psalms

35:10. Several names of God are written below the menorah.

v

NMAH 334040

Amulet

NMAH 334039; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 95111)

North Africa, nineteenth century

Ink on parchment

H 16 cm, W 11.9 cm

Loan, 1927, Deinard Collection

This too is a shiviti-type amulet. Typically the verse from

Psalms 16:8 is accompanied by the entire text of Psalm 67, here

drawn in the form of a seven-branched menorah. Flanking the

menorah is the 22-letter name of God. On the right, bottom, and

left edges are the verses from Numbers 8:2, Numbers 18:13,

and Psalms 119:113.

Amulet

NMAH 1978.2106.1 (original Deinard Collection catalog

number unknown)

North Africa, nineteenth century

Ink on parchment

H17cm,W 15 cm

This is a shiviti-type amulet with Psalms 16:8 in the upper

margin and Psalms 67 in the form of a menorah below. Various

permutations of the divine name flank the menorah. Two

circles flanking the base of the menorah contain the rest of

Numbers 8:2 (right) and Leviticus 6:6 (left). On the lower

portion, in interconnecting triangles, is the 22-letter name of

God.
NUMBER 52 157

Italian Marriage Contracts and Divorce Documents

As part of the 1902 purchase from Ephraim Deinard, the

museum acquired a single-sheet draft of a get (a bill of divorce)

from Gorizia, Italy. The document was likely selected by Adler

in his effort to acquire a range of objects reflecting Jewish

customs and celebrations. In the subsequent Deinard accessions, the museum received other items from Gorizia, including

drafts of a betrothal contract, seven ketubbot (marriage

contracts), and another get.

Ketubbah draft

NMAH 315394A.51; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Gorizia, Italy, 1773

Ink on paper

H 38.2 cm, W 18 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

The first of Adar 5533 (24 February 1773)

Groom: Asher son of Dr. Isaac Luzzatto

Bride: Bilhah daughter of Moses Hefetz (Gentili), a widow

Draft of a bill of divorce

NMAH 217694; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Gorizia, Italy, 1825

Ink on paper

H 35.5 cm, W 22 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

This is a draft of a standard get, a bill of divorce, dated the

second of Adar 5585 (20 February 1825). The parties are

Solomon Hai son of Kalonymos and Rebecca daughter of

Abraham Hai Ha-Kohen. A second draft of this get, catalog

number NMAH 315394A.57, is also included in the collection;

the text contains a dittography and was thus void.

Ketubbah draft

NMAH 315394A.50; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Gorizia, Italy, 1762

Ink on paper

H 30 cm, W 20 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Friday the 12th of Heshvan 5523 (29 October 1762)

Groom: Moses son of Raphael (?) del Medigo (?)

Bride: Abigail daughter of Isaac Morpurgo

Ketubbah draft

NMAH 315394A.52; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Gorizia, Italy, 1776

Ink on paper

H 29.5 cm, W 20.7 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

The third of Adar 5536 (23 February 1776)

Groom: Jacob Hai son of Abraham Caravalho1

Bride: Sarah daughter of Hefetz Hefetz (Gentili)

Notes:

'See Daniel M. Friedenberg, "Now Rest in Peace Jacob Baruch Caravalho:

The Three-Century Diaspora of a Jewish Portrait," Jewish Art, volume 14

(1988), pages 56-63. In a letter written on 12 May 1989 to Elizabeth Kessin

Berman, Friedenberg indicates that, following the Sephardic custom of keeping

the same name in families, Jacob Hai and Jacob Baruch may have been from the

same family line. The letter is in the Judaica Reference File at the National

Museum of American History.

Ketubbah draft

NMAH 315394A.53; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Gorizia, Italy, 1783

Ink on paper

H 28.8 cm, W 21.1 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

The eighth of Elul 5543 (5 September 1783)

Groom: Jacob Hai son of Moses Hefetz (Gentili)

Bride: Rebecca daughter of Raphael Isaac Hefetz (Gentili)

Ketubbah draft

NMAH 334027; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 95111)

Gorizia, Italy, 1770

Ink on paper

H 28.8 cm, W 19.6 cm

Loan, February 1927, Deinard Collection

The 14th of Heshvan 5531 (2 November 1770)

Groom: Moses David son of Shemariyah Luzzatto

Bride: Eve daughter of Abraham Luzzatto

Ketubbah draft

NMAH 315394A.54; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Gorizia, Italy, 1795

Ink on paper

H 28.6 cm, W 19.6 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

The tenth of Heshvan 5556 (23 October 1795)

Groom: Mordecai son of David Ashkenazi

Bride: Gracia (or Bilhah, as the name is given later) daughter of

Samuel Luzzatto
158 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Draft of betrothal (tenaim)

NMAH 315394A.55; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Gorizia, Italy, 1776

Ink on paper

H 20.5 cm, W 20.3 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Adar 5536 (1776)

Groom: Aaron Hai (Vita) son of Isaac Morpurgo

Bride: Perla daughter of Joseph Perez

shofarot1 and perhaps for this reason offered this document as

part of the 1902 purchase.

Notes:

'The first article Adler wrote for a Smithsonian publication was a study of the

history of the shofar. Cyrus Adler, "The Shofar: Its Use and Origin," United

States National Museum Annual Report for 1891-1892 (Washington, D.C.:

Government Printing Office, 1894), pages 437-450.

Bibliography:

Adler and Casanowicz, "The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the

United States National Museum," no. 100.

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 35.

Ketubbah draft

NMAH 315394A.56; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Gorizia, Italy, 1776

Ink on paper

H 29.5 cm, W 20 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

The eighth of Tevet 5537 (18 December 1776)

This is a draft of the ketubbah for the couple mentioned in the

entry for NMAH 315394A.55.

Draft of a bill of divorce

NMAH 315394A.58; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Gorizia, Italy, 1825

Ink on paper

H 35.2 cm, W 21.6 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

The 28th of Sivan 5585 (14 June 1825)

The parties are Meir, called Emanuel, son of Benjamin

Ha-Levi, and Benevenuta daughter of Solomon Hai Ha-Levi.

Blessings for the shofar

NMNH 217695; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Tunisia, nineteenth century

Ink on vellum

H 36 cm, W 24.9 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

The blessings for the sounding of the shofar are accompanied by mystical interpretations of the significance of blowing

the shofar. Deinard likely knew of Cyrus Adler's interest in

Similar Torah Documents

Simhat Torah document

NMAH 217696; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 39909)

Italy, 1868

Ink on printed paper

H 25.5 cm, 16.7 cm

Museum purchase, 1902, Deinard Collection

This printed form is a document made to honor participants

in the celebration of Simhat Torah. On this holiday, the yearly

cycle of Torah reading is completed and then immediately

begun anew. The person given the honor of reciting the

blessing for the closing verses of the Torah is called hatan

Torah, "the bridegroom of the Law," and the person reading the

opening verses is called hatan bereshit, "the bridegroom of

Genesis."

The name of the hatan Torah is Shalom ibn Mordecai

Hayyim Castello. In the center of the document is a wreath

enclosing the Hebrew words hatan Torah. In a second wreath

is an oval cartouche with the inscription "The fourth hakafah

from the reader's desk to the ark / the carrying of the torch on

the day of Simhat Torah / Shalom ibn Moses Da Padova."

During the course of the service, there are seven hakafot,

processions around the synagogue. All of the Torah scrolls are

removed from the ark to be carried around during the

processions. After each hakafah, in the joyous spirit of the

holiday, it is customary to sing and dance with the scrolls.

The date is given in a chronogram at the bottom of the page.

There are four other examples of Simhat Torah documents in

the later Deinard accessions. Three are the same type of printed

form. It is not known why more than one hatan Torah is listed

for 1868, when normally only one person receives the honor.
NUMBER 52 159

Document for the hatan bereshit

NMAH 315394A.92; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Italy, 1867

Ink on printed paper

H 24.6 cm, W 17 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

The hatan bereshit is Jacob Solomon ibn... Shalomiel

Viterbo. The inscription reads: "The third hakafah I the

carrying of the third [Torah] scroll from the reader's desk to the

ark/ Moses Padovao [Da Padova (?)]."

Document for the hatan Torah

NMAH 315394A.93; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Italy, 1868

Ink on printed paper

H 25 cm, W 17 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

The hatan Torah is Shalom ibn ... Mordecai Hayyim Castello. The inscription reads: "The first hakafah from the

reader's desk to the ark / the carrying of the sixth scroll / Akiva

Da Padova."

Document for the hatan Torah

NMNHT-839 11-84, no. 53

Italy, 1867

Ink on printed paper

H 25 cm, W 16.5 cm

Loan, 1927, Deinard Collection

The hatan Torah is Abraham Hayyim Zephaniah Barozzi.

The inscription reads: "The second hakafah I the carrying of

the torch on the day of Simhat Torah / Bezalel Da Padova."

Document for the hatan Torah

NMAH 315394A.94; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Italy, 1852

Ink on printed paper

H 27.5 cm, W 19 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

This last hatan Torah document is also a printed form, but it

is of a different type and is earlier than the other examples. The

hatan Torah is Elijah ibn Abraham Isaac Shabbetai Hai [Vita].

The inscription reads: "The carrying of the sixth scroll during

the fourth hakafah I from the reader's desk to the ark / Joab

Joshua Tesoro."

The chronogram on this document was calculated by a

previous owner. JV 6 is written on the reverse, suggesting that

prior to its acquisition by Deinard it may have been part of

another private collection. There is also a calligraphic exercise

on the page.

Torah binder

NMAH 1978.2106.3 (orig. cat. no. NMAH 315208); ace. no.

207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Italy, late sixteenth or early seventeenth century

Linen with silk embroidery

L 412.6 cm, W 19 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

This Torah binder is woven in a simple flat weave in linen

and is embroidered with red silk in a punto scritto technique, so

called because the design looks like needle-stitch writing. The

use of punto scritto motifs was popular in Italy for secular and

church embroideries; they were used to decorate pillows,

clothing, house linens, and altar cloths.1 The design on this

binder is composed of interlocking and flowering S scrolls on

one edge and a simple band of floral clusters on the other side.

Notes:

'For a discussion of the punto scritto technique, see Cissy Grossman,

"Womanly Arts: A Study of Italian Torah Binders in the New York Jewish

Museum," Journal of Jewish An, volume 7 (1980), pages 35-43.
160 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 315209, neg. no. 92-13013

Torah binder for Rosh ha-Shanah

NMAH 315209; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Leonora Colorni

Italy, 1692-1693

Linen, silk thread

L 322.6 cm, W 8.2 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative numbers 92-13013, 92-13014

Italian Torah binders of such exceptional quality of design

and workmanship from the seventeenth century are extremely

rare. This Torah binder is especially important because the

dedication is for Rosh ha-Shanah, the maker is identified, and

the date is given. Ephraim Deinard knew it was an exceptional

piece and enthusiastically described it in detail in a letter to

NMAH 315209, neg. no. 92-13014

Immanuel Casanowicz dated 13 June 1913.'

The central section of the Torah binder has an overall repeat

design of flowers. The floral clusters, composed of ivory

carnations, blue and white lilies, ivory pomegranates or buds,

and a yellow lily are set in alternating rows. Interspersed are

motifs of yellow and blue rosettes. The border is scalloped,

containing alternating yellow rosettes and yellow lilies. Both

ends are decorated with identical designs but different

inscriptions. The inscriptions, including the name of the donor

and verses from Psalms 98:6 and Psalms 19:8, begin on one

end and continue on the other. One end begins with the

inscription "With trumpets and the sound of the horn" (Psalms

98:6). Below this are two shofarot, each flanked by a curved

trumpet,2 embellished with flowers. Between the shofarot is the

inscription "The Lord is my banner" (Exodus 17:15). Below

the shofarot is the inscription "The law of the Lord is perfect,

restoring the soul" (Psalms 19:8).

Arranged in two arches to identify the Tablets of the Law are

the initial words of the Ten Commandments. The first half of

the dedication follows: "For the honor of the Lord, the

honorable woman, Leonora, wife of Hananiah. ..." The other

end has the following inscriptions in the same pattern as the

first: "Raise a shout before the Lord, the King" (Psalms 98:6)

and "The teaching of the Lord is perfect, making wise the

simple" (Psalms 19:8). These verses are followed by the second

half of the dedication: "...Colorni, may God protect him, the

year 5453 [1692], according to the abbreviated count."
NUMBER 52 161

Notes:

'S1A, RU 305, "Registrar, 1834-1958, with Accretions to 1976," Box 1048.

2Mann, Gardens and Ghettos, no. 129. In identifying the curved form of the

trumpets as being typical of the seventeenth century, Vivian Mann cites Jeremy

Montagu, The World of Baroque and Classical Musical Instruments (Woodstock, N.Y.: 1979), figs. 46, 47.

Bibliography:

Mann, Gardens and Ghettos, no. 129.

Lion finial from a chair of Elijah

NMAH 315219; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Italy, eighteenth or nineteenth century

Wood with gesso and gilt

H 19.1 cm, W 7.6 cm, D 8.9 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13015

The prophet Elijah is described in Malachi 3:1 as the

"messenger of covenant [berit]." The term berit in this phrase

has traditionally been interpreted as the covenant of circumcision, hence the custom of providing a chair for Elijah at the

circumcision ceremony.'

The lion finial is a remnant of the backpost of an ornate chair

of Elijah from the Deinard Collection that was on display for

decades in the rotunda of the National Museum of Natural

History. Unfortunately, the chair has been lost since the 1960s.2

Notes:

'Three examples of a similar type of elaborately carved Italian chair of Elijah

are known, attributed by Vivian Mann to northern Italy (cited in Mann,

Gardens and Ghettos, page 267).

2Two circumcision chairs were included in the 1920 Deinard accession. A

letter dated 22 May 1920 from Casanowicz to W.H. Holmes, head curator of the

Department of Anthropology, indicates that Casanowicz intended to place the

chairs in the rotunda (SIA, RU 305, "Registrar, 1834-1958, with Accretions to

1976," Box 1048).

Bibliography:

Mann, Gardens and Ghettos, page 267. NMAH 315219
162 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 315222 and NMAH 315223

Torah crown and finials

NMAH 315222, NMAH 315223; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace.

no. 65324)

Conegliano, Italy, 1904-1905

Wood with gesso, paint, and gilt

Crown: H 25.5 cm, D 23.4 cm

Finials: H 24.5 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13008

This is an unusual set of Torah ornaments, carved in wood

and painted to simulate silver. The crown is constructed of four

upright staves. Four acorns are affixed to the top of the crown,

and four bands create three registers around the circumference.

The inscription in the middle register reads: "Gift of Moses,

firstborn son of Jacob Fano of Venice, to the holy congregation

of the synagogue of Conegliano, 5565 [1904-1905]." The

lower band is inscribed with the initial words of each of the Ten

Commandments (Exodus 20:2-14).

Each of the rimmonim is carved of a single piece of wood. At

the base of the shaft is a band of beading. The fluted shaft is

bound by cyma molding at the top and bottom. The body is

ornamented with egg and dart bands atop acanthus leaves. The

finial is a ball enclosed by palmettes. Inscribed in Hebrew on

the top of the shaft of each rimmon is the phrase "Tree of Life"

(Proverbs 3:18).

The earliest record of Jewish presence in Conegliano, in the

Veneto region in northern Italy, is in 1398.1 The first Jews were

moneylenders; later they were active as food and silk

merchants. Moneylending was prohibited in 1548. The

community was well established by 1560, although it was

always small. A ghetto was instituted in 1637 and abolished in

1797 with the arrival of the French army under Napoleon. By

1866 there were only about 30 Jews living there, most of whom

soon moved elsewhere.2

The magnificent synagogue, built in 1701, with its resplendent baroque ark, was in use until World War I. In 1918 only

seven Jews remained, and the synagogue was closed. In 1952

the entire contents of the building were moved to Israel and

reconstructed in the Italian Synagogue in Jerusalem.

The 1905 date for these objects, which seems to be indicated

on the crown, is puzzling because of the diminished Jewish

population at that time; there seems barely to have been a

minyan of ten in the town. Moreover, there is the question of

when Deinard could have procured the crown; his acquisitions

in Italy all seem to have been made prior to or during his 1902

trip.

Notes:

'This information is excerpted from a history of the Jewish community and

a description of the Conegliano synagogue by David Cassuto, "The Synagogue

of Conegliano Veneto," Ariel, volume 59 (1985), pages 68-81.

2Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Conegliano."
NUMBER 52 163

NMNH 315246

Synagogue shiviti plaque

NMNH 315229; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Eretz Yisrael, nineteenth century (?)

Limestone with bronze inlay

H 27.4 cm, W 24.1 cm, D 1.5 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

A shiviti plaque of this type would generally be mounted on

the wall of a synagogue. It is likely that Deinard acquired this

plaque from a synagogue that had fallen into disuse. The

complete inscription on this shiviti reads: "I have set the Lord,

blessed be He, blessed be His Name, before me always.

Jerusalem, may it be rebuilt and reestablished speedily and in

our own day."

Hanukkah lamp

NMNH 315246; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Iraq, nineteenth century

Brass

H 27.6 cm, W 45.7 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13018

This lamp incorporates motifs reflecting its Middle Eastern

origins. The overall architectural form of the back wall is that

of a facade of a domed building resting on four pillars, the

scalloped arch providing a decorative element. The crescent

moon and stars are apparently drawn from Islamic symbolism.

The hamsa, or hand (the root of the word in both Hebrew and

Arabic relates to "five") is a popular amuletic device among

both Jews and Moslems, used to banish evil powers. On this

lamp, the hamsa motif is used five times, thereby geometrically

increasing the power against the evil eye. On the largest hamsa

is an inscription in Hebrew: "Joseph is a fruitful vine" (Genesis

49:22). This quote is popular on amulets because of the allusion

in the second phrase of the verse, "A fruitful vine by a fountain

[ayin]." The Hebrew word for "eye" is also ayin; therefore the

text is thought to be a good protection against the evil eye.1

Glass cups, now missing, were used to hold the oil for

lighting the Hanukkah lamp.

Notes:

'Schrire, Hebrew Magic Amulets, page 114.

Bibliography:

Josephy, Magic and Superstition, page 128.
164 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 315280, NMAH 197g.2106.3A,B, NMAH 315282

Set of Torah ornaments

NMAH 315280, NMAH 1978.2106.3A,B (orig. cat. no.

315285), NMAH 315282; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no.

65324).

Franz Alexander (?)

Vienna, Austria, early twentieth century

Silver, parcel gilt; hallmark: FA

Shield: L 38 cm, W 29.1 cm

Finials: H 35.5 cm, D (base) 12.5 cm

Pointer: L 31.2 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13010

All of the elements of this set of Torah ornaments are

representative of Austro-Hungarian examples of the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the cartouche-shaped

Torah shield, with rampant lions supporting the Tablets of the

Law surmounted by a crown; the bulbous Torah finials, with an

openwork body composed of floral clusters and hung with bells

and the finial composed of a pedestaled crown on which an

eagle alights; and the Torah pointer, with a fluted, slightly

tapering shaft ornamented with chased panels of palmettes. The

acanthus leaves are similar to those on the flaring upper portion

of the finials.

It is likely that Ephraim Deinard purchased these Torah

ornaments new. The maker was probably Franz Alexander,

who was active in Vienna during this period.1 The Smithsonian's collection also includes a Hanukkah lamp by the same

maker (NMAH 315307).

Notes:

'Franz Alexander is identified in Waltraud Neuwirth, Lexikon Wiener

Goid-und Silberschmiede und Ihre Punzen, 1867-1922 (Vienna, 1976), page

74. We are grateful to Bill Gross for identifying the maker.
NUMBER 52 165

Mughrabi Ritual Objects

Prior to 1913 Ephraim Deinard purchased a group of objects

that have been identified with the nineteenth-century Mughrabi

community, those Jews who lived in North Africa before

French rule began in 1912 and those who emigrated from there

to Eretz Yisrael. These objects include copies of traditional

ceremonial objects, such as Torah finials, and invented items

never used as ritual objects, such as "wedding knives." The

Torah finials may have been bought by Mughrabi pilgrims as

souvenirs from Jerusalem to be dedicated and used at their local

synagogues.1 However, recent research has not brought to light

any evidence of these types of Mughrabi ceremonial objects

persisting in use today.2 The difficulty in puzzling out the

origin of any of these objects gives rise to the likelihood that

they were the invention of an enterprising dealer in "exotica"

for unsuspecting visitors to Eretz Yisrael. Dating is difficult,

although they are most likely from the late nineteenth century

and are certainly prior to the 1906 establishment of what is now

known as the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.

Torah finials

NMNH 315288; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Silver

H 22.3 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13274

This style of rimmonim, one of several variations, is adapted

from Bedouin jewelry.3 The triangular silver piece is called

hijab in Arabic, because it is shaped like an amulet. When these

are used as flaps on a woman's hat, called a shatweh, they are

hung with five short chains from which crescents are

suspended. The number five and the crescents both are

considered protection against the evil eye.4 The panels used on

the rimmonim are decorated with floral patterns and inscribed

in Hebrew with the initial letters of the Ten Commandments

("This is the Law which Moses placed..." [Deuteronomy

4:44]).

Torah finial

NMNH 315293; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Silver

H 29.5 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Torah finials of a second type are also a composite of jewelry

pieces.5 These are inscribed with the verse from Deuteronomy

NMNH 315288

33:4: "When Moses charged us with the teaching [of the

Torah]." The inscription is engraved in a tremolo technique,

which requires very little skill. Deciding on the authenticity of

these rimmonim is made even more difficult because this same

engraving technique is found on a number of Deinard

Collection objects. These include several that are definitely

invented pieces, among them a Torah "shield," "wedding

knives," and an elaborate necklace.6 All of the engraving seems

to be by the same hand.7 It is doubtful that Deinard himself had

any role in making the objects or adding the inscriptions; it is

more likely that he just decided to buy the entire group from

some dealer.8
166 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMNH 315281

Torah "shield"

NMNH 315281; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Silver

H 37 cm, W 29.7 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13273

This unusual "shield" is adapted from various pieces of

jewelry. The central pattern was originally a belt buckle. A

small metal plate inscribed with the initial words of the Ten

Commandments surmounts the central portion. The Tablets of

the Law are crowned with a thin sheet of scrap metal to make

up a form that repeats this motif. On the bottom are two fluted

metal cups that perhaps served as sockets for the Torah staves.

Three bells are also attached to the bottom. On the back are

several additional odd pieces of jewelry.

"Wedding knife"

NMNH 315356; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Silver

L 35.5 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 78-16719

No other examples of "wedding knives" are known that have

been ascribed to this period and place. The blade may originally

have been from a European-made fish knife. The Hebrew

inscriptions, which were added at a later date, read: "The voice

of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom

and the voice of the bride" (Jeremiah 33:11); "Praise him with

loud-sounding cymbals" (Psalms 150:5); "The sound of

neighing" (Jeremiah 8:16); "Bridegrooms coming out of their

chambers" (paraphrase of Psalms 19:6).

Megillah and case

NMNH 315312; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Case: Silver, cotton thread

Handle: Silver

Scroll: Ink on parchment

Case: H 23.5 cm

Scroll: 6.6 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

The cylindrical case is engraved with alternating panels of

scrolls and stars. A rosette is engraved on both rounded casings

of the cylinder. Suspended from the top and bottom of the case

are six pendants featuring a hamsa, circular disks, spheres, and

other schematic forms. The scroll, which is incomplete, is sewn

with cotton thread to a thin, narrow plate.

A related group of megillah cases with similar decoration

does not have inscriptions but also seems to have been made up

especially for the tourist market.9 With the megillah cases, used

for the Esther scroll read on the holiday of Purim, the likelihood

that these were fabricated for unsuspecting tourists is reinforced by the fact that several of the megillot are incomplete

and are in Ashkenazi rather than Sephardi script.
NUMBER 52

167

NMNH 315356

Necklace

NMNH 315362; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Silver

Chains: L 17.6 to 36 cm

Torque: D 15.9 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 74-9554

Fourteen disk pendants of two varying lengths are hung on a

torque-like necklace. Each of the disks is decorated uniformly,

with four applique circles and two enclosing loops. On the back

of each disk is a single word in Hebrew. Together they form the

following biblical verses: "Who so findeth a wife, findeth great

good" (Proverbs 18:22); "And shall go forth in the dances them

that make merry" (Jeremiah 31:4); "[A woman that] feareth the

Lord, she shall be praised" (Proverbs 31:30).

Bibliography:

Josephy, Magic and Superstition, page 128.

NMNH 315362
168

m

NMNH 315286

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMNH 315342
NUMBER 52 169

Torah finials

NMNH 315286; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Silver

H 18.3 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 75-069

Several of the rimmonim have yet another form and

inscription.10 The engraving technique used on these, however,

is also the tremolo type. The leaf-shaped bottle is engraved with

a Hebrew inscription: "Jerusalem, rimmonim from [?]" On the

back the Hebrew word for "Zion" appears with a six-pointed

star. The star suggests that these too were likely made up for

tourists, because use of the six-pointed star for ceremonial

objets became prevalent after the First Zionist Congress, held in

Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, adopted the symbol of the

six-pointed star for use on the Zionist flag. The shaft is

composed of tightly set filigree wires. It is attached to a central

knop made of filigree openwork. The filigree workmanship is

similar to Yemenite craftsmanship, yet these composite

rimmonim are not of Yemenite form.''

Rosewater bottle

NMNH 315342; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Silver and turquoise

H 23.5 cm, D 6.9 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 2523G

Among the Mughrabi items in the Deinard Collection is a

group of rosewater bottles.12 These do not generally have any

known ceremonial function, but they were commonly in daily

use among Middle Eastern Jews. However, some of the

examples at the Smithsonian have strange Hebrew inscriptions

added at a later date: "Various kinds of spices" (from the

havdalah blessing) and "For circumcisions and weddings.

Jerusalem."

Notes

'Similar examples in the collection of the Israel Museum are still identified

as being from nineteenth-century North Africa or Eretz Yisrael. See Fishof,

From the Secular to the Sacred: Everyday Objects in Jewish Ritual Use. page

84, nos. 52.1 and 52.11.

2A number of scholars have analyzed the situation. Rafi Grafman, former

curator of Judaica at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, makes the identification

with the Mughrabi community but is skeptical about many of the pieces. His

consultation was critical in analyzing this entire group of objects. Bracha

Yaniv, of Bar llan University, who conducted the surveys on synagogue

ceremonial objects in Israel on behalf of the Centre for Jewish Art of Hebrew

University, was unable to locate any parallel examples still in use (pers. comm.

with Grossman, 1991).

3NMNH 315288, NMNH 315289, NMNH 315298, NMNH 315301-

NMNH 315303, and some fragments numbered NMNH 315304 and NMNH

315289, which are similar to these as well, do not have the entire inscription.

4The shatweh is described in Yedida Kalfon Stillman, Palestinian Costume

and Jewelry (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979), page 39.

5NMNH 315281, NMNH 315291-315296, NMNH 315299, and NMNH

315300.

6The "wedding knives," NMNH 315356 and NMNH 315357, seem to have

their origin in European fish knives. The necklace with catalog number NMNH

315342 is based on a common type, a torque hung with pendants, but this

example seems to be entirely invented and was never worn.

'For example, a Hanukkah lamp with catalog number NMNH 315249.

s

For example, NMNH 315359, NMNH 315370, NMNH 315380, and

NMNH 332154.

9

For example, NMNH 315312.

10NMNH 315286, NMNH 315287, and NMNH 315290.

1

' For typical Yemenite rimmonim, see, for example, G.C. Grossman, ed., The

Jews of Yemen (Chicago: Maurice Spertus Museum of Judaica, 1976), no. 3.

12NMNH 315342-315346.
170 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 315309

Hanukkah lamp

NMAH 315309; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Germany, early nineteenth century

Silver; hallmarks: JK on backplate, AW and 12 on tray

H 14 cm, W 12.8 cm, D 53 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 315309

This lamp appears to be a variation of a Hanukkah lamp

made in Berlin circa 1800, possibly by August Ferdinand

Gentzmer.1 This and similar lamps have an oblong oil tray with

a hinged lid and an ornamental backplate chased with flowers,

rococo scrolls, and shellwork. The maker is unidentified, and

given the difference in marks, it is possible that the balustrade

on the tray and the legs are not original to this lamp. Engraved

at a later date on the front of the tray is the Hebrew word for

"Jerusalem." The writing style of the inscription is similar to

that on other items in the Deinard Collection.

Notes;

1

 Barnett. Catalogue of the Permanent and Loan Collectinos of the Jewish

Museum, London, no. 239. A similar lamp, also marked AG, was recently

offered at auction; it is included in the 1993 Christie's catalog Important Dutch

and Foreign Silver, Judaica, Icons, Russian Works of Art, and Objects of

Virtue, page 655. Barnett identifies the maker as Albertus Gartner of Berlin.

Rafi Grafman thinks it is much more likely that the maker was August

Ferdinand Gentzmer, who was active in Berlin between 1788 and 1802.
NUMBER 52 171

Megillah case

NMNH 315322; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Vienna, Austria, late nineteenth century

Silver, parcel gilt; hallmarks: R 7867, 7863, A C

H 29.6 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

It seems that this case, which does not contain a megillah

scroll, has never been used, and it is likely that Deinard

purchased it new, as he did with a set of Torah ornaments and

a Hanukkah lamp.1 The case is typical of late-nineteenthcentury Austro-Hungarian examples, with a baluster handle

decorated with ribbons and fleurs-de-lis. The case has vine

scrolls surrounding a medallion bounded by two C scrolls. The

top of the case is in the form of a crown with a small ball finial.

An inscription was added at a later date. Interestingly, the

inscription is engraved not in the medallion but on top of the

crown: "Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe,

who has sanctified us with thy commandments concerning the

reading of the megillah." The script is similar to that of Hebrew

inscriptions added to other objects in the Deinard Collection.

Notes:

'NMAH 315280, NMAH 315282, NMAH 1981.2106.3A,B (formerly

NMAH 315825), and NMNH 315307.

Spice containers

NMAH 315333, NMAH 315336; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace.

no. 65324)

Eretz Yisrael, early twentieth century

Silver

NMAH 315333: H 19 cm, D (base) 6.3 cm

NMAH 315336: H 16.8 cm, W 5.5 cm, D 5.5 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13029 (NMAH 315336)

The European tradition of using architectural forms for spice

containers is reflected in these two examples made in Eretz

Yisrael in the early twentieth century. They are clearly the work

of the same artist. One is almost certainly inspired by the Yad

Avshalom memorial in the Kidron Valley, in Jerusalem.1 It is

made in the form of a miniature circular arcade supporting a

spire. The second has a peristyle supporting an entablature and

conical sphere. Each has a stepped base to which a plaque was

applied with the collector's inscription: "Antiquities of Judah,

from the collection of Ephraim Deinard, Jaffa, the Holy City."

Also in the collection are two mezuzot (NMAH 315376,

NMAH 315377) made by the same artist, with the same Near

Eastern mark and the same Deinard inscription. The mezuzot

also are architectural in form, constructed to look like turrets

NMAH 315336

with a filigree pattern of brickwork and arched windows.

Deinard lived in Jaffa during World War I. It is not known if

he commissioned these works.2

Notes:

'Rafi Grafman made this observation.

2A Hanukkah lamp made by the same artist or workshop is in a private

collection in Europe. It does not have an identifying plaque.
172 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 315334

Spice container

NMAH 315334; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Budapest, 1905

Silver

H 21.3 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13030

According to the accession record, this spice container was

identified by George Lengyel as being the work of his father,

Alexander Lengyel, who was a silversmith in Budapest,

specializing in filigree work. This spice container is an

excellent example of the filigree spice tower popular in eastern

Europe in the nineteenth century. Because it was apparently

purchased new and never used, it is intact, complete with all the

original flags.

Deinard Collection Documents

When Deinard sent his second loan to the Smithsonian

Institution, in 1927, in addition to objects he sent along

personal correspondence and a sack of documents. In the

Deinard accession file there is a note by Immanuel Casanowicz

about the list of items accepted at the Smithsonian, commenting that the papers were not entered into the museum records

and were to be returned to the owner. However, they were not

sent. At some point Deinard's correspondence was sent to the

Registrar's Office. The rest of the items remained untouched

until the early 1970s, when Myron M. Weinstein, at the Library

of Congress, began identifying them.

In this group of documents were the fifty Damascus marriage

contracts. In addition, there is a fascinating collection of over

one hundred manuscript and printed documents that Deinard

amassed in the course of his travels in Italy. Included are

marriage contracts and deeds of divorce, certification documents, broadsides of organizations, responsa, personal letters,

poems, prayers, wills, and secular items, such as court

documents.

Also found with this material were documents Deinard

collected relating to contemporary Jewish life in Eretz Yisrael

and a few miscellaneous documents, such as calendars from

India and Egypt and Samaritan marriage contracts. An

outstanding item is a leaf from Moses ben Jacob of Coucy's

SeMaG (Sefer Mitsvot ha-Gadol) from France, dated to the

thirteenth or fourteenth century.
NUMBER 52 173

DAMASCUS MARRIAGE CONTRACTS

It has been asserted that Ephraim Deinard claimed to have

found a genizah in Damascus.1 Deinard allegedly discovered it

in the ancient synagogue in the village of Guvar, near

Damascus, on a first trip to the Middle East in 1899. It is

certainly possible that Deinard was referring to these ketubbot

in making the claim.2

There are 51 Damascus ketubbot in the Smithsonian's

Judaica collection. They range in date from 1738 to 1864. The

majority are from the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

This is the largest group of Damascus ketubbot known to exist.

Two additional eighteenth-century Damascus ketubbot were

acquired from Deinard by the Jewish Theological Seminary

(JTS) in New York in 1921.3 The oldest example, dated 1706,

is at JTS. It was not unusual for Deinard to send part of a

collection, or even part of a single manuscript, to more than one

buyer in order to manipulate and maximize the price.

Unfortunately, most of the ketubbot have survived as

fragments; the majority of the parchments have been cut down

or otherwise damaged. Because they have been altered, it is not

possible to describe them fully. There are two elements

common to the Damascus ketubbot: They are all written in

cursive script (often the names of the bride and groom and the

amount of the dowry are written in square letters), and the text

of the ketubbah is preceded by a typical blessing and good

wishes (and male children).4

The signatures of the witnesses are typically very elaborate.

Mordecai Galante (died 1781), rabbi and head of a yeshiva in

Damascus, and his son Moses Galante (died 1806), who

succeeded him, were signatories on at least seventeen of the

ketubbot. The Galantes were a well-known family of Sephardi

origin, among whom were numerous scholars. Mordecai

Galante was known for his writings on Jewish law. A number

of his sermons were published as Divrei Mordekhai, and some

of his responsa were published as Gedullat Mordekhai.

Sermons by Moses Galante, entitled Kolo she! Moshe, were

appended to his father's work. Moses Galante was also the

author of a number of responsa, which were published in

Livomo in 1809 as Berakh Moshe5

There are basically four styles of ketubbot represented in the

collection. The first group is written on parchment, and the

individual documents have an applique of decorative paper

forming an archway around the text. The "brocade paper" made

by Marx Leonard Kauffmann the Elder (born 1735, died 1775

or 1785) was imported from Augsburg.6 The upper border of

these parchments is shaped, either as a semicircle or scalloped.

Remnants of a bud finial, attached with string, are found on

several of the ketubbot.1 There are 21 of this type of ketubbah

in the collection.

The second group, written on parchment or sometimes paper,

is characterized by the drawing in ink of a simple gateway, in

the form of either an arch or a triangle, that serves to frame the

text. Several of these "undecorated" ketubbot are sufficiently

intact for it to be possible to see that the upper border was

generally shaped as well. There are 15 of this form in the

collection.

A third group has painted decoration. In some cases the

illuminations seem to be additions to the '"undecorated" type

noted in the preceding paragraph. One of the painted group has

geometric designs (NMAH 315394A.1), and the others have

floral motifs.8 There are 11 painted ketubbot of this type.

A fourth group, of four ketubbot, is similar to Jerusalem

marriage contracts of the mid- to late nineteenth century. These

are written on paper and are illustrated with lavish floral

compositions.9

The ketubbot are described here in chronological order.

Notes:

'If the name of God is written in a book or on a ritual object, that item cannot

be destroyed. A genizah is a storage place for items that have become unfit for

ritual use. Usually the genizah was part of a synagogue. A geniza was also a

general depository for old documents. Deinard's discovery is discussed in

Simcha Berkowitz, "Ephraim Deinard (1846-1930): A Transitional Figure,"

page 5. Berkowitz cites as a reference David Tidhar, European Encyclopedia of

Pioneers of the Jewish Settlement in Palestine (in Hebrew), volume 3, page

1448. No primary source is known.

2

In fact, until 1974, when Myron M. Weinstein, of the Library of Congress

Hebraica Section, began research on them, the ketubbot remained in the sack

they had been in since they arrived at the Smithsonian in the 1920s. The

marriage contracts are in very poor condition, and this may explain Deinard's

claim. The script of the contracts is quite difficult to read; Weinstein identified

the names of the parties and the dates on the ketubbot.

3

Jewish Theological Seminary, nos. 158 and 165. Jewish Theological

Seminary, Register, 1921-1922, page 18. Evelyn Cohen located these ketubbot

and found the connection to Deinard.

4A "standard" Damascus ketubbah text dated the 21 st of Shevat 5466 (5

February 1706) was published by Deinard in his book Shibolim Bodedot

(Jerusalem, 1915), pages 68-69.

-Encyclopaedia Judaica. s.v. "Galante." There are several ketubbot that have

been cut down, making it impossible to identify the witnesses.

6The names M.L. Kauffmann and Augsburg are embossed on NMAH

315394A.32, which enabled Elizabeth Kessin Berman to trace the source of the

paper. See A. Haemmer\e, Buntpapier (Munich, 1977), pages 67ff. and fig. 105.

'Catalog numbers NMAH 315394A.1, NMAH 315394A.2, NMAH

315394A.3, NMAH 315394A.I0, NMAH 315394A.il, NMAH 315394A.26,

NMAH315394A.29.

8One of the ketubbot at the Jewish Theological Seminary (no. 165) also has

geometric designs.

'The Jerusalem ketubbot and their relationships to the Damascus ketubbot are

discussed in Jonathan Benjamin, "Ketubbah Ornamentation in NineteenthCentury Eretz Yisrael," Israel Museum News, volume 12 (1977), pages

129-137. They all seem related to Turkish types; see, for example, the ketubbot

in Israel Museum, Sephardi Jews in the Ottoman Empire, nos. 50a, 50b, and

52c.
174 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH315394A.2

Eighteenth Century

The ketubbot in this group were acquired in February 1927,

but their catalog numbers begin with 315394A, which is in the

numerical sequence for the 1920 accession.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.2

Damascus, Syria, 1772

Ink and paper applique on paper

H 52.5 cm, W 35 cm

Negative number 92-13064

Wednesday the 27th of Adar II 5532 (1 April 1772)

Groom: Moses son of Hayyim ha-Kohen Tarab

Bride: Dinah daughter of Isaac Romano

Witnesses: (?) Galante, (?) Levi

Dowry: 500 grush

This ketubbah is decorated with a paper applique border in

the form of an archway around the text. The paper has a

brocade-like texture with an overall floral pattern on a green

and gilt background. A bud-shaped finial is attached to the top

of the contract with string. This ketubbah is one of the most

complete examples of this type in the collection.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.19

Damascus, Syria, 1794

Ink on parchment

H 34.3 cm, W 30.7 cm

Negative number 92-13077

Monday the 27th of Elul 5554 (22 September 1794)

Groom: Ovadiah son of Joseph Zerahiyah

Bride: Rumiyyah daughter of Abraham Zerahiyah

Witness: Joseph ben Menashe ha-Kohen Arazi

Dowry: 300 grush

The text is written within a pointed arch set within a

rectangle. The ketubbah is undecorated.
NUMBER 52 175

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NMAH315394A.1

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.1

Damascus, Syria, 1729

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 41.3 cm, W 26.7 cm

Thursday the fifth of Elul 5489 (30 August 1729)

Groom: Mordecai son of Shabbtai Shuweikah ha-Kohen

Bride: Siti daughter of Jacob (?) of blessed memory

Witness: Menasseh ha-Kohen (?)

The ketubbah is painted with geometric motifs. The upper

portion is decorated with two six-pointed stars set within a

circular medallion flanked by two small segmented circles. The

border consists of a series of segmented circles drawn in with

a compass and then painted.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.3

Damascus, Syria, 1771

Ink and paper applique on paper

H 43.4 cm, W 33.4 cm

Friday the 19th of Tishri 5532 (27 September 1771)

Groom: Yeshuah son of Aaron Tabak

Bride: Reinah daughter of Jacob Fainah (or Bainah)

Witness: Hayyim (?)

Dowry: 1,500 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.4

Damascus, Syria, 1774

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 33.4 cm, W 29.3 cm

Wednesday the 1 lth of Nisan 5534 (23 March 1774)

Groom: Bezalel son of Moses ha-Levi

Bride: Esther daughter of Joseph ha-Levi

Witness: (?) Galante

Dowry: 550 grush

The text of the ketubbah is framed with an oval arch. The

borders are painted with floral motifs, only traces of which

remain.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.5

Damascus, Syria, 1781

Ink and paper applique (lost) on parchment

H 27 cm, W 37 cm

Tuesday the 11th of Shevat 5541 (6 February 1781)

Groom: Eliyah son of Rahamim ha-Kohen

Bride: Esther daughter of Samuel ha-Kohen

Witnesses: (?) Galante, Hayyim ha-Levi

The text is written within a semicircular arch set within a

rectangle. Only fragments of the paper applique remain on the

borders.
176 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.6

Damascus, Syria, 1781

Ink and paper applique (lost) on parchment

H 33 cm, W 36 cm

Tuesday the 21st of Elul 5541 (11 September 1781)

Groom: Isaac son of Yom Tov ha-Kohen Arazi

Bride: Baida daughter of the elder Yehudah ha-Levi

Witnesses: Levi, Joseph (?)

Dowry: 500 grush

Traces of the paper applique forming an arch surrounding the

text are all that remain of the decoration.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.10

Damascus, Syria, 1784

Ink and paper applique on parchment

H 42.5 cm, W 36 cm

Friday the eighth of Tevet 5544 (2 January 1784)

Groom: Abraham son of Hayyim Muhdib (?)

Bride: Malkah daughter of Musafia Muhdib

Witnesses: (?) Galante, Hayyim ha-Levi

Dowry: 500 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.7

Damascus, Syria, 1782

Ink and paper applique (lost) on parchment

H 49 cm, W 33 cm

Friday the 25th of Sivan 5542 (7 June 1782)

Groom: Joseph son of Mordecai Zerahiyah

Bride: Esther daughter of Ovadiah ha-Levi

Witnesses: Galante, Levi (?)

Dowry: 1,000 grush

The parchment is rectangular with a scalloped arch on the

upper edge. Although this is one of the ketubbot that are most

intact in terms of size, the decoration is entirely lost.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.8

Damascus, Syria, 1784

Ink on parchment

H 22.7 cm, W 30.6 cm

Wednesday the second of Nisan 5544 (24 March 1784)

Groom: Abraham son of Joseph ha-Levi

Bride: Esther daughter of David Hawisti

Witness: David Duweik (Duwayk) ha-Kohen

The text is set within a rectangular frame. The remainder has

been cut off.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.il

Damascus, Syria, 1784

Ink and paper applique on parchment

H 30 cm, W 40 cm

Tuesday the 18th of Shevat 5544 (10 February 1784)

Groom: Moses son of Isaac Yonah

Bride: Aziziyah daughter of Hayyim Muhdib

Witnesses: Mordecai al-Kamfaji (?), Abraham ha-Levi

Dowry: 600 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.12

Damascus, Syria, 1785

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 35.3 cm, W 32.5 cm

Tuesday the 24th of Kislev 5545 (7 December 1785)

Groom: Abraham son of Joseph ha-Levi

Bride: Y'kot daughter of Yeshua Yedia

Witnesses: (?) Galante, Hayyim Moses Sholet (?)

Dowry: 700 grush

This parchment is rectangular with an arched and scalloped

upper edge. The text is written within a semicircular arch set

within a rectangle. The ketubbah is painted with a border of

floral motifs, much of which is lost.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.9

Damascus, Syria, 1784

Ink and paper applique on paper

H 24 cm, W 25.5 cm

Tuesday the fifth of Sivan 5544 (25 May 1784)

Groom: Isaac son of Jacob Levi, known as Khur

Bride: Dibiyyah daughter of Abraham Zerahiyah

Witnesses: Aaron ha-Levi, Moses (?) Galante

Dowry: 300 grush

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.13

Damascus, Syria, 1789

Ink and paper applique on parchment

H 48.8 cm, W 33.5 cm

(?) Nisan 5549 (1789)

Groom: Jacob son of (A)ziz (?)

Bride: Suriyyah daughter of (?)

Witnesses: (?) Galante, Abraham ha-Levi

Dowry: 400 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2. This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2.
NUMBER 52 177

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.14

Damascus, Syria, 1789

Ink and paper applique (lost) on paper

H 43 cm, W 26.2 cm

Wednesday the 16th of Sivan 5549 (10 June 1789)

Groom: Joseph son of Mordecai Rakak

Bride: Simha daughter of Moses ha-Kohen Shawikiyyah

Witnesses: (?) Galante, Yom Tov Arazi ha-Kohen

Dowry: 250 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2.

Ketubbah

NMAH 334028

Damascus, Syria, 1792

Ink on parchment

H 44 cm, W 33.5 cm

Tuesday the fifth of Adar 5552 (28 February 1792)

Groom: Nathan son of Hayyim Hashir

Bride: Habibi daughter of Ovadiah Hashir

Witness: (?) Galante

Dowry: 500 grush

The text is written within a semicircular arch set within a

rectangle. The ketubbah is undecorated.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.15

Damascus, Syria, 1792

Ink on paper

H 45.2 cm, W 30.5 cm

Sunday the 14th of Tishri 5553 (30 September 1792)

Groom: Shabtai son of Abraham ha-Levi

Bride: Rosa daughter of Yeshua Halabi

Witnesses: Joseph son of Menasseh ha-Kohen Arazi, Abraham

ha-Levi

Dowry: 450 grush

The text is written in a rectangular frame. The ketubbah is

undecorated. A codicil states that the husband undertakes to

support his stepson for ten years.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.16

Damascus, Syria, 1793

Ink on parchment

H 20 cm, W 36 cm

Thursday the 16th of Tevet 5554 (19 December 1793)

Groom: Hayyim son of Judah B (?)

Bride: Rachel daughter of Isaiah Bakiriyah

Witness: Joseph (?)

Dowry: 215 grush

The text is written within a rectangular frame. The ketubbah

is undecorated. In the year, the five that occupied the

thousandth place was erased and a four substituted, apparently

to make the ketubbah seem a hundred years earlier (that is,

5454).

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.17

Damascus, Syria, 1794

Ink on parchment

H 35.7 cm, W 30.6 cm

Thursday the tenth of Nisan 5554 (10 April 1794)

Groom: Nissim son of Abraham ha-Levi Lati

Bride: Murina daughter of Abraham Zarid

Witnesses: Moses Galante, Joseph ben Menashe ha-Kohen

Arazi

Dowry: 75 grush

The text is written in a semicircular arch set within a

rectangle. The ketubbah is undecorated. The bride was a

widow.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.18

Damascus, Syria, 1794

Ink on parchment

H 43 cm, W 31 cm

Monday the 14th of Nisan 5554 (14 April 1794)

Groom: Moses son of Joseph ha-Kohen

Bride: Suriyyah daughter of Isaac ha-Kohen

Witness: Mordecai Perez

Dowry: 400 grush

The parchment is rectangular with a pointed upper edge. The

text is written within a semicircular arch set in a rectangle. The

ketubbah is undecorated.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.20

Damascus, Syria, 1795

Ink on parchment

H 40.2 cm, W 28 cm

Tuesday the first of Tevet 5555 (1 January 1795)

Groom: Moses son of David Zalta

Bride: Nahama daughter of Joseph Hamawi

Witnesses: The young Joseph Mordecai Duweik (Duwayk)

ha-Kohen, Abraham ha-Levi

Dowry: 250 grush

The parchment is rectangular with an arched and scalloped

upper edge. The text is written within a semicircular arch set in

a rectangle. The ketubbah is undecorated.
178

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.21

Damascus, Syria, 1797

Ink on parchment

H 21.7 cm, W 35.6 cm

Tuesday the 16th of Adar 5557 (14 February 1797)

Groom: Moses son of Halfon Adjiman

Bride: Yakut daughter of Abraham Aroukh

Witnesses: Moses Galante, Joseph son of Menasseh ha-Kohen

Arazi

Dowry: 500 grush

The text is framed by a pointed arch set within a rectangle.

The ketubbah is undecorated.

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Early Nineteenth Century

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.24

Damascus, Syria, 1801

Ink on parchment

H 18 cm, W 34 cm

Tuesday the 1 lth of Adar 5561 (24 February 1801)

Groom: Mordecai son of Shabtai ha-Kohen Helou

Bride: Shukra daughter of Abraham Zerahiyah

Witnesses: Abraham ha-Levi, Gabriel Sitehon

Dowry: 700 grush

The text is framed by a rectangle. The rest of the ketubbah

has been cut off.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.22

Damascus, Syria, 1797

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 35.5 cm, W 35.5 cm

Friday the 26th of Tammuz 5557 (20 July 1797)

Groom: Ovadiah son of Jacob Mindah (?)

Bride: Simha daughter of Solomon ha-Kohen Ma'ili

Witness: Moses Galante

Dowry: 950 grush

The parchment has an arched and scalloped upper edge. The

text is framed by a semicircular arch set within a rectangle. The

ketubbah is painted with green hearts and what seem to be

primitive flowers. There is a problem with the date, which

appears to be the 26th of Tammuz. That date in 5557 was a

Thursday, not Friday, as indicated, but the document is signed

and witnessed.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.25

Damascus, Syria, 1802

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 36 cm, W 29 cm

Tuesday the 14th of Adar I 5562 (16 February 1802)

Groom: Isaac son of 'Abud Mizrahi

Bride: Sarah daughter of Abraham Muwas

Witnesses: lost

Dowry: incomplete

The text of this ketubbah is framed by a pointed arch set

within a rectangle similar to NMAH 315294A.19. The

spandrels have been painted in. The composition is similar to

that of later Damascus ketubbot, which are similar to Jerusalem

ketubbot of the same period, with a central vase and flowering

vines. It is possible the decoration was added to the ketubbah at

a later date.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.23

Damascus, Syria, 1797

Ink on parchment

H 31.4 cm, W 25.8 cm

Tuesday the 10th of Elul 5559 (1 September 1797)

Groom: Jacob son of Isaac Zayyin

Bride: Qamar daughter of Solomon Shakifti

Witness: Abraham ha-Levi

Dowry: 500 grush

The text is framed by a semicircular arch set within a

rectangle. The ketubbah is undecorated.

Ketubbah

NMAH 334025; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Damascus, Syria, 1802

Ink and paper applique on parchment

H 30.5 cm, W 28.4 cm

Tuesday the 23rd of Iyar 5562 (25 May 1802)

Groom: Isaac son of Solomon Zaituni

Bride: Esther daughter of Abraham Romano

Witnesses: (Joseph) son of Menasseh (ha-Kohen Arazi)

Dowry: 800 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2. The paper

applique used on this ketubbah differs from other examples.

The pattern is an overall grid of laurel leaves forming

diamond-shaped lozenges.
NUMBER 52 179

i Z»i -/>^iv -/» A?*/>v^_ '.laI^J* J/j , mm,

NMAH315394A.27

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.27

Damascus, Syria, 1806

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 39.2 cm, W 30.4 cm

Negative number 89-21186

Wednesday the 14th of Nisan 5566 (2 April 1806)

Groom: Benjamin son of Nissim ha-Kohen Mosoli (?)

Bride: Zarafiyyah daughter of Mordecai Bezini (or Bizini)

Witnesses: Moses Galante, Samuel Duweik ha-Kohen

Dowry: 1,500 grush

The parchment is rectangular with an arched and scalloped

upper edge. The text is framed by a pointed arch set within a

rectangle. The side margins are painted with a frieze of

alternating triangles. The section above the text is decorated

with flowers. The groom's name may be Muslawi, "of Mosul."
180 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Ketubbah

NMAH 334026; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Damascus, Syria, 1803

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 34 cm, W 32.2 cm

Friday the second of Nisan 5563 (25 March 1803)

Groom: Elijah son of Hakham Isaac ha-Kohen Duweik

Bride: Signorola daughter of Jacob ha-Kohen Duweik

Witnesses: Moses Galante, Abraham ha-Levi (Jonathan)

Dowry: 1,050 grush

The text is framed by a semicircular arch set within a

rectangle. The ketubbah is ornamented with floral motifs,

which may be a later addition. Also, at some point someone

practiced writing the ligature over and over and also did some

calculations.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.29

Damascus, Syria, 1807

Ink and paper applique on parchment

H 32 cm, W 31.5 cm

Tuesday the sixth of Nisan 5567 (14 April 1807)

Groom: Hayyim son of Bezini

Bride: (M)atot (?) daughter of Yom Tov ha-Kohen Luzayr

Witnesses: Abraham ha-Levi, Samuel ha-Kohen Duweik

Dowry: 2,500 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394.2, although only

traces of the brocade paper remain.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.26

Damascus, Syria, 1803

Ink and paper applique on parchment

H 39 cm, W 38 cm

Friday the 21st of Iyar 5563 (13 May 1803)

Groom: Mordecai, called D'nah, son of Abraham

Bride: Sarah daughter of Jacob Romano

Witnesses: Moses Galante, Mordecai Perez

Dowry: 1,200 grush

Traces of the paper applique forming an arch around the text

are all that remains of the decoration.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.30

Damascus, Syria, 1807

Ink on paper

H 43.5 cm, W 29.6 cm

Wednesday the second of Tammuz 5567 (8 July 1807)

Groom: Hayyim son of Eliyah Museiri (?)

Bride: Esther daughter of Joseph Saraf

Witnesses: undeciphered

Dowry: 700 grush

The text is framed by a pointed arch set within a rectangle.

The ketubbah is undecorated.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.28

Damascus, Syria, 1806

Ink on parchment

H 30.3, W 35 cm

Wednesday the 14th of Nisan 5566 (2 April 1806)

Groom: Sa'adiah son of Amram Ma'aravi

Bride: Sarah daughter of Isaac Tabak

Witnesses: Moses Galante, Samuel ha-Kohen Duweik

Dowry: 1,500 grush

The text is framed by a semicircular arch set within a

rectangle. The ketubbah is undecorated. The groom's name,

Ma 'aravi, indicates that he was Mughrabi, from Morocco.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.31

Damascus, Syria, 1808

Ink and paper applique on parchment

H 34.5 cm, W 35.4 cm

Tuesday the ninth of Adar 5568 (8 March 1808)

Groom: Nissim ha-Kohen son of Isaac Saweid

Bride: Miriam daughter of Abraham ha-Levi Kalatis (or

Kalatnos)

Witnesses: Aaron ha-Kohen Tarab, the young Samuel haKohen Duweik

Dowry: 905 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2.
NUMBER 52 181

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.32

Damascus, Syria, 1810

Ink and paper applique on parchment

H 50 cm, W 42 cm

Tuesday the sixth of Nisan 5570 (10 April 1810)

Groom: Joseph son of Jacob Zaituni

Bride: Esther daughter of Simeon Sasson

Witnesses: undeciphered

Dowry: 1,000 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315294A.2. Much of the

brocade paper is lost, but one section has embossed letters

spelling out Augsburg, M.L. Kauffmann,

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.35

Damascus, Syria, 1814

Ink and paper applique (lost) on parchment

H 39 cm, W 34 cm

Friday the tenth of Elul 5574 (26 August 1814)

Groom: Isaac son of Abraham Hakim

Bride: Mazal Tov daughter of Joseph ha-Levi Khulaf

Witness: Aaron ha-Kohen Tarab

Dowry: 3,005 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2. In addition to

the customary introductory blessings and good wishes, quotes

from Ruth 4:11 and Genesis 27:28 frame the ketubbah text.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.33

Damascus, Syria, 1812

Ink and paper applique (lost) on parchment

H 27 cm, W 36 cm

Friday the 23rd of Kislev 5573 (27 November 1812)

Groom: Elijah son of Samuel Museiri

Bride: Nahama daughter of Moses ha-Kohen Tzemah

Witnesses: Ezra Hayyim Duweik ha-Kohen, Samuel ha-Kohen

Duweik

Dowry: 1,500 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2. '

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.36

Damascus, Syria, 1814-1815

Ink and paper applique (lost) on parchment

H21 cm, W 30 cm

Friday (7)5575(1814-1815)

Groom: Joseph son of Nissim Zerahiyah of blessed memory

Bride: Jamaliyyah daughter of (?) Zerahiyah

Witnesses: lost

The ketubbah has suffered extensive water damage, obliterating much of the text. A Hebrew inscription written in the arch

of the parchment is a copy of the text that was damaged.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.34

Damascus, Syria, 1814

Ink and paper applique on parchment

H 27 cm, W 38 cm

Tuesday the 24th of Adar 5574 (16 March 1814)

Groom: Judah son of Nathaniel Zerahiyah

Bride: Mazal daughter of Raphael Zacah (?)

Witnesses: lost

Dowry: 1,550 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2. The

parchment has been cut down, so much of the ketubbah is lost.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.37

Damascus, Syria, 1821

Ink on paper; gouache on parchment; cotton thread

H 49 cm, W 29 cm

(?) the 14th (?) of Tishri 5581 (1821)

Groom: Nissim son of (?)

Bride: Esther daughter of Joseph ha-Kohen (?)

Witnesses: Samuel ha-Kohen Duweik, Joseph Zamir

This ketubbah has a fragment of a second document attached

to the top with thread. The ketubbah itself is written on paper;

the addition is on parchment and is painted with flowers similar

to those on NMAH 315394A.4.
182 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.38

Damascus, Syria, 1827-1828

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 30 cm, W 31.5 cm

(7)5528(1827-1828)

Groom: (?) Meir

Bride: (?) daughter of Isaac Hayyim Hariri

Witnesses: Jacob Antibi, (?) Duweik

This ketubbah has suffered extensive losses and only a part

of the text remains. The text is written within a semicircular

arch set within a rectangle. In addition to the customary

blessings, quotations from Ruth 4:11 and Genesis 27:28 are

inscribed in the margins of the arch surrounding the text. The

decoration was probably similar to that of NMAH 315394A.4.

Ketubbah

NMAH 334024; ace. no. 207792 (orig. ace. no. 95111)

Damascus, Syria, 1864

Ink, watercolor, and metallic paint on paper

H 66 cm, W 45 cm

Negative number 92-13068

Friday the 15th of Elul 5624 (16 September 1864)

Groom: Abraham son of Bezalel Habbouba

Bride: Tamar (Ruhamah) daughter of Nathan Habbouba

Witnesses: undeciphered

With a framework in gold leaf along the sides and a

scalloped upper border, like a multidome roofline, the entire

ketubbah simulates a monumental gateway. The text is set

within an arch decorated with gold spandrels. The sense of an

overall floral field is created by a serpentine flowering vine that

extends nearly to the top of the sheet. In the center is an urn

bursting with roses and leafy foliage. The handles of the urn are

elongated, and a branch is placed in each one. Flanking the urn

and in the uppermost corners are flowers highlighted in gold,

further enhancing the liveliness of the ketubbah.

Mid-Nineteenth Century

The composition of the Damascus ketubbot from the

mid-nineteenth century is derived from earlier examples. The

text is set within a gateway separated from the illustration or

ornamentation.

The decoration of the four Damascus ketubbot from this

period that are in the Smithsonian is similar to contemporaneous examples from Jerusalem in their use of expansive floral

elements.' The text in the Jerusalem ketubbot of this period also

is placed within a gateway, but the architectural reference is

more specific and includes columns and generally a multifoil

arch.2

Notes:

'See Benjamin, "Ketubbah Ornamentation," pages 129-137.

2

Ibid., page 132. Benjamin draws some comparisons between Jerusalem and

Damascus ketubbot, but at the time the article was written, he did not know

about the eighteenth-century Damascus ketubbot at the Smithsonian.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.40

Damascus, Syria, 1853

Ink and watercolor on paper

H 55 cm, W 42 cm

Tuesday the 15th of Sivan 5613 (21 June 1853)

Groom: Yaudah (Judah)

Bride: Leah

Witnesses: undeciphered

Dowry: 6,000 grush

This ketubbah is rectangular with scalloped edges on the

upper border. The text is set within a pointed arch. Garlands Fill

the spandrels of the arch. Flanking the gateway on either side is

a floral spray. The upper section is decorated with an elaborate

um with exaggerated C-scroll appendages. The urn is filled

with a floral cluster and is flanked by two large roses.
NUMBER 52

183

i>--i^r

NMAH 334024
184

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

OTD'-OTDV

NMAH315394A.39

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.39

Damascus, Syria, 1849

Ink and watercolor on paper

H 63.5 cm, W 44 cm

Negative number 92-13067

Tuesday the sixth of Tishri 5609 (3 October 1848)

Groom: Joseph son of (?) ha-Levi

Bride: Bolisa daughter of (?) ha-Kohen

Witnesses: undeciphered

This ketubbah is written on a rectangular sheet with

scalloped edges along the sides of the upper section and cut

spirals along the top edge. The text is set within a rounded

archway. The traditional blessings are in an elongated oval

above the text. A lily with leafy stems is painted in each of the

side margins. Above the gateway is a branch of flowers on

which is superimposed two large roses. Large circles appear in

the empty spaces along the edges of the contract.
NUMBER 52 185

NMAH 334023

Ketubbah

NMAH 334023; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 95111)

Damascus, Syria, 1860

Ink, watercolor, and metallic paint on paper

H 62 cm, W 44 cm

Negative number 92-13065

Tuesday (?) Heshvan 5620 (1860)

Groom: Joseph son of Simon Zerahiyah

Bride: Simha daughter of Nathaniel ha-Levi

Witnesses: undeciphered

Dowry: 31,500 (?) grush

The edges of the ketubbah are damaged, but it appears that

the upper border included cut spirals similar to those on NMAH

315394A.39. The text is set within a semicircular archway.

Crescent moons and stars with six points fill the spandrel.

Along the sides are flowering vines that rise out of ums. Above

the text is an urn with two large roses, leafy stems with

rosebuds, and two carnations with long stems that rise up

toward the top of the ketubbah.
186 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Undated

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.41

Damascus, Syria

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 15 cm, W 26.2 cm

Dowry: 1,500 grush

The date, the names of the bride and groom, and the names

of the witnesses are illegible or missing. The ketubbah has

traces of painted decoration.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.45

Damascus, Syria

Ink and paper applique (lost) on parchment

H 30 cm, W 32.5 cm

19thofAdarII55(??)

Groom: Moses son of Jacob Shababo

Bride: Qamar daughter of Aaron Mizrahi

Witness: Aaron ha-Kohen Tarab

Dowry: 900 grush

This is of the same type as NMAH 315394A.2. Only a trace

of the brocade paper remains.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.42

Damascus, Syria

Ink on parchment

H 10.5 cm, W 29.0 cm

The date, the names of the bride and groom, and the names

of the witnesses are illegible or missing. The dowry is

undecipherable.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.43

Damascus, Syria

Ink and paper applique (lost) on parchment

H21 cm, W 29 cm

Witness: Aaron ha-Kohen Tarab

Dowry: 1,200 grush

The date and the names of the bride and groom cannot be

deciphered.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.44

Damascus, Syria

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 34 cm, W 23 cm

14thofHeshvan54(??)

Groom: Jacob son of Aaron (?)

Bride: (?) daughter of Hayyim Mizrahi (?)

Witnesses: Mordecai Shafiah, Nissim (?) ha-Kohen

This parchment is severely damaged, making it very difficult

to decipher the date. Because the decoration is painted and

similar to that of other eighteenth-century examples (see

NMAH 315394A.4), it is likely that this parchment dates to the

second quarter of the eighteenth century as well.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.46

Damascus, Syria

Ink on paper

H 40.5 cm, W 32 cm

557(?)

Groom: name is missing

Bride: Zipporah daughter of Nissim Aroukh

Witnesses: Gabriel Sitehon signed for Nathaniel Saba

Dowry: incomplete

Gabriel Sitehon also signed as a witness on NMAH

315394A.24, dated 1801. This ketubbah is undecorated.

DEINARD COLLECTION, ADDITIONAL ITALIAN Ketubbot

There are six other Italian marriage contracts in the Deinard

Collection.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.47

Ancona, Italy, 1826

Ink and watercolor on parchment

H 44.5 cm, W 42.7 cm

Wednesday the second of Sivan 5586 (7 June 1826)

Groom: Yakim Shabbtai son of Zebulon Samuel ibn Yakim

Bride: Mazal Tov daughter of Hananiah Moses Shabbtai ibn

Joshua

Witnesses: Samuel Hayyim Almagia, Mazal Tov Treve

There is a clarification given to indicate that the groom's real

name was Elyakim. In the center of the upper edge is a

cartouche containing the traditional wedding blessings. The

illumination, consisting of a naturalistic border with a

flowering vine, is characteristic of one type of Ancona

ketubbah.'

Notes:

'Sabar, Ketubbah, page 47.
NUMBER 52 187

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.48

Ancona, Italy, 1821

Ink and watercolor on parchment

H 60.6 cm, W 38.4 cm

Wednesday the second of Tevet 5582 (26 December 1821)

Groom: Mordecai Nissim son of Isaac Menahem Cingoli

Bride: Regina daughter of Shabbtai Hayyim Treve

Witnesses: Abraham ben Jacob Israel Musati, Abraham Israel

ben Azariah

The parchment of this ketubbah is rectangular with a cusped

upper edge. The tenaim, terms of engagement, are written in

cursive below the text. The complete text is set within a red

arculated frame. A foliate scroll of blue, yellow, and red

acanthus leaves interspersed with simple and composite

flowers fills the margins surrounding the text. A wreath in the

middle of the lower margin of the scroll depicts the head of a

woman who is wearing a laurel diadem. In the upper portion is

a floral cluster, above which is a cartouche with the standard

wedding blessing, "With a good sign and with exalted luck."

Along the edges of the parchment is a strapwork border.

Ketubbah

NMAH315394A.49

Ferrara, Italy, 1842-1843

Ink on parchment

H 28.4 cm, W 26 cm

5603 (1842-1843)

Groom: Moses Eliezer son of Judah Hai Cavalieri

Bride: Bona daughter of Elhanan Mazal Tov Cavalieri

This is a reissue of a marriage contract. It is perhaps only a

draft, as there are no witnesses indicated and only the year is

filled in, not the month or day.

Ketubbah d'Irchese

NMAH 334030

Modena, Italy, 1768

Ink on parchment

H 26.6 cm, W 18.4 cm

17th of Heshvan 5529 (28 October 1768)

Groom: Abraham son of Judah Gallico

Bride: Simha daughter of Israel Berekhiah Fontanella

Witnesses: Israel son of Mordecai Rovigo, Gur Aryeh

Manasseh da (?) Padua

This is a reissue of a marriage contract. The text is inscribed

in ink within a border formed by parallel lines. The parchment

has been cut down.

Ketubbah

NMAH 334031

Venice, Italy, 1841

Ink on parchment

H 30 cm, W 23.2 cm

Friday the third of Elul 5601 (20 August 1841)

Groom: Phineas David Aaron son of Benjamin Mordecai

Cohen

Bride: Hannah daughter of Benjamin Leozzi

Witnesses: Moses son of Abraham Padovani (?), Joseph son of

Isaac Caravalho (?)

The groom signed his name in Italian as "Felice David Aron

Coen." A civil contract, issued three days earlier according to

the laws of the Austro-Hungarian empire under Ferdinand I, is

mentioned. The parchment appears to have been cut down. The

only ornamentation is the standard phrase of good wishes,

"be-simana tava," which is inscribed above the text in large,

square script in green ink.

Ketubbah

NMAH 334029; ace. no. 207792 (orig. ace. no. 95111)

Ferrara, Italy, 1763

Ink on parchment, silk thread

H 36 cm, W 35.7 cm

Friday the seventh of Heshvan 5524 (14 October 1763)

Groom: Pelatiyah son of Joseph Zamorani

Bride: Dolcia daughter of Joab Barukh Finzi

Witnesses: Mordecai Joseph Carpanetti, Samuel Yedidiah son

of Eliezer Norzi

This ketubbah was originally decorated with an applique

affixed with yellow silk thread; the applique is missing.

Synagogue wall calendar

NMAH315394A.66

Calcutta, India, 1893-1894

Ink and gouache on paper

H 74 cm, W 55.7 cm

Negative number 92-13062

This synagogue wall calendar for the year 5654 (1893-

1894) includes, in addition to notations for Jewish observance,

a schedule for Torah readings and calendar determinations and

a chronology of major events in Jewish history.

The upper margins of the calendar contain two medallions

filled with six-pointed stars in both corners and a large panel
188 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

UD3 ' [nn OTiM HT-nr-iagn **"* pf^iff HIL> m y tu «J HJO'P

NMAH 315394A.66

containing the year written in Hebrew letters. The lower portion

contains six columns with the names of the months and their

Moslem and Hindu equivalents, and synagogue observances.

Each column is identified with a title and a five-stemmed plant

(pomegranate) set within a semicircle.

The Western calendar dates are integrated into the main

tabulation with the inclusion of comparative lists of the Hijiri

(Moslem) month names and the Bengali San (Hindu) month

names, which appear in the vertical columns on the left of the

lower portion.'

Despite the fact that there is no explicit indication of the

calendar's origin, its attribution to a synagogue in Calcutta is

made virtually certain by the notation of the Hindu year 1300

and the occurrence of the New Year in Nisan (April 1894).

Only the Bengali San era accords with this, and the only

synagogues in Bengal were in Calcutta.

Notes:

'The Hebrew transcriptions used for the Hindu month names seem to match

closely the Romanized Bengali used in R. Sewell et al., The Indian Calendar

(London, 1896), pages 43ff.
NUMBER 52 189

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NMAH315394A.il 7

Prayer for the success of the armies of Hapsburg Emperor

Joseph II in the Turkish campaign of 1788

NMAH315394A.117

Israel Gedaliah Cases

Mantua, Italy, 1788

Printed paper

H 36.7 cm, W 27 cm

Negative number 92-13046

An interesting feature of liturgy among Jews living in the

diaspora is the development of prayers and poems of homage

written on behalf of the local government and its leaders. These

can basically be divided into two categories: prayers recited

within the context of the service itself, and prayers developed to

pay homage for a special occasion. As a reflection of the Jewish

experience "among the nations," these prayers provide a

fascinating aspect of the social history of the Jewish people.

In Mantua it was quite common for prayers to be written on

behalf of rulers and to mark special occasions. Mantua came

under Austrian rule in 1708. Joseph II ruled from 1764 to 1790.

His liberalizing reforms were not universally well received by

the Jewish community. The granting of even limited civil rights

meant the end of many discriminatory laws, but it also meant

that the Jews had to give up many rights, especially in terms of

communal independence.' Despite any reservations they might

have had about Joseph II, however, this prayer is profusely

laudatory.

Dr. Israel Gedaliah ben Moses Cases was a physician, rabbi,

and community scribe in Mantua. He was appointed rabbi of

his community in 1754 and held various administrative offices

in the community as well. In addition to Hebrew and Italian

poems and responsa, he authored a medical book entitled

Giornale medico storico.

The prayer is a complicated composition, using quotes from

more than 55 biblical verses. The text indicates that the prayer

was to be recited from Rosh Hodesh Adar II onward. A note in

Italian on the broadside indicates that the prayer was recited

beginning on 9 March 1788.2

Among the Deinard documents are two other prayers written

on behalf of rulers. A "Salmo Augurale" (NMNH T839) was

written in honor of the duke of Tuscany, Leopold II, and his

wife, who was a sister of the king of Naples. The Jews attained

equality under the constitution granted by Leopold II in 1848.

The prayer was composed by Graziadio Anania Coen (1751-

1834) of Reggio, and it was published in Florence in 1833.

Coen was a prolific author whose works included poetry,

linguistic, and biblical studies and textbooks.3

There is also an undated manuscript prayer (NMAH

315394A. 104) by an unknown author for the success of the

pregnancy and childbirth of Duchess Maria Beatrice, wife of

Duke Francesco IV d'Este.

Notes:

'Shlomo Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (Jerusalem:

Kiryath Sepher, 1977), page 93.

2The same text with an Italian translation by Cases was published as an

eight-page pamphlet. Simonsohn writes of a copy in his collection (ibid., page

78, footnote 247).

3Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Coen, Graziadio Vita Anania."
190 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMNH 315395, neg. no. 92-13116

NMNH 315395, neg. no. 92-13118
NUMBER 52 191

Esther scroll

NMNH 315395; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 65324)

Late nineteenth or early twentieth century

Ink and tempera on parchment

H 26.7 cm, W 264.9 cm

Loan, 1920, Deinard Collection

Negative numbers 92-13116, 92-13118

This scroll contains nineteen columns of text and corresponding vignettes from the Esther story. Each column begins

with the Hebrew word for "the King." The Hebrew is written in

square Italian script. The illumination is designed as a

continuous arcade.

The beginning of the scroll contains a panel with an overall

design of floral scrolls, inhabited by a leopard, an eagle, a lion,

and a deer. This is a reference, unusual for an Esther scroll, to

the verse "Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a

deer, and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father in

heaven" (Ethics of the Fathers 5:23). In addition, in the center

of the panel are lions flanking a blank cartouche.1

This Esther scroll is a primitively painted copy of an Esther

scroll with engraved borders by Francesco Griselini of Italy,

from the mid-eighteenth century.2 Griselini, who was not a

Jew, also produced engraved titles for a Hebrew Bible for Isaac

Foa printed in Venice by Bragadini between 1739 and 1741

(possibly 1743). The provenance of this scroll is unknown.3

Notes:

'The scroll has been examined with ultraviolet light, and no inscription is

visible.

2Discussed in Joseph Gutmann, "Estherrolle," in Reallexikon zur deutschen

Kunstgeschkhte (Stuttgart, 1973), volume 4, cited in V. Klagsbald, Catalogue

raisonne de la collection juive du Musee de Cluny (Paris: Editions de la

Reunion des Musees Nationaux, 1981), pages 66-67.

'Questions about its origin are further compounded by the existence of

several scrolls in a similar hand in the Kirschstein Collection of Hebrew Union

College, Klau Library. The Griselini scroll would have been known to

collectors and dealers in the late nineteenth century. For example, a scroll from

the Strauss Collection was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle at the

Trocadero in 1878 and at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition in 1887 (see

Klagsbald, Catalogue raisonne de la collection du Musee de Cluny, no. 74). It

is possible that an enterprising copyist painted several versions and sold them

to dealers in the early twentieth century.

Bibliography:

Michael Fooner, "The Deinard Esterrolle in the United States National

Museum," Opinion (March 1936). A copy of the typescript for the article is in

the National Anthropological Archives, Box 75-800.

Micrographic illustration

NMNH 333969; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 94763)

M.E. Goldstein

Frankfurt am Main, Germany, ca. 1900

Ink on lithograph

H 49.5 cm, W 58.4 cm

Loan, January 1927, Deinard Collection

In the nineteenth century it became common for various

institutions to use micrograms for fund-raising purposes, as

gifts in return for donations, with the name of the donor simply

inserted with a proper dedication.1 Several examples in the

Smithsonian's collection, which are the work of Moses Elijah

Goldstein, were used in this way. Unfortunately, it is not known

which institution they benefited. Goldstein worked in Frankfurt, and possibly Tiberias as well, around the turn of the

century.

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem and its environs are

depicted in this example. Each of the sites—the Mount of

Olives, Tombs of the Prophets, and so on—is labeled with

Hebrew inscriptions and identified in a legend in the margin.

The contour lines of the illustration are formed with texts from

Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

At the bottom are keys to the passages and a warning, written

in French, German, and Hebrew, prohibiting reproduction. In

the lower margin, the dedicatory inscription (in green ink) has

been erased, seemingly intentionally. Under ultraviolet light,

the name M.E. Goldst[ein] appears.

Notes:

'Avrin, Micrography as Art, page 56.
192 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

V

NMAH 334035

Micrographic illustration

NMAH 334035; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 95111)

M.E. Goldstein

Frankfurt am Main, 1900

Ink on lithograph

H 84 cm, W 84 cm

Loan, February 1927, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13044

Goldstein incorporated all 150 psalms into this illustration of

scenes from the life of Joseph. Stylistically, the figures are

typical of the stiff, neoclassical illustrations from printed Bibles

of the period, the iconography of which can sometimes be

traced to "old master" paintings.

In a cartouche at the lower right, Goldstein wrote in Hebrew

that the work was completed on "Tuesday, the fifth of Adar II

5660 [5 March 1900], at Frankfurt am Main, Moses Elijah

Goldstein." There is a dedicatory inscription in the upper

center: "In honor of Gabriel Guggenheim."

Notes:

'Avrin, Micrography as Art, page 57, no. 105.
NUMBER 52 193

^ !

NMAH 334036.1-3

Micrographic illustrations

NMAH 334036.1-3; ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 95111)

M.E. Goldstein

Frankfurt am Main, 1899

Ink on lithograph

H41 cm, W 50 cm

Loan, February 1927, Deinard Collection

Negative number 92-13043

In the Smithsonian's collection there are three copies of an

etching illustrating the meeting of King Solomon and the

Queen of Sheba. The story is described in 1 Kings 10. The

micrography includes the text of 1 Kings through 2 Kings 19:1.

A legend in Hebrew in the lower left provides the key to the

illustration, the date, and the artist. The work was completed on

Lag B'Omer 5659 (28 April 1899).

On NMAH 334036.1, the watermark is /. W. Zanders and

the dedicatory inscription in the upper center reads "B.

Rosewald." On NMAH 334036.2, the dedicatory inscription

reads "Mrs. Lena Jashewitz." On NMAH 334036.3, the

dedicatory inscription has been erased.
194 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

fun*

NMAH 333979.1

Memorial candle plaques

NMAH 333979.1-10, ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no. 94763);

NMAH 334032.1-49, ace. no. 207992 (orig. ace. no.

95111)

Italy, 1675 (?) through 1890

Ink on vellum

Sizes vary but are approximately H 18c m, W 14cm

Loan, January 1927 (NMAH 333979.1-10) and February 1927

(NMAH 334032.1-49), Deinard Collection

Negative numbers 92-13083 (NMAH 333979.1), 92-13085

(NMAH 333979.10), 92-13088 (NMAH 334032.8), 92-

13089 (NMAH 334032.14-19), 92-13090 (NMAH

334032.20)

The commemoration of the death of a loved one by lighting

a candle in the synagogue, a ritual identified with these

memorial plaques, may have been a localized custom, as very

few plaques have survived.1 Each is slightly different. Some are

similar to ketubbot, with a shaped upper border; some have the

form of a cartouche; others are like tombstones, bells, hearts, or

leaves. The typical inscription reads "A candle is lit for the

NMAH 333979.10

repose of the soul of the honorable [name], of blessed memory,

who departed this world on [date]. May it please You, blessed

God, that [his/her] soul be bound in the bond of eternity and

there be good life and peace of us and all Israel. May this by

Thy will."

The Smithsonian's collection of 59 memorial candle plaques

is the largest group of its type known.2 Eight others were

acquired by the Library of Congress in 1912 as part of Jacob

Schiff s gift of nearly 10,000 books and manuscripts purchased

from Ephraim Deinard.

Mantua is identified as the place of origin from an inscription

on one of the examples in the Library of Congress, in memory

of Moses Simon Solomon Isaac Levy (died 1840): "To light a

candle before the Lord in the Cases Synagogue."3 The Scudo

Cases Synagogue was founded in Mantua in 1590 and existed

until the twentieth century, having had a long and prominent

history in that city.4

The names and the years of death recorded on the plaques are
NUMBER 52 195

NMAH 334032.8

as follows. In addition, reference is also sometimes made to a

particular biblical verse, which in some instances relates to the

person's name. The listing is in chronological order within the

two catalog groupings.

Catalog numbers NMAH 333979.1-10

NMAH 333979.1: Mrs. Sarah Minzi, daughter of Mrs.

Simha, 1809

NMAH 333979.2: Rabbi Judah Nathaniel Cases, 1830;

Deuteronomy 33:12

NMAH 333979.3: Mrs. Berakhah Rava, 1838; Exodus 2:25

NMAH 333979.4: Raphael Menahem Nissim Hai (Vita)

ha-Levi, 1839; Numbers 10:29

NMAH 333979.5: Nadiv Massarani, 1842; Exodus 8:24

NMAH 333979.6: Mrs. Mazal Tov, widow of Nathaniel

Trabotto, 1844; Exodus 27:20

NMAH 333979.7: Mrs. Rachel Esther, widow of Raphael

Menahem Nissim Hai ha-Levi, 1844; Genesis 23:1,

Genesis 24:7

NMAH 333979.8: Mrs. Rebecca Levia from the Gentili

family, 1845; Leviticus 1:1

NMAH 333979.9: Isaac Cases, 1846; Exodus 6:5

NMAH 333979.10: Jacob ha-Levi, 1852; Deuteronomy 28:8

Catalog numbers NMAH 334032.1-49

NMAH 334032.1: Meshullam Hayyim Canetti, son of

Elisheva Hannah, 1675 (?)

NMAH 334032.2: Menahem Modena, 1734

NMAH 334032.3: Isaac Massarani, 1738

NMAH 334032.4: Abraham Finzi, 1771; Genesis 15:1

NMAH 334032.5: Mrs. Rachel Avil (?), [whose name was

changed to] Eve Malkah Finzi, 17745

NMAH 334032.6: Mordecai Ben Zion Ancona, 1786;

Deuteronomy 14:25

NMAH 334032.7: Jonah Moses Modena, 1789; Exodus

29:43

NMAH 334032.8: David Hai (Vita), 1797; Genesis 32:2

NMAH 334032.9: Samuel Zacut Maroni, 1800; Deuteronomy 14:25

NMAH 334032.10: Mrs. Mikhalah, wife of Moses haKohen, 1800; Deuteronomy 30:5

NMAH 334032.11: Mrs. Giusta, widow of Jonah Raphael

Hayyim Finzi, 1805

NMAH 334032.12: Mordecai Isaac Romanelli, 1805; Leviticus 19:14

NMAH 334032.13: Mrs. Sarah Esther, daughter of Aaron

Nissim Cases, 1812

NMAH 334032.14: Shemaiah Raphael Fano, 1815; Exodus

17:12

NMAH 334032.15: Moses David Finzi, 1819

NMAH 334032.16: Mrs. Reika Sarah, [whose name was

changed to] Mazal Tov, wife of Raphael Hayyim

Trabotto, 1821; Genesis 45:7

NMAH 334032.17: Solomon Raphael Hai (Vita), 1822;

Exodus 9:29

NMAH 334032.18: Mrs. Beila Mazal Tov, wife of Aaron

Moses David Finzi, 1823

NMAH 334032.19: Abraham Hai Malakh, 1825; Exodus

40:35

NMAH 334032.20: Jacob Shalom Finzi, 1826; Exodus

18:23

NMAH 334032.21: Mrs. Rosa, widow of Solomon Hayyim

d'ltalia, 1826

NMAH 334032.22: Esther, widow of Abram Hai Malakh,

1828

NMAH 334032.23: Mrs. Gentile, widow of Aaron Mazliah

Luria, 1836; Exodus 14:13

NMAH 334032.24: Mrs. Nehama Fior, widow of Samuel

Zoref (Orefice), 1838; Leviticus 24:2

NMAH 334032.25: Rabbi Dr. Israel Gedaliah Cases, 1841;

Genesis 46:1

NMAH 334032.26: Solomon Joseph Massarani, 1841; died

in Brescia, buried in Mantua; Exodus 13:19

NMAH 334032.27: Mrs. Hannah, wife of Aviad Gustalla,

1841

NMAH 334032.28: Aviad Gustalla, 1843; Leviticus 9:23

NMAH 334032.29: Mrs. Berakhah Esther, widow of Nissim

Finzi, 1843; Leviticus 19:14
196 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

•rairtiTitsiiintjep ,J

ps1? r»'g

3

NMAH 334032.14-19

NMAH 334032.30: Moses Polacco, 1845; Genesis 23:2

NMAH 334032.31: Moses Aaron Samuel Joseph Cases,

1849; Deuteronomy 1:8

NMAH 334032.32: Mordecai Shalom Viterbi, 1856

NMAH 334032.33: Nathaniel Mordecai, son of Joseph

Trabotto, 1856

NMAH 334032.34: Mrs. Lucinda Rovino, wife of Azriel

Viterbi, 1859

NMAH 334032.35: Samuel Aaron Hai (Vita), 1859

NMAH 334032.36: Moses d'ltalia, 1861

NMAH 334032.37: Menahem Massarani, 1863

NMAH 334032.38: Solomon Hayyim Maroni, 1864

NMAH 334032.39: Mrs. Amalia Fano, wife of Mordecai

ha-Levi Mortara, 1867

NMAH 334032.40: Pinhas Cases, 1872

NMAH 334032.41: Mrs. Perla, wife of David Hananiah

Viterbi, of blessed memory, 1888

NMAH 334032.42: Judah Raphael, who is called Joseph

Massarani, 1889

NMAH 334032.43: Mrs. Notila, wife of Joshua Hayyim

Maroni, of blessed memory, 1890; Exodus 2:2

NMAH 334032.44: Moses Hayyim Hai (Vita); Deuteronomy 32:4

NMAH 334032.45: Mrs. Simha Viterbi, widow of Aaron

Judah

NMAH 334032.46: Samson, son of Carpi (?) (date illegible)

NMAH 334032.47: Mrs. Gimilah Berakhah, widow of

Samuel Zacut Maroni, 1874 (?)

NMAH 334032.48: Illegible

NMAH 334032.49: Solomon Hayyim d'ltalia (date illegible)

Notes:

'In a telephone conversation with Richard Ahlborn on 15 February 1996,

Yael Hoz, of Beer-Sheva, Israel, reported that a custom among the group

known as Italian) Jews was for candles to be lit in memory of the deceased for

a year and then for the plaque to be put in a genizah. She further noted that a

group of these labels was recently found in Italy and is now in a private

collection in Israel.

2Three are in the Ezra P. Gorodesky Collection in the Jewish National and

University Library in Jerusalem. One of these, in memory of Vittora bat Lea

(died 1855), is the most elaborate known and is in the form of a two-handled

covered urn. It is published in E. Gorodetsky, Revealed Treasures from the

Ezra P. Gorodesky Collection in the Jewish National and University Library

(Jerusalem: Jewish National and University Library, 1989), no. 46. Another,

from the collection of Alexander Bistritsky, is published in Hillel Seidman, The

Glory of the Jewish Holidays (New York: Sheingold, 1969), page 97. Myron

Weinstein made available the information on the Library of Congress

examples. Nathan Snyder did the preliminary identification of the names and

biblical verses.
NUMBER 52

197

4

a

MANTUA DOCUMENTS

In addition to the memorial candle plaques, there are four

marriage documents in the collection.

Fragment of ketubbah

NMAH315394A.59

Mantua, Italy, early eighteenth century

Ink and gouache on parchment

H 27 cm, W 26 cm

Groom: Eliezer (?)

Bride: Miriam (?)

Witnesses: Rabbi Judah, son of Eliezer Briel; Rabbi Joseph

Barukh, son of Moses Cases

What is preserved is the lower left corner of this ketubbah. It

is decorated with a flowering vine scroll outlined in ink and

painted in green gouache. The flowers are outlined and painted

as well. Oval medallions containing verses from Numbers

24:18 appear at intervals in the vine scroll.

The two witnesses for this marriage are highly important

figures in Mantuan history. Rabbi Judah Leon ben Eliezer Briel

was born about 1643 and died in 1722. He is known in rabbinic

literature as MaHaRIL. He was known both as a Talmudist and

as one who was well versed in the secular sciences.1 Rabbi

Joseph Barukh Cases was a Talmudist and physician. He was

rabbi of Mantua from 1704 to 1721. Although known for strict

adherence to Talmudic law, he permitted deviations in certain

cases when the welfare of individuals was endangered.2

Notes:

^Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Brieli."

2

Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Cases."

NMAH 334032.20

'Abraham J. Karp, From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the

Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1991), page 148.

In addition to this evidence, there is ample reason to make the association to the

Cases Synagogue because several of the plaques are dedicated to members of

the Cases family; also, there are other items from Mantua in the Deinard

Collection. Included, for example, is a prayer composed by Israel Gedaliah

Cases (NMAH 315394A. 117), for whom the memorial plaque with catalog

number NMAH 334032.25 is named, and receipts to the Cisalpine Republic in

Mantua by the Cases Synagogue (NMAH 315394A. 124-129).

A

 Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Cases.'1 Documentation on many of the

families represented here, such as Finzi, Fano, and Massarani, can be found in

Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua. Specific mention of

those represented in the Smithsonian's plaques is not available, however,

because their dates are later than the period covered in this work.

'Perhaps her name (and those of several others in this list) was changed

according to the custom of giving a new name to a very sick person in order to

mislead the Angel of Death.

Bibliography:

Smithsonian Institution, Celebration, no. 177.

Draft of marriage contract

NMAH315394A.60

Mantua, Italy, 1836

Ink on paper

H 26.6 cm, W 18.4 cm

Second of Nisan 5596 (20 March 1836)

Groom: Joseph Hayyim son of Jacob Hayyim Finzi

Bride: Zipporah Sarah Sforni

Draft of marriage contract

NMAH315394A.61

Mantua, Italy, 1844

Ink on paper

H 26.4 cm, W 18.5 cm

Fourth of Tammuz 5604 (21 June 1844)

Groom: Elijah son of Isaac Judah Rineri (?)

Bride: Mazal-Tov daughter of An, called Mevasser-Tov,

Malakh
198 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Betrothal contract

NMAH315394A.62

Reggio Emilia, Italy, 1663

H 30.3 cm, W 21.3 cm

Ink on paper

Wednesday the fifth of Av 5423 (8 August 1663)

Groom: Menahem son of Samson ben Mordecai Canton of

Pomponesco (Mantua)

Bride: Faustina daughter of Moses ben Azriel Alatini of G—(?)

Witnesses: Joseph Samuel Camerini, Joseph ben Zion Hayyim

Levi

B1U53

NMAH 376531, neg. no. 80-5171 IB

Candleholder and spice box

NMAH 376531; ace. no. 136485

Nuremberg, Germany, circa 1800

Silver; hallmarks: R 3 3781, R 3 3762, illegible

H 20.9 cm

Gift of Mrs. Virginia M. Hillyer, 1935

Negative numbers 92-13034, 80-5171 IB

This practical form, combining the candleholder and spice

container used during the havdalah ceremony marking the end

of the Sabbath, became widely used in Germany, especially in

Nuremberg, in the eighteenth century.1 The special braided

havdalah candle is extinguished after use, and an advantage of

this device is the mechanism for raising the candle as it is used

up over time. The spices are kept in the small drawer with four

compartments.

Notes:

'Vivian Mann traces the development of this type of havdalah candleholder

in "The Golden Age of Jewish Ceremonial Art in Frankfurt: Metalwork of the

Eighteenth Century," Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, volume 31 (1986), page

399.

NMAH 376531, neg. no. 92-13034
NUMBER 52

199

NMAH 376672

Hanukkah lamp

NMAH 376672; ace. no. 136485

Italy, early seventeenth century

Bronze

H 21.5 cm, W 14.6 cm, D 7.3 cm

Gift of Mrs. Virginia W. Hillyer, 1935

Negative number 92-13019

A phenomenal variety of bronze Hanukkah lamps were

created in Italy in the seventeenth century, and a number of

different types were replicated again and again over the next

two centuries. Several of the lamps reflect architectural models;

others incorporate images, such as cornucopias, scrolled vines,

putti, and mythological figures, that were typically used on

Renaissance bronzes of secular use.1 The heroic figure of Judith

beheading the enemy general Holofemes is the central element

in yet another lamp type.2

The motifs on this Hanukkah lamp include images typically

used on secular Renaissance bronzes as well as a crown and

family coat of arms that have a Jewish association. The image

of a rampant lion with bifurcated tongue facing left has been

identified as the coat of arms of the Malta family of Venice.3

Notes:

'Some of the lamps even included elements directly copied from patterns

used also on domestic objects, such as jewelry or writing boxes. See Klagsbald,

Catalogue raisonnee de la collection du Musee de Cluny, no. 19.

2

S.S. Kayser and G. Schoenberger, eds., Jewish Ceremonial Art (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1959), no. 125.

3Mann, Gardens and Ghettos, no. 183. In the catalog entry for this lamp,

Vivian Mann also notes a Venetian marriage contract dated 1796 with the same

coat of arms in the collection of the Jewish Theological Seminary (no. 264a).

Bibliography:

Mann, Gardens and Ghettos, no. 183.
200 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 376929

Hanukkah lamp

NMAH 376929; ace. no. 136485

Poland, nineteenth century

Brass

H 26.5 cm, W 22.5 cm, D 7 cm

Gift of Mrs. Virginia M. Hillyer, 1935

Negative number 92-13021

The brass bench-type Hanukkah lamps from Poland reflect

the rich heritage of eastern European folk art, a tradition that

weaves together a tapestry of Jewish symbols, architectural

forms, animals (real and imaginary), trees, and flowers as well

as a variety of motifs influenced by local tradition. Similar

iconography is found in synagogue decoration and on

tombstones. Elaborate paper-cuts in the same style became

highly popular as well.

These lamps can be used either hanging or standing. A

unique feature of the lamps is the use of the sidewalls to support

two candleholders. One is for the shammash, used to kindle the

Hanukkah lights. Because the light of the Hanukkah lamp is

ceremonial and is therefore not be used for any other purpose,

the shammash originally was a utility light. The inclusion of

two lights has been described as a pragmatic invention so that

the Hanukkah lamp could also be used on Shabbat.' However,

it is also possible that the second light was simply added for the

sake of symmetry.2

This bench-type Hanukkah lamp rests on four feet. The

openwork backwall is in the form of a gable with a volute crest.

In the center is a seven-branched menorah. Flanking each side

of the menorah is a rampant lion, scrollwork on which a bird is

perched, and a spiral column. A double-headed eagle alights on

the menorah.

Notes:

'Roth, Jewish Art, page 129.

2

I. Shachar, Jewish Tradition in Art: The Feuchtwanger Collection of

Judaica, second ed., translated by R. Grafman (Jerusalem: Israel Museum,

1981), page 132.
NUMBER 52 201

Hanukkah lamp

NMAH 377034; ace. no. 136485

Holland or Germany, nineteenth century

Brass

H 27 cm, W 23 cm, D 10 cm

Gift of Mrs. Virginia M. Hillyer, 1935

This Hanukkah lamp, with a vibrant decorative composition

of hearts, roundels enclosed in wreaths, floral motifs, and

scrollwork, is reworked from a wall sconce of the eighteenth

century. Later additions include a shallow drip pan attached to

the backwall, and there is a separate oil tray with eight apertures

for the Hanukkah lights. The transformation of everyday

objects into ritual artifacts is a common practice in Jewish art.'

Notes:

'See I. Fishof, From the Secular to the Sacred: Everyday Objects in Jewish

Ritual Use, translated by R. Grafman (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1985), pages

7-8. This exhibition explored many types of reuse and recycling in the creation

of Jewish ceremonial objects. A problem that has emerged in recent years with

the growth of the Judaica art market is whether alterations of a given object

were made in order to use the object or were simply the handiwork of an

enterprising dealer.

Bibliography:

Smithsonian Institution, Celebration, no. 220C.

NMAH 376930

Hanukkah lamp

NMAH 376930; ace. no. 136485

Holland, nineteenth century

Brass

H 31 cm, W 24.5 cm, D 9.3 cm

Gift of Mrs. Virginia M. Hillyer, 1935

Negative number 92-13022

This hanging backwalled Hanukkah lamp is a Dutch type. It

is set within an unadorned sconce. The backwall is an

openwork panel with a simple balustrade supporting two

symmetrical fleurs-de-lis. In the center is a plaque containing

the word Hanukkah in Hebrew. Above the plaque is a double

volute surmounted by a six-pointed star. The sidewalls are

designed as fleurs-de-lis as well.
202 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Set ofKittel Ornaments

NMAH 391201-391205; ace. no. 192962

Austria-Hungary, early nineteenth century

Gift of Mrs. Helen Kahan Schneider, 1951

Kittel is Yiddish for "gown." Among some Ashkenazi Jews

it is the custom to wear a white kittel during services on Rosh

Hashanah and Yom Kippur and at the Passover seder. A kittel

is also sometimes worn by bridegrooms, and they are

occasionally used as burial shrouds.

According to the donor, Helen Kahan Schneider, her father,

Benjamin Kahan, was given several items worn with the kittel

as a legacy from his grandfather, who lived in the Carpathian

Mountains. (Interestingly, the custom was for these items to be

passed on to the youngest son.) These consist of a yarmulke

(skullcap), belt, cuff, and two atarot (collars for the kittel and

prayer shawl).

Benjamin Kahan was born in Felso-Viso Maramaros, Sziget,

in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, about 1861 and immigrated to

the United States in 1902. It is not known if Mr. Kahan ever

wore the kittel once he came to America.

The yarmulke, cuff, and atarot are made of spanier arbeit

(Yiddish for "Spanish work"), a weaving technique that uses

silver and gold thread.1 Several distinctive patterns of spanier

arbeit developed over time.

Cuff

NMAH 391203

Cotton, silk thread, metal thread; silk lining

H29.3 cm, W 11.5 cm

The cuff has a meandering scroll pattern. No buttons or

fasteners have been preserved. Although identified as a cuff by

the donor, this is very similar to brusttukhe, worn by women as

a decorative modesty panel fastened around the neck and

tucked into the skirt.

Atarah

NMAH 391204

Cotton, silk thread, metal thread

H 78.9 cm, W 76 cm

This is a collar affixed to the tallit (prayer shawl). This

atarah is constructed from six strips of metallic-thread

embroidery sewn together. Each strip consists of a series of

tightly set fish-scale patterns known as liske.

Yarmulke

NMAH 391201

Cotton, silk thread, metal thread, leather

H 13.5 cm, D 20.5 cm

The cap is made up of a series of oval medallions. Below the

oval medallions are heart-shaped forms known as herzele. The

cap is edged with running spirals.

Belt

NMAH 391202

Cotton, silk thread, metal thread; metal buckle

W 4 cm, L 91.5 cm

The belt is embroidered with flowers.

Atarah for tallit

NMAH 391205

Silver

H 76.2 cm, W 85 cm

Another custom was to make atarot from stamped silver

disks, which were linked together with small rings. Each disk is

decorated with a hammered pattern of lines and dots.

Sometimes these disks are in the form of small crowns or are

ornamented with six-pointed stars.2

Notes:

'For a discussion of the spanier arbeit technique, see Giza Frankel,

"Little-Known Handicrafts of Polish Jews in the Nineteenth and Twentieth

Centuries," Journal of Jewish Art, volume 2 (1975), pages 42-49.

2B. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and C. Grossman, Fabric of Jewish Life: Textiles

from the Jewish Museum Collection (New York: Jewish Museum, 1977), nos.

99, 103.
NUMBER 52

203

NMNH 40293 2A-J

Seder plate

NMNH 402932A-J; ace. no. 256783

Moshe Zabari

New York, 1964

Silver; hallmarks: M Zabari, Tobe Pascher Workshop, sterling

H 17.2 cm, W 38.1 cm

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Negative number 92-13032

Moshe Zabari (born 1935) arrived in New York from Israel

in 1961, having recently graduated from the Bezalel Academy

of Art and Design in Jerusalem.1 He was invited by his former

teacher, Ludwig Wolpert, to join him as artist-in-residence at

the Tobe Pascher Workshop at the Jewish museum in New

York.

The art world that Zabari encountered was exhilarating and

highly stimulating for the young artist. New York was the heart

of a world of design that was radically and constantly changing,

and during this time a number of new art movements emerged,

including Pop Art, Op Art, and Minimalism. Moreover, in what

was to be a short-lived change in exhibition policy, the Jewish

Museum was the site of a series of avant-garde shows, which

made it possible for Zabari to get to know the artists and their

works firsthand.

Among those whose works were shown at the Jewish

Museum was the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, a master of kinetic

sculpture. Zabari's involvement with Tinguely influenced the

design of this seder plate, with its dynamic use of circles in

silver and Lucite, which evokes a sense of infinite, energetic

movement. Zabari incorporated the functional aspect of the

seder plate with six simple silver dishes for the symbolic foods

and inscribed with stylized Hebrew letters the three central

aspects of the Passover seder: pesah (roasted shank bone),

matzah (unleavened bread), and maror (bitter herb).

Notes:

'The description of Zabari and his work is excerpted from Nancy M. Berman,

Moshe Zabari: A Twenty-Five-Year Retrospective (New York: Jewish

Museum, 1986), pages 10-12.
204 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Sabbath set

NMNH 402933A-F; ace. no. 256783

Moshe Zabari

New York, 1963

Silver, walnut wood; hallmarks: M Zabari, Tobe Pascher

Workshop, sterling

Candlesticks: H 17.8 cm

Kiddush cup: H 8.5 cm

Hallah tray: H 2.6 cm, W 38.7 cm, D 18.4 cm

Knife: L 31.7 cm

Salt dish: H 3.5 cm, W 8.3 cm

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

An early example of Moshe Zabari's work at the Tobe

Pascher Workshop, this Sabbath set synthesizes purity of

design with traditional ceremonial function. The Hebrew

inscriptions are an integral aspect of the design.

The verse on the candlesticks is spoken as part of the kiddush

(the blessing over wine), which is recited on Friday evening:

"And in love and favor has given us Thy Holy Sabbath." The

phrase on the kiddush cup is also from the blessing over wine:

"Who creates the fruit of the vine." It is customary to sprinkle

salt on the special hallah after reciting the blessing for bread.

The origin of this custom is reflected in the verse on the salt

dish: "With all your offerings you must offer salt" (Leviticus

2:13).

NMNH 402934A-D

Havdalah set

NMNH 402934A-D; ace. no. 256783

Ludwig Wolpert

New York, 1964

Silver; hallmarks: Wolpert, Tobe Pascher Workshop, 925

Plate: D 21.1 cm

Kiddush cup: H 14.3 cm

Spice container: H 13.7 cm

Candleholder: H 8 cm

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Negative number 92-13033

Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert (1900-1982) was born in Heidelberg, Germnay.1

 His family was quite traditional and strongly

Zionist. Wolpert trained at the School of Arts and Crafts in

Frankfurt am Main under the tutelage of a silversmith who had

taught previously at the Bauhaus. With the rise of Nazism,

Wolpert emigrated to Palestine and in 1935 became a professor

of metalwork at the new Bezalel School in Jerusalem, a

position he would hold for 20 years. During that time he helped

train a whole generation of Israeli artisans. In 1956 Wolpert

came to New York to develop and direct the Tobe Pascher

Workshop established at the Jewish Museum by Dr. Abram

Kanof and Dr. Frances Pascher Kanof. Wolpert continued to

work there until his death.

Wolpert was truly a pioneer in creating modern ceremonial

objects. Reflecting his Bauhaus-inspired training, Wolpert's

works are exemplars of simplicity and functional purity. The

Hebrew alphabet was his most important design motif; often

the letters themselves gave form to the object.

Wolpert's integration of letter and form can be seen in this

set for the havdalah ceremony, which marks the end of the

Sabbath. Each component bears a Hebrew inscription reflecting

the blessings over wine, spices, and light, respectively. On the

kiddush cup is "I will lift up the cup of salvation" (Psalms

116:13). On the spice container is "Who creates various

spices." On the candleholder is "Who creates the lights of fire."

Wolpert wanted very much for his ceremonial objects to be

accessible to as many people as possible, and therefore he

supervised the replication of selected examples. This havdalah

set, first designed in Israel in 1955, was reproduced in two

versions, one of which includes an inscription on the plate as

well.2

Notes:

'In honor of his 75th birthday, an exhibition at the New York Jewish

Museum, "Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert: A Retrospective," was organized by

Moshe Zabari. Biographical information is taken from Abram Kanof s essay in

the catalog (A. Kanof, Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert: A Retrospective (New York:

Jewish Museum, 1976).

2G.C. Grossman, The Maurice Spertus Museum of Judaica: An Illustrated

Catalog of Selected Objects (Chicago: Maurice Spertus Museum of Judaica

1974), page 32.
NUMBER 52 205

Hanukkah lamp

NMNH 402935; ace. no. 256783

Ludwig Wolpert

New York, 1964

Silver-nickel alloy, glass; hallmark: Wolpert

H 15.5 cm, W 15.1 cm

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

In a masterly, innovative fashion, Wolpert used Hebrew

letters to create the entire backwall of this Hanukkah lamp. The

phrase "To praise Thee is a delight" is from the "Maoz Tzur"

("Rock of Ages") hymn, which is traditionally sung after

kindling the Hanukkah lights.

Etrog container

NMNH 402936; ace. no. 256783

Ludwig Wolpert

New York, 1964

Silver

H 8.4 cm, W 16.3 cm

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

The elliptical shape of this container echoes the form of the

etrog (citron), one of the symbolic species of plants used on the

holiday of Sukkot. On the lid is the Hebrew inscription "The

fruit of goodly trees" (Leviticus 23:40).

Mezuzah case

NMNH 402937; ace. no. 256783

Ludwig Wolpert

Jerusalem, 1950

Silver

H 6.8 cm

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

The front of the mezuzah case is a screen formed by the

Hebrew letters of the verse "Blessed shall you be in your

coming and blessed shall you be in your going" (Deuteronomy

28:6).

Mezuzah case

NMNH 402939; ace. no. 256783

Ludwig Wolpert

Jerusalem, 1955

Vermeil, enamel

H 6.4 cm

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

The mezuzah case is formed by the Hebrew letter shin,

representing the word Shaddai, "Almighty."

Mezuzah case

NMNH 402938; ace. no. 256783

Chava Wolpert Richard

New York, 1963

Silver and enamel

H 8.6 cm

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Chava Wolpert Richard worked at the Tobe Pascher

Workshop for many years, sometimes collaborating with her

father, Ludwig Wolpert, in the making of ceremonial objects.

Her work is particularly noteworthy for her inventiveness in

using new materials, especially those that introduce color to the

piece, as in this mezuzah case. The Hebrew inscription reads

"And God Almighty will bless you."
206 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Torah mantle

NMAH 299038.1; ace. no. 299038

Rheims, France (?), 1878

Silk, silk thread, metallic thread, coiled metal

H 87 cm, W 44 cm

Gift of Mrs. Karl B. Bretzfelder in memory of Mr. Karl B.

Bretzfelder, 1972

Negative number 92-13012

On the High Holy Days it is traditional to use white Torah

curtains and mantles. This Torah mantle depicts the climactic

moment of the akeda, the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19),

when the angel stays the hand of Abraham. Although it is quite

unusual to find such an elaborate illustration of a biblical story

on a Torah mantle, it is appropriate, as the story of the akeda is

read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

The letters at the top of the Torah mantle are the initial letters

of the words keter Torah, "the crown of the Torah." The

Hebrew inscription at the bottom reads "Gift of Naphtali, son of

Samuel Klein and his wife, Feigele Rachel, daughter of the

honored Rabbi Toutros Weill, in the year [1878]. May we be

sealed in the Book of Life, here in the sacred congregation of

Rhens." The date, which is not explicitly mentioned, is

calculated by adding the numerical value of each of the

highlighted Hebrew letters. The inscription is also appropriate

to the High Holy Days, the time when each individual

symbolically stands before divine judgment for his or her

actions in the past year.

Rhens, the town mentioned in the inscription, is in Germany,

near Koblenz; however, according to the accession record, Karl

Bretzfelder, who was serving in the U.S. Army during World

War I, found the Torah mantle in the synagogue in Rheims in

1918 after a bombing raid. (Coincidentally, a tallit (prayer

shawl) and tefillin (phylacteries) discovered after the raid by

John Goldhaar, field secretary of the Jewish Welfare Board,

were also acquired by the Smithsonian.)1 Jews first lived in

Rheims in 1077, but after the Middle Ages there was no Jewish

community until after 1870, when Jews arrived from Alsace

and Lorraine. A synagogue was built in 1870.2

It is interesting that a Torah mantle with a nearly identical

scene is in the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York

(catalog number F3546). This mantle is inscribed "Gift of the

sacred congregation of Pfaffenhofen 5636 [1875-1876]."3 A

Torah curtain for the High Holy Days in the collection of the

Jewish Museum in London bears some stylistic resemblance to

the akeda Torah mantles. The curtain has a similar motif of

keter Torah, beneath which is an expansive radiating sun

symbol reminiscent of the treatment of the "all-seeing eye of

God" on the New York mantle. The provenance of the London

curtain is unknown.4

Notes:

'The tallit (cat. no. NMAH 310078A.B) is torn in half. Only one box of the

tefillin was found (cat. no. 310079). These were given to the Smithsonian by the

Jewish Welfare Board in August 1919 (ace. no. 64002). They were published in

Casanowicz, "Collections of Objects of Religious Ceremonial in the U.S.

National Museum," no. 19.

^Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Rheims."

3Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Grossman, Fabric of Jewish Life, no. 137.

4Barnett, Catalogue of the Permanent and Loan Collections of the Jewish

Museum, London, no. 208.

Bibliography:

Smithsonian Institution, Celebration, no. 204b.

Torah ark decoration

NMAH 315408; ace. no. 315408

Philadelphia, late nineteenth or early twentieth century

Painted wood and gilt

H 92.7 cm, W 85.5 cm, D (base) 45 cm

Museum purchase, 1975

Negative number 89-21184

There were once numerous examples of these carved and

brightly painted Torah arks in synagogues built by eastern

European Jewish immigrants in America around the turn of the

century. The elaborately designed arks were likely a link to the

elaborately carved decorative programs of their former synagogues in Europe.' This ornament is a section of a Torah ark

from a Philadelphia synagogue located on South 7th Street.

When the synagogue closed, the ark was dismantled.

Typically, the Torah ark pediment would have a pair of lions

flanking the Ten Commandments. It is possible that such was

the case here as well. An addition is the motif of two

outstretched hands representing the priestly blessing (Numbers

6:23-27). The crown refers to "the crown of the Torah."

Notes:

'Another Philadelphia ark, from Congregation Shaarei Eli, at 8th and Porter

streets, is now in the collection of the National Museum of American Jewish

History. For information on the tradition of carved architectural elements in

synagogues in eastern Europe, see Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, Wooden

Synagogues (Warsaw: Arkady, 1959).
NUMBER 52

207

NMAH 315408

NMAH 299038.1
208 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH 315484.1

Boy's coat

NMAH 315484.1; ace. no. 315484

Ukraine, early twentieth century

Wool, silk thread

L 56 cm

Gift of H. Irving Kazer, 1975

Negative number 92-13040

According to the accession record, Sarah Bornstein Kasermunn made this coat for her young son before they left the

Ukraine to come to the United States. The influence of

Ukrainian folk art is evident in the upright collar, the pattern of

the applique, and the clusters of embroidered flowers.

Also in the museum's collection is a tallit bag made by Sarah

in 1907 and inscribed to her husband, Beryl Kasermunn. The

tallit bag was later used by their son, Irving Kazer, until it was

donated to the Smithsonian.

The family name, Kasermunn, was changed to Kazer when

they came to the United States.

Ketubbah d'Irkhesa

NMAH 1980.0903.01; ace. no. 1980.0903

Cara Goldberg Marks

United States, 1980

Lithograph, metallic paint

H 90.2 cm, W 66.4 cm

Gift of the artist and Michael Neil Marks, 1980

A ketubbah d'Irkhesa is a replacement marriage contract

issued when the original ketubbah has been lost or destroyed.

This ketubbah, an artist's proof, is for a wedding held on

Sunday the eighth of Tammuz 5740 (22 June 1980) between

Dov son of Mordecai and Rachel daughter of Moses. The

witnesses were David son of Mordecai Nathan and Hayyim

Judah son of Zev.

The design is reminiscent of Oriental carpets, and the

modern square script echoes that style.
NUMBER 52

209

NMAH 1981.0703.01

Hanukkah lamp

NMAH 1981.0703.01; ace. no. 1981.0703

United States, 1909 (date of patent)

Brass

H 8.5 cm, W 25 cm, D 6.0 cm

Museum purchase, 1981

Negative number 92-13023

This Hanukkah lamp is an early example of the massproduced lamps that were distributed widely to children

through religious-school classes; versions of the lamp continue

to be made.

The lamp is made to be used with oil. The oil compartments

have crimped edges similar to those of cookie molds and may

have been adapted from that usage.

In the center of the backwall is a seven-branched menorah

with the Hebrew inscription "The candlestick for the light." To

the right is a roundel with a phrase from one of the blessings

recited over the Hanukkah lights: "To light Hanukkah lights."

To the left is a roundel with a phrase from a Hanukkah song:

"We light these lights."

Huppah

NMAH 1984.0163.01; ace. no. 1984.0163

Ita Aber

New York, 1980

Linen, rayon, shells, glass, semiprecious stones, cotton thread

H 148.1 cm, W 161 cm

Gift of the artist

The artist refers to this huppah (wedding canopy) as the

"Hallelujah marriage canopy." The canopy is decorated with

appliques of lovebirds, pomegranates, and hearts, and it

incorporates designs using shells, beads, and semiprecious

stones. The word hallelujah is embroidered in Hebrew.

Ita Aber is one of the pioneers of the contemporary Jewish

arts movement, which began in the United States in the 1970s.

She also gave the museum a special box for matzah (cat. no.

NMAH 1984.0025.01) and two items for Passover use made by

Tess Eichler Aber, her mother-in-law. One is a Passover

pillowcase (cat. no. NMAH 1983.0892.02) reworked from a

tablecloth she had made for her trousseau in 1922, and the

second is a cross-stitch matzah cover made about 1935 (cat. no.

NMAH 1983.0892.01).
210 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Pan

NMAH 1986.0102.02; ace. no. 1986.0102

Russia, circa 1900

Brass

H 9.5 cm, D 38.1 cm

Gift of Bella Wernikove Wiser and Estelle S. Wiser, 1986

According to the donors, this pan (schissel) was brought to

America about 1912 by Sarah Wemikove. It was used for

several different purposes, including baking and perhaps

making fruit compote. Sarah's husband, Aaron, along with

their oldest son and daughter, came to America first from their

small town outside Moscow. While she waited for Aaron to

send for her, Sarah earned money by running a canteen, stocked

with her own homemade food, for Russian soldiers. When Sara

and the four other children came to the United States, the family

settled in Philadelphia. One of the sons died fighting with the

U.S. Army in France in 1918. Bella Wernikove Wiser inherited

the pan, along with other family heirlooms brought from

Russia.

In addition to the brass pan, Estelle Wiser gave the

Smithsonian a crocheted wool overskirt made by Sarah

Wernikove while en route to America (cat. no. NMAH

1986.0102.01).

New Year greeting card

NMAH 1986.0965.01; ace. no. 1986.0965

Germany, early twentieth century

Lithograph on newsprint

H 8 cm, W 21.6 cm

Museum purchase, 1986

Negative number 92-13049

This New Year greeting card is designed in the form of a

check from the "Bank of Heaven," payable to the recipient, for

"Three Hundred Sixty-Five Days of Health, Wealth and

Happiness." The card includes depictions of New York Harbor,

a ship sailing past the Brooklyn Bridge, a menorah, the

Decalogue, a scroll, and a six-pointed star mounted in a life

preserver. The card is inscribed in Hebrew with the traditional

New Year wishes, "May you be inscribed [in the Book of Life]

for a good year."

A wide variety of highly inventive New Year greeting cards

and postcards were published in Germany for the American

market at the turn of the century. The museum's collection

includes 36 greeting cards for the New Year printed by various

publishers and designers, principally in Germany, from around

the turn of the century.'

Notes:

'These cards are part of the extensive Norcross Antique Greeting Card

Collection, box 58.

Memorial print

NMAH 1987.0806.01; ace. no. 1987.0806

Germany, circa 1895

Chromolithograph

H 38 cm, W 51 cm

Gift of Sylvia E. Lipkowitz, 1987

Negative number 92-13048

This memorial print serves as a 50-year calendar of yahrzeit,

the annual commemoration of an individual's death. These

printed forms, with inscriptions in Hebrew and German, were

purchased by the family of the deceased and completed with the

relevant dates corresponding to the Hebrew and secular

calendars. The imagery includes a group of mourners; a figure

representing Death, with an hourglass, gravestone, and scythe;

a figure representing Justice, holding a balance; and willow and

cypress trees, symbolizing mourning and redemption.

Charles Lipkowitz purchased the print in 1895 and dedicated

it to his father, Isaak Lipkowitz (1841-1895). Isaak Lipkowitz

immigrated to the United States from Hungary with his wife

and young son.
NUMBER 52 211

THREE HUNDRED-SIXTY Fl'

OF

HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS

NMAH 1986.0965.01

r l

.'••/• H

fa

jndsvortjtrinzuzOnde^,, W M'fJ 'vi'iV

NMAH 1987.0806.01
212 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Torah mantle

NMAH-TE 1988.0183.01; ace. no. 1988.0183

Wenkheim, 1785-1786

Silk, linen, silk thread, metal thread, silk ribbon, glass beads;

wool and paper templates; linen lining

H 68 cm, W 41 cm

Gift of Congregation Emanu-El (San Francisco), 1987

Negative number 89-21185

Like numerous other eighteenth-century synagogue textiles,

this Torah mantle was made with reused cloth. The silk damask

probably dates from the first half of the eighteenth century. The

central panel is applique. The design consists of spiral columns

surmounted by lions and a crown (the keter Torah). The pitcher

is a symbol of the Levites, a reference to the family of the

donor. The dedication reads "Eliezer, son of Nathan ha-Levi, of

blessed memory, and his wife, Rebecca, daughter of Isaac, of

blessed memory, from the Holy Congregation of Wenkheim in

the year 5546 [1785-1786]."

According to the records of Congregation Emanu-El, the

Torah mantle was brought to California during the Gold Rush

and was subsequently donated to the synagogue.1 The mantle

was given to the Smithsonian in honor of the 200th anniversary

of the Constitution of the United States.

Notes:

'Still in the collection of Congregation Emanu-El are another Torah mantle

and a Torah curtain from the same community. We are grateful to Rafi Grafman

for informing us about these objects.

NMAH-TE 1988.0183.01
NUMBER 52 213

iiY>/& i»i>u; row M^J? wn3i t\S jii

NMAH 1988.0465

Sukkah decoration

NMAH 1988.0465; ace. no. 1988.0465

Yaacov Ne'eman

Haifa, Israel, 1982

Paper

H 38.5 cm, W 47.3 cm

Gift of Zippora Ne'eman, 1988

Negative number 92-13108

This decorative paper-cut commemorates the holiday of

Sukkot. Its central motif is a sukkah enclosing a table set with

candlesticks and wine for the holiday. Ne'eman also incorporated the symbols of the Decalogue, a crown, and the lions of

Judah as well as the lulav and etrog associated with Sukkot. In

addition, there is a stylized representation of Jerusalem,

depicting towers, domes, windmills, cypress trees, and the

Western Wall. The inscription reads "Spread over us your

tabernacle of peace."

Yaacov Ne'eman took up the art of paper-cutting at the age

of seventy, when he retired. Born in Hungary in 1908, Ne'eman

trained as a goldsmith. He immigrated to Israel in the early

1930s and, because few jobs were available, became a sign

painter. In taking up paper-cutting, Ne'eman was part of a

revival of a traditional craft previously used to make a variety

of ceremonial items, including amulets, mizrah plaques,

marriage contracts, and Esther scrolls.

Prayerbook

NMAH 1991.864.01; ace. no. 1991.864

Cincinnati, Ohio, 1866

Printed paper

H 17 cm, W 12 cm, D 1.5 cm

Gift of Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus, 1991

This prayerbook, part of a series entitled Minhag America

[The American Rite], was developed by Isaac Mayer Wise,

pioneer of Reform Judaism in the United States. This volume,

"The Divine Service of American Israelites for the New Year,"

was published in Cincinnati by Bloch and Company. In 1857

Wise published a daily prayerbook, and in 1866 a Yom Kippur

liturgy was also printed. Minhag America represented major

innovations in ritual in accordance with the new liberal views.

Wise published Minhag America in the hope that a common

prayerbook would be accepted by all the congregations in the

United States. In fact, Wise's works did not become the

standard for Reform congregations; chosen instead was the

Union Prayer Book, published by the Central Conference of

American Rabbis in 1894.

Born in Bohemia in 1819, Wise trained for the rabbinate in

Europe and immigrated to the United States in 1846. He first

served at Congregation Beth-El in Albany, New York, where

he introduced numerous changes in synagogue practice,

including mixed seating for men and women, counting women

for the required quorum often for a minyan, delivering sermons

in German, a choir comprised of both men and women, and a

confirmation service for both young men and young women to

replace the traditional Bar Mitzvah. In 1850 there was a rift in

the congregation, and Wise went on to serve as rabbi of the

newly formed Anshe Emeth Congregation in Albany until

1854. In that year he was appointed rabbi of B'nai Yeshurun in

Cincinnati, where he served until his death, in 1890.

Wise was an institution builder who strongly believed that

only a union of synagogues could ensure success for Judaism in

America. He expounded his views in The Israelite, a newspaper

he established in 1854. In 1873 the Union of American Hebrew

Congregations was formed, and in 1875 he realized his dream

of establishing an American rabbinical seminary with the

founding of Hebrew Union College.'

This copy of Minhag America originally belonged to M.

Bodenheim, whose name is inscribed in gilt letters on the

cover. It later became the personal copy of Dr. Jacob Rader

Marcus.2 Marcus is recognized as the scholar principally

responsible for establishing the study of American Jewish

history as an academic history. An ordained rabbi, Marcus

received his doctorate in Berlin in 1925, then returned to

Hebrew Union College, where he taught for seven decades. In

1947 Marcus established the American Jewish Archives at

Hebrew Union College.

Along with this copy of Minhag America, Marcus gave the

Smithsonian the tefillin he received for his Bar Mitzvah.

Notes:

1Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Wise, Isaac Mayer."

^Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Marcus, Jacob Rader."
21

4 SMITHSONIA

N STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH-TE 15410

Sampler

NMAH-TE 15410; ace. no. 58305

Slowi Hays

Boston, Massachusetts, 1788

Wool, silk thread

H 43.7 cm, W 17 cm

Loan of Mrs. Edward Cohen, 1915

Negative number 92-13042

This sampler is embroidered with a simple landscape

(including a spotted dog, a butterfly, and a tree) as well as two

block alphabets and geometric crossbands. One crossband has

a basket of flowers flanked by paired sheep, birds, and hearts.

Inscribed on the bottom is "Slowi Hays is may [sic] na / me

[name] nine years old /1 wrought the same."

Slowi Hays (her first name is also spelled Sloe, Slowe,

Slowey in family records) was born on 29 June 1779 in

Kingston, Rhode Island. Her great-grandfather Michael (died

1740) immigrated to America from the Netherlands in the first

quarter of the eighteenth century. She was the granddaughter of

Judah Hays (1703-1764). Her father, Moses Michael Hays

(1739-1805), first lived in Newport, Rhode Island, and then

moved to Boston. He was an insurance broker, dealer in bills of

exchange on London, and a dabbler in real estate.

1

 Active in

Freemasonry, Hays served as grand master of the Masonic

Grand Lodge of Massachusetts from 1788 to 1792.

2

 Slowi's

mother was Rachel Myers of Virginia.

Moses Michael and Rachel Hays had seven children, two

boys and five girls. One son, Solomon, died in infancy. Slowi

and two of her sisters, Rebecca and Catherine, never married.

Her brother Judah, who inherited the family fortune, became a

founder of the Boston Athenaeum.

3

 In 1796 two of her sisters,

Judith and Sarah (Sally), married sons of the renowned colonial

American silversmith Myer Myers. Sarah married Moses

Mears Myers, and Judith married Samuel Myers. After their

marriages, Judith and Sarah both moved to Richmond,

Virginia, and were joined by Slowi and Catherine. Slowi died

in Richmond in 1836.

The Hays household also included Moses Michael's sister

Reyna Hays Touro, widow of the Reverend Isaac Touro of

Newport, and her four children. Her son, Judah Touro, became

a prominent merchant and philanthropist in New Orleans.

Caroline Myers Cohen, who deposited the sampler at the

Smithsonian, was a granddaughter of Judith Hays and Samuel

Myers. Her parents were Samuel Hays Myers and Eliza K.

Mordecai.

4

 Cohen also gave the NMAH Division of Textiles a

number of items of clothing, several of them from the

eighteenth century, which had belonged to various members of

the extended Hays and Myers families. Included are satin

slippers worn by Joyce Mears Myers about 1788 (NMAH-TE

15444), two silk knit nightcaps that belonged to Moses Michael

Hays (NMAH-TE 15441), knee breeches and shoe buckles

worn by M.M. Myers around 1795 (NMAH-TE 15473), and the

lace wedding veil worn by her great-aunt Sally Hays Myers at

her wedding in 1796 (NMAH-TE 15443).

5
NUMBER 52 215

Notes:

'Joseph L. Blau and Salo W. Baron, editors, The Jews of the United States,

1790-1840: A Documentary History (New York: Columbia University Press,

1963), volume 1, page 260.

2UniversalJewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Hays, Moses Michael."

3

Ibid.

"Blau and Baron, The Jews of the United States, page 274.

information on the family history is found in accession record 58305. Other

objects include a gown (NMAH-TE 15408), bodice (NMAH-TE 15409), lace

collars (NMAH-TE 15498, NMAH-TE 15445), and sleeve lace (NMAH-TE

15499, NMAH-TE 15500).

"Star-Spangled Banner" scroll

NMAH-PH 31842; ace. no. 67600

Israel Fine

Baltimore, Maryland, 1914

Scroll: ink on parchment, wooden rollers (English translation

printed on silk)

Mantle: silk, silk thread, silk ribbon, spangles

H 38.1 cm, W 20.3 cm (closed)

Gift of Israel Fine, 1921

Negative numbers 92-13003, 92-13004, 92-13006

Made to resemble a Torah, this scroll was made in

celebration of the centennial of the composition of the national

anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." The scroll contains a

hymn written in Hebrew on parchment by Israel Fine and an

insert with an English translation by Dr. Tobias Salzmann. The

scroll is attached to oak rollers, which were cut down at some

point and the handles removed.

The English translation is printed on white silk with a border

of red, white, and blue ribbon. The silk panel was originally

rolled into the scroll following the Hebrew text. Highlighted in

red and blue ink are the words "The Star-Spangled Banner."

There is a portrait of George Washington, above which is an

eagle superimposed on an American flag; below is a laurel

wreath inscribed "The Father of his country."

The end of the silk panel contains a portrait of Abraham

Lincoln, above which is an unfurled American flag with the

words "E Pluribus Unum" on a ribbon flying from the flagstaff.

Below Lincoln's portrait is an eagle in flight holding a laurel

branch in its claws, the shield of the United States, and the

words "Emancipation Proclamation Abraham Lincoln." This is

followed by the famous "With malice toward none" section of

Lincoln's second inaugural address.

On one side of the textile mantle of the scroll is an American

flag with a ribbon inscribed "The Star-Spangled banner." A

Hebrew inscription reads "The flag [of the tribe] of Judah"

(Numbers 2:3). The back of the mantle has an appliqued

American flag flanked by the dates 1814-1914. Below in

Hebrew is "Israel Levin Fine/Froma Minna Fine/1865-

1915 / Baltimore." Apparently the scroll was made to celebrate

their 50th wedding anniversary as well.

Israel Fine (1847-1930) was born in Pakruoy (Pakruojis),

Lithuania.1 His father, Judah, was a Talmudic scholar, and his

mother tended the family business, a dry-goods store. In 1865

Fine married Minna Racusin. Following their marriage he

continued his studies for four more years before entering the

commercial world. He had his own business and then became

a sales representative in Moscow. Fine was a prolific

correspondent, and he wrote to business colleagues in

Lithuania, Russia, Poland, and Germany. He wrote in Hebrew,

which was unusual at that time.

In 1891 Fine moved to America with his wife, four

daughters, and a son.2 After a brief stay in Philadelphia, he

moved to Baltimore and opened the clothing firm of Israel Fine

and Son. Fine became active in the Jewish community of

Baltimore and was close to some of its prominent members.

Most notable was Rabbi Benjamin Szold of the Oheb Shalom

Synagogue. In 1902 Szold presented Fine with a carved

wooden cane inscribed with the verse from Psalms 110:2: "The

Lord will send the staff of your strength from Zion." Fine was

also a friend of Dr. Harry Friedenwald. It is possible that Fine

decided to present the "Star-Spangled Banner" scroll to the

Smithsonian because of this personal association.

Israel Fine was a delegate to the World Zionist Congress in

London in 1904. Following the Balfour Declaration, in 1917,

Fine wrote to several U.S. Congressmen urging them to support

the declaration. In 1926, when he was almost 80 years old, he

traveled to Palestine, where he met Sir Herbert Samuel, the first

high commissioner under the British Mandate.3

Fine was a poet who wrote in both Hebrew and English. In

1907 he published Ng 'inash Ben-Jehudah: Selections of Poems

and Memorial in Memory of His Parents, His Sons, and of

Celebrated Men, Well-Known Institutions, Houses of Worship,

Etc. A presentation copy of this volume, apparently given to

President Theodore Roosevelt, is in the collection of the

Library of Congress.4 Among the poems are two in honor of

President Roosevelt and memorials to President McKinley and

Secretary of State John Hay as well as memorial tributes to

Theodor Herzl and Benjamin Szold.

Copies of his book were sent to many dignitaries all over the

world. Fine saved the acknowledgments he received, including

letters from Louis D. Brandeis, Jacob Schiff, Rabbi Stephen S.

Wise, Nathan Straus, George Eastman, James Cardinal Gibbons (of Baltimore), rabbis in Jerusalem, Rome, Dublin, and

Djerba, a Jewish publisher in Japan, the Vatican, Lord Balfour,

the German kaiser, and the secretaries of several American

presidents.

Fine was a very charitable person, supporting numerous

worthy causes and institutions, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in

the United States, Palestine, and elsewhere. Although his

contributions were substantial, he was not tremendously

wealthy; interestingly, however, many of his donations were

reported in the press. Perhaps it was because of the nature of his

giving. A telling example was reported in the Baltimore

American on 9 July 1922, when Fine decided "to forgo a

banquet in order to alleviate the suffering of the needy of his

own and other races on his birthday, when he will be 75 years
216 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

NMAH-PH 31842, neg. no. 92-13003 NMAH-PH 31842, neg. no. 92-13004

NMAH-PH 31842, neg. no. 92-13006
217

NMAH-PH 31842, neg. no. 92-13006

old." On that occasion ten checks were distributed to such

organizations as the United Charities, the Free Loan Association of Jerusalem, the Babies' Milk Fund, and the Parochial

School of Baltimore.

Notes:

'The information on Israel Fine is based on correspondence with his

great-grandson Earl L. Baker. Dr. Baker is in possession of all the extant

documents relating to Israel Fine that belonged to the family.

2A second son was bom in the United States in the 1890s.

3On his trip, Fine bought several items made in the Bezalel School of Arts

and Crafts. These are still in the possession of the family.

4

See Karp, From the Ends of the Earth, page 120. Fine's volume is bound in

leather. On the inside of one cover is the flag of the United States; inside the

other is the seal of the United States. Little was known about Israel Fine until

his great-granddaughter Marjorie Rosenblatt chanced to see this volume on

display at the Library of Congress. Fortuitously, Michael Grunberger, head of

the Hebraic Section at the Library of Congress, was at the exhibition that day;

subsequently, Mrs. Rosenblatt and Dr. Baker made the family documents

available.

Bibliography:

Kleeblatt and Wertkin, The Jewish Heritage in American Folk Art, no. 92.

Smithsonian Institution, Celebration, no. 252.
21

8 SMITHSONIA

N STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Neg.no. 92-13041

Purim Gazette

NMAH Archives Center

New York, New York, 1893

Lithograph

H27cm, W 19 cm

Negative number 92-13041

A number of documents relating to Jews and Judaism are

contained within the Warshaw Collection of Business Ameri-

cana in the National Museum of American History Archives

Center. The collection, which numbers over a million items,

was formed beginning about 1920 by Isadore Warshaw, a New

York bookseller, and was sold to the Smithsonian in 1967. The

research value of the collection is enormous. Warshaw's avid

collecting efforts provide a remarkable resource on the

American Jewish experience during this period (one of the

many fields represented). The items of Judaica include: small

prayer books and calendars printed in the United States;

advertising cards and letterheads of Jewish-owned businesses;

newsletters of various Jewish social and political organizations

and institutions of learning; texts of lectures presented in the

United States on Jewish history, social welfare, art, history, and

the state of Israel; anti-Jewish pamphlets published by various

American organizations; anti-Semitic trading cards; and origi-

nal certificates, documents, and photo-etchings of important

Jewish leaders and institutions.

The Purim Gazette was the annual publication of a

fund-raising event held by the Purim Association, founded in

1862. The aim of the Association was

to do credit to the festival, to our city, and to ourselves, by conducting the Purim

Ball so that "mirth, gladness, joy and honor" shall now, as in the days of

Mordecai and Esther,' reign undisturbed; and "Merry Purim" implies

merriment superior to unrestrained liberty—the joyousness that is in harmony

with a festival based upon brotherly love and kindness, thoughtfulness for the

poor, and patriotic zeal.

2

The proceeds from these elaborate masquerade balls and

carnivals were given to support various causes in different

years. Also in the museum's collection is a ticket to a charity

ball in aid of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, held

under the management of the Purim Association at the

Metropolitan Opera House in 1888, and a pamphlet for a

charity ball to benefit the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, dated 1891.

The Purim Gazette was printed by the Industrial School of

the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society of the City

of New York.

Notes:

'"That they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending

choice portions to one another, and gifts to the poor" (Esther 9:22).

2

From the Purim Gazette of 1881, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati,

Ohio.
NUMBER 52 219

IS CCS S«D

NMAH 1992.0391

J. & D. Miller cutlery, sign, photographs, and documents

NMAH 1979.1204.1-87, NMAH 1992.0391, NMAH

1992.3159

New York, New York, 1909-1969

Gift of Irving D. Miller and Irene Miller Galdston

Negative number 92-14806

Seeking economic opportunity was an important aspect of

the American dream for Jewish immigrants. The tools of the

trade of several different individuals were documented as part

of the Smithsonian's Judaica survey because they are of

particular interest as examples of the process of immigration

and acculturation.

The J. & D. Miller Collection consists of 87 knife-making

tools, knives, instruments for berit milah (circumcision), and

halafim, special knives used in the processing of animals in

adherence with the ritual laws of kashrut (kosher), as well as a

shop sign, a catalog in Yiddish and English, photographs, and

documents, including correspondence from customers in more

than 30 states and 17 foreign countries. The collection provides

a fascinating glimpse of the lives of two Russian Jewish

immigrants in America in the early twentieth century.

The shop sign (NMAH 1992.0391) reads in Yiddish: "Here

is Miller's / Miller's halofim [halafim] and mohel messers are

the best and finest in the entire world / They are guaranteed

never to rust." Four examples of their ritual instruments are

mounted on the sign: an ofos halef, a knife for poultry; a gasos

halef a knife for cattle; a mohel mashinke, a circumcision

clamp; and a mohel messer, a circumcision knife.

Joseph and David Miller were born in Chotinetch, a small

village in western Russia, near Minsk, two brothers in a family

of seven children of poor tenant farmers.1 David, born about

1883, was the eldest, and he was sent as a young boy to

apprentice with his uncle, who owned a small knife-making

factory. Joseph followed suit a few years later. At age 19

Joseph fled Russia to avoid military conscription. He stopped

first in Liverpool, England, where another uncle, also a cutler,

lived. But he decided that America was the "land of

opportunity,'' and he made his way to the United States,

arriving in 1905. In 1908 Joseph helped his brother David, who

had served in the Russian Army, to join him in America.

Joseph opened his first shop on Canal Street on New York's

Lower East Side in 1909, and the brothers became partners

about 1916. The area was crowded with immigrants from

eastern Europe, many of whom worked in the needle trades,

either in sweatshops or in their own crowded tenement

apartments, and there was a tremendous need for adequate tools

for cutting fur, felt, leather, and cloth. In addition, the Millers

became well known for the manufacture of Jewish ritual

knives. As did other members of this upwardly mobile

immigrant generation, they later moved their factory to the

Bronx.

The brothers' reputation grew because of the fine quality and

extraordinary durability of their products. Each item they made
220 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

bore the trademark "J. & D. Miller N. Y. Guaranteed," and they

built their business on their practice of standing behind their

products when the items needed sharpening, repair, or

replacement. They later became known for their innovations in

specialty blades used by the military during World War II, for

surgical instruments, and for knives used to cut a variety of

materials, from heavy wool to linoleum. David Miller was

known for being particularly meticulous, especially in procedures that required extraordinary skill, such as manufacturing

curved blades.

David Miller retired in 1943, but Joseph Miller carried on the

business into the late 1960s. When he died, at age 85, he had

worked nearly to the very end. The Miller brothers saw

themselves as examples of the fulfillment of the American

dream—poor immigrants with little formal schooling who were

given the opportunity and freedom to use their special talents to

achieve success.

Notes:

'The family history is based on the recollections of Irene Miller Galdston,

daughter of Joseph Miller, which were recorded on 15 February 1980. Business

records donated to the Smithsonian are in accession file 1992.3159. The

acquisition of the Miller collection resulted from the energetic pursuit by two

Smithsonian specialists, Tom L. Tully and David Shayt, working under Richard

Ahlbom's supervision.

Gertrude M. Oppenheimer Bequest

A 1981 bequest from the estate of Gertrude M. Oppenheimer

to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum includes three samplers with

Hebrew alphabets. Oppenheimer, a resident of New York City,

collected over 500 samplers. A recluse whose chief task was to

nurse her ailing father, Oppenheimer rarely had any personal

contact with the outside world. Little is known about her

reasons for collecting samplers. Unfortunately, no information

about the makers of the samplers accompanied the accession.'

Notes:

'Information about Gertrude M. Oppenheimer was provided by Gillian

Moss, curator of textiles at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.

Sampler

SI-CH 1981.28.190

Germany, 1796

Silk, cotton thread

H 35 cm, W 35.5 cm

Bequest of Gertrude M. Oppenheimer, 1981

On the top row of the sampler, in cross-stitch, is the complete

Latin alphabet. On the next row are the numerals 1 -0 and the

Hebrew alphabet. The third row displays the Latin alphabet and

the date, 1796. Below this row is a series of Hebrew

monograms and the initials R.H., each of which is surmounted

by a different crown. All the Hebrew monograms have the same

second letter, thus possibly referring to members of the same

family.

A variety of motifs is scattered throughout the rest of the

sampler, including various trees, flowers, cherries, a deer, and

birds, including a double-headed eagle. In the center is the

monogram M.R., flanked by the biblical vignettes of Cain

slaying Abel (Genesis 3:8) and the Spies carrying a cluster of

grapes (Numbers 13:23).

Sampler

SI-CH 1981.28.260

Germany, 1808

Linen, silk thread

H 35.5 cm, W 28.5 cm

Bequest of Gertrude M. Oppenheimer, 1981

At the top of the sampler are horizontal bands of

embroidered geometric patterns in cross-stitch, the complete

Latin alphabet, the numerals 1-12 (with 5 and 6 repeated), and

the complete Hebrew alphabet. Directly below the horizontal

bands are several crowns, a large bird, and several geometric

motifs. Farther down in the open field is a flowerpot with three

pomegranates alongside what appear to be two candlesticks. At

the lower right is a crown with two birds, a monogram in

Hebrew, and the date 1808.

Sampler

SI-CH 1981.28.18

Eastern Europe, 1888

Cotton, wool thread, cotton thread

H 48.9 cm, W 49.3 cm

Bequest of Gertrude M. Oppenheimer, 1981

The sampler includes Latin, Russian, and Hebrew alphabets

and the numerals 1-0. The maker, identified in Cyrillic

characters at the lower right as "S.V.," experimented with a

variety of scripts. A phrase at bottom center means "hearty

appetite" in Russian.

Sukkah decoration

SI-CH 1929.16.1

Italy, eighteenth century

Silk, silk thread, metal thread

H51 cm, W 69 cm

Gift of Ehrich Galleries in memory of Mrs. Louis B. Ehrich

The scene on this sukkah decoration displays an open

courtyard with an arcade in the background. Above the central

arch of the arcade is a Hebrew inscription identifying the

subject as Simhat Bet ha-Sho'evah, the Festival of the Drawing
NUMBER 52

221

SI-CH 1929.16.1

of the Water. At the sides of the panel are stepped platforms on

which musicians stand. A man blowing a shofar or a trumpet is

on the right and a man playing a tambourine is on the left. In the

foreground are three male figures dancing, juggling, and

performing acrobatics.

Simhat Bet ha-Sho'evah originally took place in the outer

court of the Temple in Jerusalem during the Sukkot holiday.

The representation here is drawn from the Babylonian Talmud

(Sukkot 5:1-4): there were three golden candlesticks in the

courtyard, and "men of piety and good works used to dance

before them with burning torches in their hands, singing songs

and praises." The Hebrew inscription on the sukkah decoration

relates to this description. It was also said that whoever had not

seen the Simhat Bet ha-Sho'evah had never witnessed real joy

in his life (Sukkot 5:1). There is a story that during the

celebration, Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel, the great scholar and

head of the Sanhedrin, juggled eight torches, as seen here.

Two embroidered panels in the collection of the Jewish

Museum depicting the Tabernacle in the Wilderness (catalog

number F5207) and King Solomon's throne (catalog number

F5208) are similar to this work.1

Notes::

'Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Grossman, Fabric of Jewish Life, nos. 243 and

244.

Bibliography:

Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Sukkot."

I. Winter and S. Rachum, Ingathering: Ceremony and Tradition in New York

Public Collections (New York: Jewish Museum, 1968), no. 129.
222 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Fragments from the Cairo Genizah

Freer 08.44.1-50

Old Cairo (Fostat), Egypt, medieval period

Ink on paper

The Hebrew word genizah means "storing away out of

sight," and the term came to be used to describe a place to store

books, documents, and ritual objects that are no longer usable

but cannot be discarded because they contain the name of God.1

The existence of the genizah at the Ezra Synagogue in Cairo

was known as early as 1753, when it was seen by Simon von

Geldern,2 and was reported again by Jacob Saphir in 1864.3

Neither of these men entered the genizah because of local

superstition that harm would befall anyone who entered.

Despite the warnings, occasionally items were illicitly removed

from the genizah and sold. In 1896 fragments of what was later

identified as The Book of Ben Sira were sold to visitors from

England by a local dealer. Professor Solomon Schechter, the

scholar who made the attribution, subsequently traveled to

Cairo and was able to remove about 100,000 pages from the

genizah, which were taken to Cambridge for study. Another

100,000 fragments were later removed and deposited in other

major libraries.

In 1908 Charles L. Freer traveled to Egypt and bought 50

fragments from a dealer in Gizeh. It is not clear whether the

fragments actually came from the genizah or not. They may

have been removed from the synagogue when it was

undergoing repair, or they may have been dug up after they had

been buried elsewhere by synagogue authorities.4

Notes::

1Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Genizah."

2

Simon von Geldem (1720-1788) was born in Germany to a family of court

Jews. An adventurer, he was immortalized by his great-nephew Heinrich Heine

(Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Geldern").

3

Jacob Saphir (1822-1885) was bom in Vilna, but his family immigrated to

Eretz Yisrael when he was only 10 years old. Saphir, who was orphaned when

he was a young teen, became a writer and intrepid traveler, serving as emissary

to a number of Jewish communities, including those in Egypt and Yemen

(Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Saphir").

4Richard Gottheil and William H. Worrell, editors, Fragments from the

Cairo Genizah in the Freer Collection (New York: Macmillan, 1927), page xiv.

Elizabeth Kessin Berman located these fragments in the Freer Collection.

Bibliography:

Gottheil and Worrell, Fragments from the Cairo Genizah.
NUMBER 52

223

NMAH 1994.0334.01

Chess set

NMAH 1994.0334.01

Carl Stienbrenner

Auschwitz, Poland, 1944 or 1945

Wood colored with shoe polish

H 7.5 cm, W 15.5 cm, D 11 cm

Gift of Sherri Sue Adams in memory of John Leben Adams

Negative number 95-1979

This chess set was made at the Auschwitz concentration

camp by Carl Stienbrenner and his father, who died in the

camp. Carl was liberated and emigrated to the United States.

The chess set was given to John Leben Adams by Stienbrenner

in 1959.
224

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

i rmn

NMAH 1995.0342.01
NUMBER 52 225

Torah crown

NMAH 1995.0342.01; ace. no. 1995.0342

Bernard Bernstein

Rochester, New York, 1963

Silver, partially gold-plated

H 21.9 cm, D 21.9 cm

Gift of the artist in memory of Joseph Newman, 1995

Negative number: none

Bernard Bernstein was born and raised in New York. After

finishing an undergraduate degree in industrial arts education at

the City College of New York, he went on to complete two

master's degrees, one in arts education and the second in fine

arts at the School for American Craftsmen of the Rochester

Institute of Technology. This Torah crown was designed and

made in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MFA

degree. It was the first time an object of Jewish ceremonial art

was ever done as a thesis at the school. In his decision to craft

an object of Judaica, Bernstein cites the influence of Ludwig

Wolpert, with whom he had studied at the Tobe Pascher

Workshop at the Jewish Museum in New York beginning in

1959. When he met Wolpert, Bernstein let him know that apart

from an understanding of Yiddish, he had no knowledge of the

Hebrew alphabet or of Jewish history, ritual, symbols, and

literature. However, what for Bernstein began as a quest to

learn about the formal and technical issues of silversmithing

became a spiritual one as well.

The crown is made in three sections. The circular base has a

pierced inscription: "This is the teaching that Moses set before

the Israelites" (Deuteronomy 4:44). Mounted on the top rim of

the base are 12 forged U-shaped units, joined at their tops to

form a 12-pointed crown. Resting inside the top rim of the base

is a truncated cone-shaped structure to which symbols of the 12

Israelite tribes are attached. Bernstein fashioned the symbols

based on the traditional imagery associated with each tribe as

derived from Jacob's blessing of his sons (Genesis 49:1-28).

Bernstein also intended to suggest a tent-like form in the

overall shape of the cone, ribs, and finial, which he associated

with the tent of meeting in the wilderness (Exodus 25:8). The

gold-plated crown finial is formed by a Hebrew inscription:

"Give honor to the Torah" (from the liturgy recited when the

Torah scroll is read).

Torah finials

NMAH 1995.0343.01, NMAH 1995.0343.02; ace. no.

1995.0343

Bernard Bernstein

New York, New York, 1966

Silver

H 25.4 cm, D 7.6 cm

Gift in memory of Joseph Newman by his wife, Rosalyn, and

his daughters Elisa Newman, Marjorie Newman, and

Lorraine Richardson

Negative number: none

Bernard Bernstein continued his academic training at New

York University, where he received an Ed.D. in creative arts.

This pair of Torah finials is part of a group of ten silver Torah

ornaments that Bernstein made in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for his doctoral degree. It was the first time that an

advanced degree was granted for research and artistic production in the field of Jewish liturgical art. Bernstein's thesis

investigated the history, function, style, and iconography of

Torah ornaments.

The design of these rimmonim is based on a contemporary

interpretation of two motifs frequently used in the design of

baroque Torah finials: the tower, which forms the body, and the

crown, which is used for the finial. In this pair of finials, the

two are combined, giving the effect of a crown and tower

simultaneously. Each finial is composed of a tapered tube

surmounted by six spire-like shapes. The six spires represent

the six days of creation, and the combined number of spirals on

both rimmonim symbolize the 12 tribes. In contrast to baroque

examples, there is no surface ornamentation; liveliness is

achieved through the interplay of flat surfaces, sharp corners,

and diagonals.
Glossary

Ashkenazi: The term Ashkenaz is derived from the medieval

name for Germany; an important Jewish community

developed in the Rhineland beginning in about the tenth

century. From there the Ashkenazi culture spread to eastern

Europe, and in modern times the term Ashkenazim refers to

their descendants in the many countries to which they

migrated. Ashkenazim are differentiated from the Sephardim, Jews who are descended from ancestors who came

from the Iberian peninsula.

Atarah, pi. atarot: Atarah means "crown"; the term was

used as early as biblical times. The word also refers to the

band affixed to the upper portion of the tallit and which is

around the neck when the tallit is worn. The atarah

sometimes contains the blessing that is recited when the

tallit is put on.

Bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah: In Judaism, the passage to

adulthood is marked by an act of religious adherence and

commitment. For boys, the ceremony accepting the adult

responsibilities is called bar mitzvah and takes place at age

13; bat mitzvah, the ceremony for a girl, traditionally takes

place at age 12, although many girls now celebrate their bat

mitzvah at age 13 as well.

Berit milah: The circumcision ceremony, at which baby boys

are named. (Girls were customarily named in the synagogue,

although many families are now developing a berit bat, a

naming ceremony welcoming the baby girl to the covenant.)

Circumcision is the sign of the sacred covenant between

God and Abraham (Genesis 17:11). The ceremony is

therefore termed the covenant of circumcision {berit milah).

The ritual is performed by a specially trained circumciser,

the mohel, when the male child is eight days old.

Chair of Elijah: The prophet Elijah is described in Malachi

3:1 as the "messenger of the covenant." The term covenant

in this phrase has traditionally been interpreted as the

covenant of circumcision, hence the custom of providing a

chair for Elijah (kise Eliyahu) at the berit milah ceremony.

Etrog: The citron, a fruit resembling a lemon. This is one of

the four species of plants that are used during Sukkot.

Containers are used to protect the fragile fruit from injury

when it is not in use; sometimes the shape of the container

is patterned after the form of the fruit.

Genizah: A depository for scrolls that contain the name of

God and which therefore cannot be destroyed.

Haggadah: The text used at the seder to narrate the story and

interpret the intricate seder ritual. There are thousands of

manuscript and printed editions of the Haggadah; many of

these texts are illustrated.

Hallah: The special bread eaten on the Sabbath and holidays.

It is customary on the Sabbath to use two loaves for the

motzi, the blessing over the bread, to symbolize the double

portion of manna that the Israelites received on Fridays so

that they would not have to gather food (which is considered

work) on the Sabbath.

Hanukkah: The Festival of Lights, a joyous winter holiday

that commemorates events that occurred in ancient Israel

about 165 B.C.E. At that time, the land had fallen under the

rule of Syrian Greeks, who prohibited all Jewish worship in

Palestine and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem. Under the

leadership of Judah the Maccabee, the Jews entered the

Temple and cleansed and rededicated it for Jewish worship.

With this triumph, the Jews won freedom from political and

religious oppression.

The Talmud relates that as the preparations were made to

rededicate the Jerusalem Temple, only one flask of pure oil,

enough for but a single day, was found. A miracle occurred

and the oil for the Temple menorah lasted eight days.

Hanukkah lamp: A lamp used in the celebration of Hanukkah. Lights are kindled for eight days beginning on the 25th

of the Hebrew month of Kislev. One light is lit the first night

and one added each subsequent night. Because the light of

the Hanukkah lamp many not be used for work or

illumination, a shammash, or servant light, is lit first and is

used to kindle the others. A great variety of materials and

many different techniques have been used to fashion

Hanukkah lamps.

Havdalah: Havdalah literally means "the separation." This

ceremony marks the end of the Sabbath and the beginning of

the new week. Blessings are recited over wine, spices, and

light. For the blessing over light, a special twisted candle is

used.

Huppah: A canopy under which the bride and groom stand

during their wedding ceremony. It symbolizes the home

they will share.

Judenstern: The Judenstern, literally "Jewish star," is a form

of hanging lamp that developed in central Europe. Since

antiquity, it has been the custom of Jewish women to

welcome the Sabbath and holidays by kindling lights.

Although no fixed number is prescribed for the ritual, two

226
NUMBER 52 227

lights are often cited as a minimum fulfillment of the Law.

This is a reflection of the variation of the wording of the

fourth commandment. In Exodus the Decalogue reads,

"Remember the Sabbath day" (Exodus 20:8), whereas the

later Deuteronomic source states, "Observe the Sabbath

day" (Deuteronomy 5:12). Many different forms of candlesticks and lamps have been used, generally reflecting the

style of lamps in the particular locale.

The form of this type of lamp derives from star-shaped

hanging lamps used throughout Europe in the Middle Ages.

This type of lamp became associated primarily with Jewish

ritual use by the sixteenth century, hence the term

Judenstern.

Kabbalah: The mystical tradition. Alongside normative

Judaism, there has always been a strong mystical movement

whose importance varies from era to era. The kabbalah

encompasses the writings, principally the Zohar, and the

philosophy of Jewish mysticism.

Kaddish: A memorial prayer written in Aramaic, recited by

the mourner. The kaddish praises God and yet has no

mention of death; rather, it reaffirms God's greatness.

Ketubbah, pi. ketubbot: Marriage contract. The practice of

writing this document dates back to the first century B.C.E.

and originated as a method for the groom to stipulate his

legal obligations to the bride. Beginning in the seventeenth

century in Italy, many ketubbot began to be richly

illuminated.

Kiddush cup: A cup for wine used during the recitation of the

sanctification prayer (kiddush) for the Sabbath and holidays.

The kiddush is recited on Friday evening, and a variation of

the prayer is said after the morning services on the Sabbath

(either in the synagogue or at home before lunch). Similarly,

the kiddush is recited before the meal on the eve of holidays

and after services during the day of the festival.

Kittel: A white robe worn on Yom Kippur to signify purity.

In certain communities, it is also traditional for the

bridegroom to wear a kittel during the wedding ceremony,

and it is also worn by the person who conducts the Passover

seder.

Lulav: This term refers to three branches, one of myrtle, one

of palm, and one of willow, which are bound together and

used with the etrog during Sukkot rituals. In accordance

with the biblical injunction of Leviticus 23:40, during the

morning service in the synagogue the hallel, songs of

thanksgiving, are recited with the etrog and lulav. They are

also carried in a procession around the synagogue during

prayers called hoshanot.

Matzah: unleavened bread. Matzah is eaten on Passover as a

symbolic association with the hasty departure of the

Hebrews from Egypt, which prevented them from waiting

for their dough to rise. Matzah is referred to as the "bread of

affliction." The matzah cover is a decorative textile used to

cover the three matzot used during the seder.

Mazal tov: Literally, mazal means "a constellation," and

mazal tov means literally "under a good constellation." The

phrase has since come to mean "good luck."

Megillah, pi. megillot: A scroll. There are five biblical

megillot: Esther, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, and

Ecclesiastes.

Menorah: The seven-branched candelabrum of the Tabernacle and Temple, often referred to as a symbol of the seven

days of creation, and of Judaism itself.

Mishnah: A rabbinical work in six sections, containing the

development of the laws of the Torah in the post-biblical

period; codified by Judah Ha-Nasi about 200 C.E.

Mitzvah, pi. mitzvot: Commandment. According to the

Talmud, there are 613 mitzvot in the Torah, which each Jew

should obey. The mitzvot deal with every aspect of life. A

number of lists have been made by sages as to what the exact

613 are. However, even the most observant Jew cannot

fulfill all of them, as some deal with the ancient Temple in

Jerusalem and its sacrificial cult. The word mitzvah has

taken on additional meaning, so that it often connotes a good

deed as well.

Omer calendar: A calendar used in the home or synagogue

for the ritual counting of the 49 days between Passover and

Shavuot. In ancient times, the second night of Passover was

celebrated as the start of the barley harvest (omer), and the

counting begins on that night.

Passover (Pesah): Passover, which begins on the 14th of the

Hebrew month of Nisan, marks the beginning of springtime

and the rebirth of the land. Pesah is the Festival of

Redemption, recalling the Exodus from Egypt and proclaiming the message of freedom for all of mankind.

Pidyon Ha-Ben: Redemption of the son. The one-month-old

firstborn is symbolically "redeemed" from priestly service

through an offering of money to a kohen, a descendant of the

priestly tribe. Decorative plates were sometimes made for

this festive event.

Purim: The Feast of Lots. This holiday celebrates the triumph

of the beautiful Jewish Queen Esther and her uncle

Mordecai over Haman, the prime minister of King Ahasuerus, who had plotted to annihilate all the Jews of the Persian

Empire. Purim comes in the early spring on the 14th of the

Hebrew month of Adar, and it is celebrated with the reading

of the Esther scroll in a carnival-like atmosphere in the

synagogue. During the reading of the scroll, the congregation blots out the name of Haman with noisemakers of

various sorts. Purim is a time for plays and masquerade, a

custom dating from the Middle Ages.
228 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Rimmonim, sing, rimmon: The word rimmonim is Hebrew for

"pomegranates" and refers to the finials that decorate the

staves of the Torah scroll. Rimmonim are believed to be

among the oldest Torah ornaments. Generally, rimmonim

are decorated with bells—a reference to the robes of the

High Priest: "a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell

and a pomegranate, all around the hem of the robe" (Exodus

28:33).

Rosh ha-Shanah: The Jewish New Year holiday, which

occurs on the first day of the month of Tishri.

Seder: Passover begins with the seder, a ceremonial feast

with ritual designed so that every member of the family,

especially the young, can leam together and relive the

experience of liberation.

Sephardi: Sephardim are descendants of the Jews of Spain

and Portugal. With the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, many

Sephardim migrated to Holland, Italy, Greece, North Africa,

throughout the Turkish Empire, and later to the United

States. In Israel today, the term Sephardim is also used to

refer to the Edot Mizrach, Jews from communities whose

history is centered in the eastern Mediterranean and for

whom the dominant external factor from the seventh century

onward was Islam.

Shabbat: The period from twilight on Friday to Saturday

evening, the Jewish Sabbath. The prescribed period of rest

on the Sabbath emulates God's rest on the seventh day of

Creation.

Shaddai: One of the names of God.

Shavuot: The Feast of Weeks, which commemorates the

revelation of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. Shavuot

comes seven weeks after the bringing of the omer, the barley

harvest, when another harvest offering was to be made.

Shavuot falls on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of

Sivan.

Shofar: Ram's hom. The shofar is one of the earliest musical

instruments. Used in ancient times to signal important times

and events, the blowing of the shofar on the High Holy Days

is a symbolic call to arouse the worshiper to ethical as well

as ritual responsibilities. The shofar is sounded many times

during services on Rosh ha-Shanah and once only at the

conclusion of Yom Kippur.

Simhat Torah: A one-day celebration occurring at the end of

Sukkot, when the yearly cycle of reading the Torah is

completed and immediately begun again. Simhat Torah is

celebrated with great rejoicing, highlighted by the dancing

with Torah scrolls around the synagogue.

Spice box: Also called besamim or hadas. This box holds the

spices over which a blessing is recited at the havdalah

ceremony.

Sukkah: A special booth constructed as a temporary dwelling

reminiscent of those that sheltered the Hebrews in the

wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt. The sukkah is

shaded with greens, but is to remain open to the sky.

Traditionally, the walls are decorated with fruits and

vegetables to symbolize the bountiful harvest. It is customary to eat, and among very observant Jews even to sleep, in

the sukkah throughout the holiday.

Sukkot: The joyful Feast of Tabernacles. Sukkot begins on

the 15th day of Tishri, just days after Yom Kippur.

Historically, Sukkot is a reminder of the temporary

dwellings which sheltered the Hebrews in the wilderness

after the Exodus from Egypt. Sukkot is also the autumn

harvest festival.

Tallit: A prayer shawl. At the four corners are tzizit, fringe

knotted in a prescribed manner and worn as a constant

reminder of God's commandments (Numbers 13:38-41). It

is customary among Orthodox boys and men to wear a form

of the tallit under their clothing at all times. Traditions vary

as to when the tallit starts to be worn. In some communities

one wears a tallit beginning at age 13; in others, not until

after marriage.

Talmud: A vast compendium of post-biblical law and lore,

mainly the development of the law of the Mishnah. There

are two versions of the Talmud: the Babylonian, long

deemed the more important, which was finished about 600

C.E., and the Palestinian or Jerusalem, which was finished

about 500 C.E. Both are mainly legal in character and

mostly in Aramaic. Orthodox Judaism believes that all the

Law, written and oral, was given to Moses at Mount Sinai.

Therefore, following the laws of the Talmud is part and

parcel with following the Torah.

Tefillin: Phylacteries. In accordance with the biblical imperative "Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as

a symbol between your eyes" (Deuteronomy 6:8), the tefillin

are traditionally worn by men during the morning prayer

service except on the Sabbath and holidays. The tefillin are

cubes containing specific passages from the Torah written

by a scribe on parchment and attached to long leather straps.

One is strapped to the inside of the left arm, the second on

the center of the forehead.

Tiq: A case for the Torah, used in some eastern and Sephardi

communities. The case is cylindrical and may be made of

metal or wood. The case opens down the middle, with the

scroll fixed standing within. When the Torah is read, the tig

is placed upright on the tevah, the reader's lectern, and

opened to reveal the text. In most instances, the only added

decoration are rimmonim on rods that protrude from the top

of the case, although this use is only ornamental.
NUMBER 52

229

Tisha b 'Av: Whereas the joy of life is the dominant mood of

the Sabbath and Jewish festivals, the calendar also records

days of mourning that commemorate calamities of the past.

Tisha b'Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av,

which falls in midsummer, commemorates the destruction

of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in

586 B.C.E., the destruction of the Second Temple by the

Romans in 70 C.E., and the Jewish people's sufferings in

exile. On this date, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in

1492 is also said to have occurred. Tisha b'Av is observed

with fasting and the reading in the synagogue of the Book of

Lamentations, which reflects the spirit of the day.

Torah: The handwritten parchment scroll inscribed with the

first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The reading of the

Torah is the central element of the worship service. During

the course of the year, the entire Torah is read in the

synagogue. A section is read aloud by Jews worldwide on

the Sabbath, on festivals, and on Mondays and Thursdays.

Each Torah scroll is handwritten by a specially trained sofer,

scribe, on specially prepared pieces of parchment or vellum

that are carefully sewn together. The text is written without

punctuation and is never illustrated or decorated. Because of

strict traditions governing the writing, the appearance of the

Torah scroll remains unchanged, though there are variations

that identify the scribe as Ashkenazi or Sephardi.

The term Torah means "teaching" and has come to have

many meanings in addition to the five Books of Moses. The

term can refer to both written and oral interpretations of the

Bible and to all Jewish law and beliefs. The unfolding of

Jewish history is found in the Torah. Jewish holidays and

life cycle observances are in rum derived from Jewish

history.

Torah ark (aron): The Torah is enclosed in an ark, which

derives its name from the biblical Ark of the Covenant of the

Tabernacle and Temple. In most instances, the ark is placed

on the wall facing towards Jerusalem. The term aron kodesh

is used for the ark in Askhenazi synagogues; Sephardi and

eastern communities use the term heikal.

Torah ark curtain (parokhet): A curtain hung in front of the

ark. A valence, kapporet, is often hung with it. Both have

biblical antecedents in the Tabernacle (Exodus 26:31-34).

Torah binder: A band used to tie the Torah scroll to prevent

it from unrolling. A variety of imagery is used to decorate

them. A specific genre of binder that developed in the

seventeenth century in southern Germany is the wimpel,

which is made from the linen cloth used to wrap the

eight-day-old baby boy at his circumcision ceremony. The

cloth is cut into strips and sewn together to form a long

band that is embroidered or painted, usually by the mother

or grandmother, with the child's name and birthdate and the

prayer recited at the circumcision ceremony that the child

grow to "study Torah, to be married, and to do good deeds."

Torah crown: Also called keter Torah. A Torah crown is

sometimes used in place of the rimmonim. This variation is

found mainly in Ashkenazi communities; in Italy and in

some Sephardi communities the crown is typically used in

conjunction with the finials.

Torah mantle: As a sign of honor and respect, the Torah is

always covered when not being read. The Torah coverings

and ornaments are of the finest materials available to the

community. There are variations in form and style depending on the region and time period. In Ashkenazi communities, all the Torah decorations are removed when the Torah

is read. In some communities of the Near East and some

Sephardi communities, the Torah remains enclosed in a case

called a tiq.

Torah pointer (yad): As ancient law forbids touching the

sacred text, the yad is used as a pointer when reading from

the Torah scroll.

Torah shield (tas): An ornamental metal plaque hung from

the staves of the Torah. The practice of using the Torah

shield grew out of the practice of contributing Torah scrolls

to the synagogue as an act of piety. At some services, two or

three Torah scrolls are used for the reading. To avoid

confusion, the practice developed of using a tas with

interchangeable panels to indicate to which portion the

Torah was rolled, corresponding to the Sabbath and

holidays. In time, the tas became highly ornamental, and

many examples have lost the functional purpose.

Yahrzeit: The anniversary of the day of death. The word

comes from the German; it is a term used in Ashkenazi

communities. The yahrzeit is commemorated with the

kindling of a yahrzeit light on the eve of the anniversary of

death according to the Hebrew calendar. The light remains

burning until the sunset of the next day. A yahrzeit light is

also lit on the eve of holidays, when yizkor, memorial

prayers, are recited.

Yarmulke: A skullcap. Also called kipah.

Yom HaSho'ah: Holocaust Remembrance Day. This was

instituted in Israel in 1951 to be observed on the 27th of

Nisan, the week after Passover. It recalls the horror of

Hitler's systematic destruction of European Jewry. Yom

HaSho'ah reminds us of the brutalization and dehumanization, but it also commemorates gevurah, the heroism of

dignity in the face of overwhelming odds, spiritual and

physical resistance, and the miracle of survival.

Yom Kippur: The Day of Atonement, occurring ten days after

the start of the new year. Yom Kippur is the last often days

of penitence, during which each person stands before divine

judgment for the actions of the preceding year.
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1990. The Course of Modern Jewish History. Revised edition. New York:

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Sarna, J.D.

1986. The "Mythical Jew" and the "Jew Next Door" in N ineteenth-Century

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"Scholar-Doer" as a Jewish Communal Leader. American Jewish

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Sarna, J.D., and N.M. Sarna

1988. Jewish Bible Scholarship and Translations in the United States. In

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1963. Monumenta Judaica: 2000 Jahre Geschichte und Kultur der Juden

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Schlereth, T.J.

1982. Material Culture Studies in America. Nashville, Tennessee: American Association for State and Local History.

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1988. Object—Image—Inquiry: The Art Historian at Work. Santa Monica:

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1975. Ideology and History in the Age of Emancipation. In I. Schorsch,

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Schrire, T.

1982. Hebrew Magic Amulets: Their Decipherment and Interpretation.

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1960. Synagoga: Kultgerate und Kunstwerke von der Zeit der Patriarchen

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1991. American Jewish Museums: Trends and Issues. American Jewish

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1980. Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History.

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1903. Addresses Delivered at the Formal Opening of the Museum on

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1995. The Holocaust Museum in Washington. New York: Rizzoli.

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1985. A Collector's Guide to Judaica. London: Thames and Hudson.

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1972. Jewish Art and Civilization. New York: Walker.

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Database

ABBREVIATIONS FOR SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES, DEPARTMENTS

AND DIVISIONS INCLUDED IN THE JUDAICA DATA-BASE

SI Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

CH Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design and Decorative Arts, New York

FREER Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

NMAH National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.

NMAH-AR Archives Center

NMAH-CL Division of Community Life

NMAH-CL Ref Community Life Reference Files

NMAH-CO Division of Costumes

NMAH-DL Division of Domestic Life

NMAH-GR Division of Graphic Arts

NMAH-LIB American History Library

NMAH-MI Division of Musical Instruments

NMAH-PH Division of Political History

NMAH-RB Rare Book Room (Dibner Library)

NMAH-TE Division of Textiles

NMNH National Museum of Natural History, Dept. of Anthropology

NMNH-Arch Dept. of Archaeology

NMNH-Anth Ar National Anthropological Archives

NMNH-Anth Lib Anthropology Library

238
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

CATALOG NO.

001429

003634

003636/003637

005491

008124

015410

016128

024684

024887

031843

04.293

08.44.1-50

095142

129829

130276

130291

130293

130294

130295

130296

130297

130298

130299

15263

153540

153544

153903

154402

154404

154405

154417

154418

154419

154420

154421

154422

154423

154424

154425

154426

154427

154428

154429

154430

154431

154432

154435

154436

154437

154440

154443

154444

154445

154446

ACCESSION NO.

6502

—

—

-

15645

58305

105435

1978.0926

1978.0926

67600

-

-

—

20465

22325

22985

22325

22334

22335

22698

22844

22844

22844

65324

25362

25362

25771

22914

23302

22944

23122

__

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23474

23660

23660

23660

25602

23610

23610

23413

23635

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

New Moon Tablet

Esther Scroll

Lulav & Etrog in Silver Box

Butcher Stamp

Esther Scroll

Sampler

Print

Print

Print

Scroll, Star-Spangled Banner

Bowl w. Hebrew inscription

Mss. from Cairo Geniza

Shofar

Mezuzah

Tefillin

Tray

Tefillin (2 sets)

Sabbath Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Prayer Shawl

Spice Container

Lamp

Seder Plate

Seder Plate

Hebrew Calendar 1891-92

Hebrew Almanac 1891-92

Hanukkah Lamp

Shofar

Omer Calendar

Photographs, Near East (7)

Mizrah

Kiddush Cloth

Photo of Paris Synagogue

Photo of Florence Synagogue

Photo of Frankfurt Synagogue

Photo of Berlin Synagogue

Photo of Bonn Synagogue

Photo of Florence Synagogue, interior

Photo of Budapest Synagogue

Photo of Paris Synagogue

Photo of Prague Synagogue

Photo of Florence Synagogue

Photo of Worms Synagogue

Photo of Vienna Synagogue

Photo of Wiesbaden Synagogue

Photo of Prague Synagogue

Wedding Band

Circumcision Set (cup and knife)

Mezuzah Case

Torah (with cloaks and pointer)

Print, Moses and the Law

Print, religious subject

Tefillin blessing

Mezuzah

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

USA

—

.-

USA

Ottoman Palestine

__

USA

USA

USA

USA

Mesopotamia (Rakka)

Egypt (Cairo)

Central Europe

USA

Turkey

Turkey

-

Germany

Italy

USA

Germany

—

Germany/USA

„

USA

USA

Italy

Italy

USA (PA)

Ottoman Empire

USA (VA)

Ottoman Palestine

-

-

..

--

—

-

-

—

-

-

-

--

-

-

England

USA

-

France

-

Ottoman Palestine

—

OBJECT LOCATION

NMAH-CL

see 8124

withdrawn ?

NMAH-CL

NMAH-GR

NMAH-TE

NMAH-GR

NMAH-GR

NMAH-GR

NMAH-PH

Freer Gallery of Art

Freer Gallery of Art

NMAH-MI

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

see 130276

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

maybe T150 or still missing

NMAH-CL

NMNH, has 315328 on it

NMAH-CL

missing

NMAH-CL, see 1978.2147

NMNH

NMAH

see NMNH - Anth Ar, deaccessioned to

NMAH-C 1 IIII J 11 1 Km*L ^ V Re \ W 1 f

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

missing

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

missing

NMAH-CL

NMNH

withdrawn

NMAH-CL

missing

NMAH-CL

missing

SOURCE/DONOR

D. Sulzberger

-

J. Varden

G. Sampson

E. Cohen

W. Meyerwitz

1. Amen

1. Amen

1. Fine

S.Bing,1904

C. Freer, 1908

D. Sulzberger

O. T. Mason

D. Sulzberger

Dr H. Friedenwald

D. Sulzberger

Sypher & Co., purchase

E. L. Holbrook

N. Taylor Phillips

Dr. H. Friedenwald

Dr. H. Friedenwald

Dr. H. Friedenwald

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

Dr. H. Friedenwald

L. Luchs, Feb.4, 1892

G. Brown Goode, 1892

Dr. H. Friedenwald, Feb. 26,1890

D. Sulzberger, June 16,1890

Palestine Exploration Fund purchase, 1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, Apr.25,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, 1892

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

Dr. H. Friedenwald, purchase Aug.21,1890

M. Sulzberger, Oct. 31, 1892

M Sulzberger, Oct. 31, 1892

M Sulzberger, Oct. 31, 1892

Justus Epstein, Apr. 29, 1892

Mrs. S. Sulzberger, Oct.2,1892

Mrs. S. Sulzberger, Oct.2,1892

A. Friedenwald, Jul.19,1890

D. Sulzberger

[MBE

R . 239
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

to

-&>

o

CATALOG NO.

154447

154448

154449

154452

154453

154454

154455

154456

154457

154458

154462

154465

154467

154472-5

154552-3

154554-7

154568

154569

154570.11

154570 16

154571

154572

154573

154574

154575 A-N

154578

154580 - 154618

154619

154625-626

154629

154630

154631

154632

154633

154634

154635

154636

ACCESSION NO.

23635

23635

23635

23147

25878

22338

22388

22388

23228

__

25881

25950

25962

25988

25988

25988

26060

26054

26059

26059

26095

26095

26095

26095

26121

26165

26398

26108

26241

25771

25771

25771

25771

25771

25771

26534

154637

154740

154741

154742

154758

154761

154762

154763

154764

154765

154990

154991

154999

26731

26731

26818

26818

26817

26816

26815

26815

28902

29589

29591

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Torah Binder (Wimpel)

Lulav

Citron (replica)

Torah pointer

Amulet

Print, Photographs, Scholars

Print, Photographs, Scholars

Print, Photograph, Scholars

Fringes

Lulav

Photo of Jewish ceremony

Photos of the Land of Israel (32)

Tamil Document, Facsimile

Drawings (Reproductions)

Drawings (Reproductions)

Drawings (Reproductions)

Liturgy for Yom Kippur, Marathi

Photos: M. Oppenheim, paintings (12)

Photos: Anglo-Jewish Exhibition

Photo: Ark at Modena, Italy

Prayer, propitiary, Marathi

Liturgy for Rosh Hashanah, Marathi

Prayer Book, Spanish

Prayer for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

Prints, Picart(14)

Prayer shawl, Arba Kanfot

Benguiat Collection

Shohet's Knife

Torahs (with silk cloaks & silver plate)

Lord Crawford's Haggadah (Reprod. from)

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Poem for Simhat Torah

Poem for Simhat Torah

Ink Horn

Poem for Siyyum

Kiddush Cloth

Prayer Shawl, Arba Kanfot

Torah Mantle, miniature

Torah Ark Curtain

Costume of Rabbi

Torah, miniature

Esther Scroll in Case

Havdalah Set

Torah Shield

Torah Shield

Photos: Holy Land

Prayer Book

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OBJECT LOCATION

USA (PA)

USA (PA)

USA

USA

Germany

-

Ottoman Empire

USA (New York)

USA (New York)

USA (New York)

India (Bombay)

Germany (Frankfurt)

England (London)

Italy (Modena)

India (Bombay)

India (Bombay)

~

-

France

_

USA

—

England

Italy (Rome)

Italy (Rome)

Italy (Rome)

Italy (Rome)

Italy (Rome)

Italy (Rome)

Ottoman Palestine

—

Europe or USA

USA

Turkey (Istanbul)

Turkey

USA

Ottoman Palestine

—

England

Turkey

Ottoman Empire

USA

missing

NMNH and NMAH-CL

NMNH and NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

missing

catalog number error

not Judaica

wrong catalog number

missing

deaccessioned, see NMNH-Anth Ar

missing

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to Nat, Anth. Arch.

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

see SI Library RB BM 675V58 258

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL

returned - ?

NMAH-CL

returned

returned

NMAH-CL, see also NMNH - Anth Ar

see 154741

withdrawn

NMAH-CL

withdrawn

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

missing (withdrawn ?)

wrong number, see 154634-5

withdrawn

see 154578 & 1987 2147(NMAH-CL)

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

withdrawn

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

deaccessioned to NMNH - Anth Ar

withdrawn

SOURCE/DONOR

D. Sulzberger

D, Sulzberger

D. Sulzberger

D. Sulzberger, May 2,1890

Dr. Cyrus Adler, June 30,1892

J. H. Kantrowitz, purchase Sept. 11,1889

J. H. Kantrowitz, purchase Sept. 11,1889

J. H. Kantrowitz, purchase Sept. 11,1889

Mrs. B. F. Ulman, 1892

Hon. T. Beale, 1892

Cyrus Adler, July 28, 1892

Cyrus Adler, July 28, 1892

R. Seward, Jul.1892

R. Seward, Jul.1892

R. Seward, Jul.1892

Rev. Henry Cohn, Aug. 17,1982

Simon Dalsheimer

Wm. Wesley & Sons, Aug. 11, 1892

Rev. Henry Cohn, Aug.27,1892 (listed as ret'd

1894)

Rev. Henry Cohn, Aug.27,1892 (listed as ret'd

1894)

Rev. Henry Cohn, Aug.27,1892 (listed as ret'd

1894)

Rev. Henry Cohn, Aug.27,1892 (listed as ret'd

1894)

M. Sulzberger, Aug.31,1892

Simon Dalsheimer, Oct. 25, 1892

withdrawn Sept. 16,1924

D. Sulzberger, Nov. 12,1892

Rev. Dr. H. Barr, Nov. 17,1892

Wm. Wesley & Sons, purchase 1892

G. Brown Goode, Jun 4,1892

G. Brown Goode, Jun.4,1892

G. Brown Goode, Jun.4,1892

G. Brown Goode, Jun.4,1892

G. Brown Goode, Jun.4,1892

G. Brown Goode, Jun.4,1892

Dr. H. Barr (Hebrew Orphan Asylum) Dec. 7,

1892

Dr. H. Friedenwald, Feb.24,1893

H. Friedenwald, 1893

John Durand, purchase Apr.21,1893

John Durand, purchase Apr.21,1893

D. Sulzberger, Mar 21,1893

D. Sulzberger, Mar.21,1893

Dr. Sabato Morais, Apr.21,1893

Dr. Sabato Morais, Apr.21,1893

World's Columbian Exposition purchase

Palestine Exploration Fund purchase, 1895

D. Sulzberger, July 1895

X

§

z

I

g

m

(A

z

1>

•z.

a

H

m

n

o
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

CATALOG NO.

155054

155173

155270-155298

156047

158217

158224

158225

158239

158245

158253

158263

158264

158292

158293

158343

158353

158354

158440

158441

158442

158442-8

158442-8

158443

158444

158445

158446

158447

158448

158449

158450

158451

158452

158453

158454

158455

158456

158457

158458

158459

158460

158461

158462

158463

158464

158465

158466

158467

158468

158469

158470

1S8477

168312

1978.2106.1 +

1978.2106.2+

ACCESSION NO.

31757

-

29660

29660

29658

29658

29813

—

147.181

29985

22480

30708

31132

32757

33524

33602

34414

34414

34414

—

—

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34414

34508

34508

34626

34627

—

26093

1978.2106

1978.2106

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Printed Torah

Document Victoria Jubilee

Photos of European Synagogues

Mss. Pidyon Ha Ben (Redemption of the First

Born

Circumcision Mss.

Hebrew Bible, printed, Plantin

Hebrew Bible

Book

Bible

Aleppo Codex, Facsimile

Kiddush Cloth

Photo, reproductions - Tabernacle (6)

Print, reproduction - Priest's Breastplate

Buxtorf s Rabbinical Bible

Document, Thanksgiving prayer

Mezuzah

Burial prayers

Print of Synagogue: Rome

Print of Synagogue: Toledo

Print of Synagogue: Prague

Negatives of Graphics

Eight Photographs and Prints of Glass

Print of Synagogue: Cassel (6)

Print of Synagogue: Mannheim

Print of Synagogue: London

Print of Synagogue: London

Print of Synagogue: London

Print of Synagogue: Fuerth

Print of Synagogue: Berlin (2)

Print of Synagogue: Frankfurt

Print of Synagogue: Hannover

Print of Synagogue: Munich

Print of Synagogue: Luebeck

Print of Synagogue: Amsterdam

Print of Synagogue: Amsterdam

Print of Synagogue: Mohilev

Photo, Zionist Congress

Photograph of Zionist's Delegate card

Photograph of Zionists Delegate card

Medal, Zionist Congress

Medal, Zionist Congress

Badge, Second Zionist Congress

Badge, Second Zionist Congress

Badge, Second Zionist Congress

Esther Scroll Blessings

Esther Scroll

Print of Synagogue, Amsterdam

Print of Synagogue, Amsterdam

Print, Syn. Oheb Shalom, Baltimore, MD

Print, Ramsgate

Mss. Liturgy

Hanukkah Lamp

Amulet

Torah Binder

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

__

India (Bombay)

Europe

-

Germany

USA (New York)

-

France (Paris)

-

-

—

USA

-

Europe

India (Bombay)

USA

USA

Germany

England

Germany

-

—

Germany

Germany

England (London)

England (London)

England (London)

Germany (Nuremberg)

—

-

—

-

-

Holland (Amsterdam)

Holland

~

—

-

—

France (Paris)

France

Switzerland (Basel)

Switzerland (Basel)

Switzerland (Basel)

Near East

Near East

Holland

Holland

USA

-

—

Italy (Florence)

Central Europe

Italy

OBJECT LOCATION

missing

NMAH-CL, see 158343

see 158440- 158469

wrong number

NMNH

missing

SI NMAH-RB FBB715 1587

NMAH-CL

missing, withdrawn?

NMNH not indexed

NMAH-CL

deaccessioned to NMNH - Anth Ar

missing

not Judaica (in SI NMAH-RB)

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH, mss. missing

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

-

Judaica Reference File

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

missing

missing

missing

missing

missing

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

missing

missing

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

deaccessioned to NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL

missing

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAC-CL

deaccessioned, NMAH-CL Ref

missing

missing

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

SOURCE/DONOR

Rev. Henry Cohen, Oct. 1897

William Wesley & Sons

Wm. E. Benjaman, 1895

A. L. Germansky, purchase Apr. 1895

Wm Wesley & Sons

Dr. Cyrus Adler

anonymous

Gift of Moses A. Dropsie, Mar. 1894

Leggatt Brothers, purchase Oct. 1898

Funk and Wagnalls, May 27,1896

David Nutt, purchase Sept.24,1896

Rev. Henry Cohen, Oct.23,1897

Miss Ottenberg, Apr. 29,1898

D. Sulzberger, May 18, 1898

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec. 6, 1898

Wm Wesley, purchase Dec. 6, 1898

Wm Wesley, purchase Dec. B, 1898

Z

c

Cd

m

3

never accessioned

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Wm. Wesley, purchase Dec.

Henrietta Szold

Cyrus Adler

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

6, 1898

Samuel B. Dean purchase, March 14, 1894

315394 A ?

original no. 315208
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

CATALOG NO.

1978.2106.3+A + B

1978.2106.4

1979.0479.2-5

1979.1204 01-87

1980 090301 +

1981.0703.01

1981.0726 42

1981.0726.43

1982 0477.01

1983.0892.01

1983.0892.02

1984 0022 01

1984.0025.01

1984.0163.01

1986.0102.01

1986.0102.02

19860388.02

1986.0738 01-05

1986.0773.106

1986.0961.03-07

1986.0965.01

1987.0806.01

1987.8029.01-10

1988.0183.01

1988.0465.01

1988.0686.01

1989 0644 01-112

1989.0645.01-38

1991.0559

1991.864.01

1991.864.02

1991.864.03-04

1992.0359.01-34

1992.0391.01

1994.0334.01-33

1995.0342.01

1995.0342.02

204261

207961-5

209857

211934

214452

214453

216158

216159

216160

216161

216162

216163

216164

216165

216166

ACCESSION NO.

1978.2106

1978 2106

1979 0479

1979.1204

1980.0903

1981.0703

1981.0726

1981.0726

1982 0477

1983 0892

1983.0892

1984 0022

1984 0025

19840163

1986 0102

1986.0102

1986.0388

1986.0738

1986.0773

1986 0961

1986.0965

1987.0806

1987 8029

1988.0183

1988 0465

1988.0686

1989.0644

1989.0645

1991.0559

1991 864

1991.864

1991.664

1992.0359

1992.0391

1994.0334

1995.0342

1995.0342

35881

37297

37843

38449

38989

38989

39535

39535

39535

39535

39535

39535

39535

39535

39535

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Torah Finials

Ner Tamid (Eternal Light)

Bar Mitzvah Suit

Knives and Knife-making Tools of J. and D.

Miller Company, New York

Marriage Contract

Hanukkah Lamp

Pilgrimage medal

Pilgrimage Medal

Hebrew Calendar

Matzah Cover

Pillowcase

Manuscript by E Deinard

Matzah Box

Wedding Canopy

Overskirt

Purim Plate

Necklace

Educational Charts

Political Button

Sheet Music

New Year's Greetings

Memorial Print

Yahrzeit Cabinet

Torah Mantle

Papercut

Tallit

Rabbi Cards

Rabbi Cards and Box

Child's Casket

Prayerbook

Tallit Bag

Tefillin

Sheet Music

Yiddish Shop Sign

Chess Set and Box

Torah Crown

Torah Finials

Torah Scroll Pointer

Incantation Bowl

Palestine Relief Map

Amulet

Amulet

Amulet

Torah Scroll

Tefillin

Tefillin

Mezuzah

Marriage Contract

Document-letter

Pentateuch, Samaritan

Pentateuch, Samaritan, fragment

Pentateuch, Samaritan, fragment

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Austria-Hungary

USA (New York)

USA (New York)

USA

USA

Israel

Israel

USA (New York)

USA (New York)

USA

Russia (Sebastopol)

USA (New York)

USA (New York)

Russia

Russia

USA (New York)

USA (Minneapolis)

USA

USA (New York)

Germany

Germany

USA (Wash DC)

Germany

Israel (Haifa)

USA (New York)

USA (Baltimore)

USA (Baltimore)

USA

USA

USA

USA

USA (New York)

USA (New York)

Poland

USA (New York)

USA (New York)

__

Babylon (Hillah)

-

-

Central Europe

Italy

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

Near East

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Italy (Livorno)

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

Samaria (Shechem)

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

OBJECT LOCATION

NMAH-CL

not Judaica

NMAH-CO

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CO

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

missing

NMNH-AR

not Judaica

see 304577 3 (new number)

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL and Nat. Anth. Arch. #7110

SI Library RB

see NMNH-Anth Ar #7111

see NMNH-Anth Ar #7111

SOURCE/DONOB

original no. 315285

(probably a Deinard piece)

Stephan Kaufman, Sept. 26,1978

Joseph & David Miller Families

C. Goldberg Marks, Dec.29,1980

Spickler purchase, Aug.1981

G. Sims, Dec 5,1984

G. Sims, 1981

M. Harris, July 26,1982

I. Aber, Oct.26,1983

I. Aber, Oct.26,1983

E. Deinard

I. Aber, Feb.9,1984

I. Aber, Feb.9,1984

E. Wiser, Jan. 1986

E. Wiser, Jan. 1986

B. Dickstein, Mar, 1983

Amos. S. Deinard, Aug. 1986

V. Thorn, 1986

B. Sohn, 1986

R. Ahlborn, 1986

Sylvia Lipkowitz, Dec.15,1987

Rabbi A. Bogner and son, 1987

Congregation Emanu-EI (San Francisco), 1988

Z. Ne'eman, Jul 1988

Transfer from the Library of Congress, Jul. 5,

1988

Torah Personalities. Dec.22,1989

Torah Personalities, Dec.22,1989

C. Stolerand Co.. Inc.

Jacob R. Marcus, 1991

Jacob R. Marcus, 1991

Jacob R. Marcus, 1991

Mt. Vernon Antique Flea Market, May 10,1992

Irene V. Galdston

Sherri Sue Adams, Nov. 14. 1994

Bernard Bernstein, 1995

Rosalyn Newman, Elisa Newman, Marjorie

Newman and Lorraine Richardson

N. Meyer

G. Ousani, Nov.20,1900

F Burg, Apr. 1901

Lovell, 1901

S. Krauss, Feb.18,1902

S. Krauss, Feb.18,1902

S. S. Howland, Jun.21,1902

S. S. Howland, Jun.21,1902

S. S. Howland, Jun.21,1902

S. S. Howland, Jun.21,1902

S. S. Howland, Jun.21,1902

S. S. Howland, Jun.21,1902

S. S. Howland, Jun.21,1902

S. S. Howland, Jun.21,1902

S. S. Howland, Jun.21,1902
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

CATALOG NO.

217676

217677

217678

217679

217680

217681 A-D

217682A-C

217683 A-C

217684

217685

217686

217687

217688

217689

217690

217691

217692

217693

217694

217695

217696

248331

262188

280994

285049.1

288291

288292

268293

288294

288295

288296

288297

268298

288982

289780

293320.0700

299038,1

300827

302600

304577.3

310078 A- B

310079

310909

311797

313932.1

314398

314490

314491

314492

314493

314494

315201

315202

315203

ACCESSION NO.

39909(207992)

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

39909

48064

52129

56080

—

58608

58608

58608

58608

58608

58608

58608

58608

58920

59339

293320

299038.1

61648

62178

-

64002

64002

64234

64443

313932

64944

65066

65066

65066

65066

65066

65324(207992)

65324

65324

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Torah Scroll

Torah Finials and Case

Haggadah

Sukkah Decoration

Sukkah Decorations

Sukkah Decorations (4)

Sukkah Decorations (3)

Sukkah Decorations (3)

Sukkah Decorations

Sukkah Decorations

Tefillin

Cup (Laver)

Amulet

Amulet Mss.

Amulet Mss.

Amulet Mss.

Amulet

Amulet

Bill of Divorce

Blessing for Shofar

Document, Simhat Torah

Tefillin

Plate, Sukkot

Esther Scroll

Tribute Document

Prayer Book, Hebrew with German

Prayer Book, Hebrew with English

Prayer Book, Hebrew for Women

Prayer Book, Hebrew

Prayer Book, Hebrew

Festival Prayer Book, 5 v. Hebrew with Yiddush

Devotions for Women — Yiddish

Haggadah, Hebrew with Yiddish

Amulet

Amulet Case

Sampler

Torah Mantle

Prayerbook for Jews in US Army and Navy

Rdgs.fr.Bible for Jewish Soldiers and Sailors

Amulet

Prayer Shawl (two found)

Tefillin

Circumcision Stone

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Mizrah

Mizrah

Mizrah

Torah Pointer

Purim Marker

Purim Marker

Torah Curtain, fragment

Torah Curtain, fragment

Torah Curtain

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

North Africa

North Africa

England (London)

Italy

Italy

Italy

Italy

Italy

Italy

Italy

North Africa (Tunis)

North Africa (Tunis)

North Africa (Tunis)

North Africa (Tunis)

North Africa (Tunis)

North Africa (Tunis)

North Africa (Tunis)

North Africa (Tunis)

Italy (Gonzia)

North Africa (Tunis)

Italy

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

USA (Philadelphia)

USA

Ot. Pal. (Safed)

-

-

—

-

-

—

—

Germany (Rodelheim)

—

Near East

USA

France (Rheims)

USA (Philadelphia)

USA (Philadelphia)

Russia

France

France

-

Italy

Poland

USA (Richmond, VA)

USA

France

_

USA

USA

Italy ?

Turkey ?

Near East

OBJECT LOCATION

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL, see RSN # 2632Z00

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMAH-CL, also numbered 70.22

missing

missing

missing

missing

missing

missing

missing

NMNH

NMAH-CL, see 304577.3

NMNH

book lists earrings NMAH-TE

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

not Judaica

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

SOURCEfDONOR

Deinard purchase, Sept. 29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept 29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Deinard purchase, Sept.29,1902

Dr. Cyrus Adler, Nov. 26. 1907

Gift-Mikveh Israel Ass. M. M. Cohen Pres.

Nov. 10,1910

Mrs. W. E. Curtis (loan) Nov. 11,1913

H. Friedenwald

Mrs. Charles Block, July 19, 1915

Mrs. Charles Block, July 19, 1915

Mrs. Charles Block, July 19, 1915

Mrs. Charles Block, July 19, 1915

Mrs. Charles Block, July 19, 1915

Mrs. Charles Block, July 19, 1915

Mrs. Charles Block, July 19, 1915

Mrs. Charles Block, July 19, 1915

Miss Louise Salter Codwise, Oct. 16,1915

Mrs. J. E. Zimmerman, Feb.1916

I.Warshaw, Jul.30,1971

Dr. Karl Bretzfelder, Mar.21,1972

Dr. Cyrus Adler, Oct. 11,1917

Dr. Cyrus Adler, Mar.28,1918

original no. may be 211934

Jewish Welfare Board, August 26, 1919

Jewish Welfare Board, August 26, 1919

M F. Savage, Nov. 1, 1919

Miss E. S. Stevens, bequest, Dec.20,1919

S. Malis, Dec.27,1974

Mrs. Simon Kann, May 20,1920

Henry S. Hartogensis, June 15, 1920

Henry S. Hartogensis, June 15, 1920

Henry S. Hartogensis, June 15, 1920

Henry S. Hartogensis, June 15, 1920

Henry S. Hartogensis, June 15, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

tn
CATALOG NO.

315204 A- B

315205

315206

315207

315208

315209

315210

315211

315212

315213

315214

315215

315216

315217

315218

315219

315220

315221

315222

315223 A& B

315224

315225

315226

315227

315228

315229

315230

315231

315232

315233

315234

315235

315236

315237

315238

315239

315240

315241

315242

315243

315244

315245

315246

315247

315248

315249

315250

315251

315252

315253

315254

315255

315256

315257

315258

ACCESSION NO.

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Torah Curtain (2)

Torah Valance

Torah Mantle

Torah Mantle

Torah Binder

Torah Binder

Tefillin Bag

Tefillin Bag

Prayer Shawl

Prayer Shawl

Prayer Shawl Bag

Prayer Shawl Bag

Prayer Shawl Bag

Cloth, fragment

Cloth, fragment

Circumcision Chair, fragment

Circumcision Chair, fragment

Torah Case

Torah Crown

Torah Finials (2)

Esther Scroll Case

Tefillin Mold

Perfume Container

Stone Vase

Stone Vase

Mizrach

Serpentine Head from Statuette

Ring Seal

Ring Seal

Fragment, Babylonian Seal

Cuneiform Tablet

Cuneiform Tablet

Cuneiform Tablet

Cuneiform Tablet

Cuneiform Tablet Fragments (14)

Lamp

Lamp

Lamp

Lamp

Lamp

Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Candlesticks, (5)

Candlestick

Candlestick

Lamp Fragment

Candlestick (1)

Candlestick, pair

Candlesticks with Inserted Bowl

Lucerna, fragment

.JIJDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Near East

Italy

Near East

Italy

Italy

Turkey

Turkey

Europe ?

Near East

—

-

_

-

—

Italy

Europe

North Africa

Italy (Conegliano)

Italy (Conegliano)

Ottoman Palestine

—

North Africa

—

-

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

-

—

-

—

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Italy

Italy

North Africa

Italy

Italy

Italy

Poland

Iraq

Holland or North Africa

Italy

Poland

Italy

Turkey (Istanbul)

Turkey

Turkey

East. Europe

East. Europe

East. Europe

Italy ?

Italy

OBJECT LOCATION

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL now numbered 1978.2106.2

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

not Judaica

not Judaica

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH

NMAH

new number T82O

NMNH

NMNH

not Judaica

not Judaica

NMNH

not Judaica

not Judaica

not Judaica

NMNH -- not Judaica

NMNH - not Judaica

NMNH - not Judaica

NMNH - not Judaica

NMNH - not Judaica

NMNH - not Judaica

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH see also T11269

NMNH & NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, may beT154orT153

NMNH

NMNH

probably 315279

NMNH, see also T11272

SOURCE/DONOR

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard. Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10. 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

244 C/J

oz

>

I/}

H

a

m

c/>

Z

X

o

>

D

i

~i

m

n

z

o

S
CATALOG NO.

315259

315260

315261

315262

315263

315264

315265

315266

315267

315268

315269

315270

315271

315272

315273

315274

315275

315276

315277

315278

315279

315280

315281

315282

315283

315284

315285

315286

315287

315287 A

315288

315289

315290

315291

315292

315293

315294

315295

315296

315297

315298

315298 A

315299

315300

315301

315302

315303

315304

315305

315306

315307

315308

315309

315310

315311

ACCESSION NO.

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Lucerna

Hand Candlestick

Mortar and Pestle

Tray with Cover

Seder Plate

Plate

Bowl

Bowl

Saucer

Ewer

Ewer

Ewer

Spice Box or Censer

Spice Box

Amulet or Koran Case

Amulet Case

Lamp

Torah Case

Box

Dagger

Fragments of Lamps (12)

Torah Shield

Torah Shield

Torah Pointer

Torah Pointer

Torah Pointer

Torah Finials

Torah Finials

Torah Finials

Torah Finials, fragments

Torah Finials

Torah Finials

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial, fragment

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finial (1)

Torah Finials, fragments

Lamp

Hanukkkah Lamp

Hanukkkah Lamp

Hanukkkah Lamp

Hanukkkah Lamp

Pentateuch Box

Esther Scroll Case

JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OBJECT LOCATION

Italy

_

North Africa

—

Near East

—

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

_.

Palestine or Syria

Ottoman Palestine

_.

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

—

—

—

—

_

Austria-Hungary

Ottoman Palestine

Austria-Hungary

—

—

-

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

North Africa

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Central Europe

Central Europe

Austria-Hungary

Near East

Germany

—

Ottoman Palestine

NMNH

missing

NMNH

not Judaica

NMNH, has 315328 on it

not Judaica

NMNH

NMNH, Judaica ?

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH, not Judaica

not Judaica

missing

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH, see also 315249

NMAH

NMNH

NMAH

NMNH

missing

(see 1978.2106.4)

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, also 315296

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, see 315289

NMNH, also T11271

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL, Judaica ?

NMAH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH

SOURCE/DONOR

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10. 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

NUME m

X

LA

to

to
JUDAIC

A AT THE SMITHSONIAN

CATALOG NO.

315312

315313

315314

315315

315316

315317

315318

315319

315320

315321

315322

315323

315324

315325

315326

315327

315328

315329

315330

315331

315332

315333

315334

315335

315336

315337

315338

315339

315340

315341

315342

315343

315344

315345

315346

315347

315348

315349

315350

315351

315352

315353

315354

315355

315356

315357

315358

315359

315360

315361

315362

315363

315364

315365

315366

ACCESSION NO.

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

OBJECT DES

Esther Scroll Case

Esther Scroll Case

Esther Scroll Case

Esther Scroll Case

Esther Scroll Case

Esther Scroll Case

Esther Scroll Case

Esther Scroll

Esther Scroll Case

Esther Scroll Case

Esther Scroll Case

Kiddush Cup

Kiddush Cup

Kiddush Cup

Kiddush Cup

Cup of Elijah

Passover Tray

Etrog Box

Etrog Box

Etrog Box

Etrog Box

Spice Box

Spice Box

Spice Box

Spice Box

Spice Box

Spice Box

Spice Box

Spice Box

Spice Box

Rosewater Bottle

Rosewater Bottle

Rosewater Bottle

Rosewater Bottle

Rosewater Bottle

Scent Sprinkler

Scent Sprinkler

Scent Sprinkler, fragment

Scent Sprinkler, fragment

Scent Sprinkler, fragment

Perfume Box

Perfume Box

Hanukkah Lamp, fragment

Perfume Box

Knife, Wedding

Knife, Wedding

Tongs

Knife, Sabbath

Necklace

Bracelets (2)

Necklace

Necklace

Necklace

Bracelet

Bracelet

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Aust.-Hun. (Vienna)

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

Austria-Hungary

Russia

Russia

Europe

Ottoman Palestine

Russia

Germany

Germany (Berlin)

Ottoman Palestine

Aust.-Hun. (Budapest)

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Ottoman Palestine

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Poland

Europe

—

North Africa

Near East

Near East

Near East

Near East

Near East

Near East

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

——

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Austria-Hungary

Near East

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Near East

Ottoman Palestine

Near East

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

OBJECT LOCATION

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, also T11275?

NMNH, also T11275?

NMNH

NMNH

seeT11274

missing

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH

NMAH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH

NMAH

NMNH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH, has 315351 on it

NMNH

NMNH

stolen 1926

stolen 1926

stolen 1926

stolen 1926

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, see also 315369

NMNH

NMNH

N

-ts.

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

E. Deinard,

SOURCE/DONOR

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

Aug. 10, 1920

HOZZX>ao5o
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

CATALOG NO.

5367

5368

5369

5370

5371

5372

,5373

15374

15375

15376

15377

15378

15379

315380

315381

315382

315383

315384

315385

315386

315387

315368

315389

315390

315391

315392

315393

315394 A

315394 A 1-46

315394 A47-

315394 A 63 •

315394 A 65

315394 A 66

315394 A 67-

315394 A 69-

315394 A 78 •

315394 A 87-

315395

315396

315397

315398

315399

315400

315401

315402

315403

315408

315484.1

315484.2

317318

317672

323496.2

62

64

68

-77

• 8 6

• 155

ACCESSION NO.

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

65324

315408 (new

series)

315484 (new

series)

315484

67464

--

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Bracelet

Wristlet

Wristlet

Buckle

Box, ornamental

Box, ornamental

Box, ornamental

Box

Box

Mezuzah

Mezuzah Case

Amulets (4)

Amulet Case

Amulet Case

Amulet Case

Amulet Case

Amulet Case

Seal

Seal

Seal

Seal

Seal

Seal

Dagger with Scabbard

Hairpin

Torah Fragment

Torah Fragment

Documents (as listed ff.)

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Manuscript (Samaritan)

Wall Calendar

Wall Calendar

Hebrew Documents

Hebrew Documents

Hebrew Documents

Esther Scroll

Esther Scroll

Esther Scroll

Esther Scroll

Esther Scroll

Amulet

Prayer Book

Psalter

Album of Palestine Flora

Torah Ark Decoration

Coat, boy's

Prayer Shawl Bag

Spice Box

Hanukkah Lamp

Map of Palestine

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Ottoman Palestine

Near East

Near East

Near East

Ottoman Palestine

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

Ottoman Palestine

Germany

__

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

North Africa

North Africa

North Africa

North Africa

North Africa

-

—

__

Near East

Near East

Near East

Near East

-

Syria (Damascus)

Italy

Samaritan

—

India

Egypt

Ottoman Palestine

Europe

Italy and misc.

Italy

Ottoman Palestine

Iraq (Baghdad)

Near East

North Africa

Ethiopia

Ottoman Palestine

—

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

USA (Philadelphia)

Russia (Ukraine)

Russia (Ukraine)

USA

-

—

OBJECT LOCATION

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, has 315364 written on it

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH

lost 1947

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, has 315393 written on it

stolen 1926

stolen 1926

stolen 1926

stolen 1926

stolen 1926

stolen 1926

NMNH, not Judaica

MMNH, not Judaica

NMNH

NMNH, see also 315383

see also T839 and T841

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH, 315394A.155 not Judaica

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

not Judaica

see NMAH-RB-BM675 D3A3 1920

see NMAH-RB-BS 1420 A21920

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMAH & NMNH, 2 lamps with the same

number

not Judaica

SOURCE/DONOR

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

E. Deinard, Aug. 10, 1920

Kohn and Kohn Antiques, purchase Jun.2,1975

H.Irving Kazer, May 17,1975

H.Irving Kazer, May 17,1975

Henry Franc, Jr. Nov. 22, 1921

-

-

z

5m

73
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

CATALOG NO.

323496.3-6

325665

326825

326826

326827

326838

326839

326640

326841

326842

329452

329453

329454

329534

331762

332147

332148

332149

332150

332151

332152

332153

332154

332155

332156

332157

332158

332159

332160

332161

332162

332163

332164

332165

332166

332167

332168

332169

333951

333952 A- H

333953

333954

333955

333956

333957.1 - 6

333958.1 - 16

333959.1 -2

333960

333961

333962

333963

333964

333965

333966 A -W

333967

ACCESSION NO.

-

83659

83559

83659

83705

83705

83705

83705

83705

87879

87879

87879

88648

93631 (207992)

93631

93631

93631

93S31

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

93631

94763 (207992)

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Tefillin and Bag

Lamp

Passover Plate

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Photographs of Ceremonial Objects

Photographs of Ceremonial Objects

Photographs of Ceremonial Objects

Photographs of Ceremonial Objects

Photograph of Ceremonial Objects

Tefillin, one pair (two found)

Esther Scroll

Mezuzah

Plaque, medal

Necklace

Bronze Pan from Temple ?

Torah Scroll, miniature

Candlestick

Hanukkah Lamp

Manuscript of Ecclesiastes

Mezuzah

Shiviti Plaque

Bottle Stopper

Shekel

Coin - Alexander Jannaeus

Coin -Augustus

Coin - Agrippa I

Coin - Jonathan Maccabeus

Coin - Jonathan Maccabeus

Coin - Tiberius

Coin - Nero

Coin - Simon Maccabeus

Coin - Simon Maccabeus

Coin - Simon Maccabeus

Coin - Simon Maccabeus

Coin - Ptolemy VI

Zionist Congress Medal

Medal

Torah Scroll

Torah Scroll Fragments

Torah Scroll Fragments

Torah Scroll Fragments

Torah Scroll Fragments

Torah Scroll Fragments

Torah Mantles (6)

Torah Binders (16)

Reading Desk Covers

Esther Scroll

Esther Scroll

Esther Scroll

Esther Scroll

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Sukkah Decorations (23)

Sukkah Decoration with Decalogue

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

USA

—

Germany and USA

USA (Baltimore)

USA (Baltimore)

—

—

—

Switzerland

Europe

Europe

Europe

—

-

USA

-

Near East

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

Near East

Near East

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

Palestine

-

-

Ottoman Palestine

Near East

Near East

Near East

Near East

Near East

Near East

Italy

Italy

Italy

Near East

Near East

Near East

Near East

Italy

Holland

Italy

Italy

OBJECT LOCATION

NMAH-CL

NMNH, notJudaica

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL and NMNH

NMAH

NMAH

NMAH-CL

not Judaica

NMNH-Arch, no card

NMAH

withdrawn to heirs 1939

missing

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH-Arch, not indexed

—

NMNH-Arch not indexed

NMNH-Arch not indexed

NMNH-Arch not indexed

NMNH-Arch not indexed

NMNH-Arch not indexed

NMNH-Arch not indexed

NMNH-Arch not indexed

NMNH-Arch not indexed

NMNH-Arch not indexed

NMNH-Arch not indexed

stolen

missing

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL

MMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

ro

CO

SOURCE/DONOR

Florence Yarnell Fullerton, Jan.6,1971

Miss L. Lieberman, August, 12, 1924

Miss L. Lieberman, August, 12, 1924

Miss L. Lieberman, August 12, 1924

Arthur E. Franklin, Aug. 14, 1924

Arthur E. Franklin, Aug. 14, 1924

Arthur E. Franklin, Aug. 14, 1924

Arthur E. Franklin, Aug. 14, 1924

Arthur E. Franklin, Aug. 14, 1924

Rev Paulus Dworkowicz, Jul.10,1925

Rev. Paulus Dworkowicz, Jul.2,1925

Rev. Paulus Dworkowicz, Jul.2,1925

T. C Patton, Sept.15,1925

Mrs. Henry B. Noble

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E. Deinard, Oct. 26, 1926

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E.

E

E

E

E

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

Deinard,

. Deinard

. Deinard

. Deinard

. Deinard

Oct. 26,

Oct.

Oct.

Oct.

Oct.

Oct.

Oct.

Oct.

Oct.

Oct.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan

Jan

Jan

Jan

, Jan

, Jan

, Jan

, Jan

26,

26,

26,

26,

26,

26,

26,

26,

26,

14,

14,

14,

14,

14,

14,

14,

14,

14,

14,

14,

• 14 ,

• H

. 14

. 14

. 14

. 14

1926

1926

1926

1926

1926

1926

1926

1926

1926

1926

1927

1927

1927

1927

1927

1927

1927

1927

1927

1927

1927

1927

, 1927

, 1927

, 1927

, 1927

, 1927

s

1

o

H

a

o

70

a

n

o

§
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

CATALOG NO.

333968

333969

333970

333971

333972

333973.1-5

333974.1-3

333975

333976

333977

333978

333979.1-10

333980

333981

333982

333983

333984

333985

333986

333987

333988

334023

334024

334025

334026

334027

334028

334029

334030

334031

334032.1-49

334033.1-2

334034.1-2

334035

334036

334036.2

334036.3

334037

334038

334039

334040

334041

334042

334043 A-E

334044

334045

334046

334047

334048

334049

334050

362838-5

365168

366372

368704

ACCESSION NO.

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

94763

95111 (207992)

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

95111

-

123376

124063

—

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Manuscript of Psalms

Print, Temple site

Print, Jonah

Mezuzah

Mizrah

Tefillin (5)

Tefillin Bags (3)

Marriage Contract

Poem, wedding

Riddle, wedding

Poem on Death of Israel Kunian

Memorial Candle Labels (10)

Painting, Gaon of Vilna

Painting, Jewish Cemetery, Prague

Painting, Mosque of Mahpelah, Hebron

Painting, Harem Scene

Mosaic Fragment

Stone Fragment

Stone Fragment

Petrified Whale Vertebrae

Whale Humerus

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Marriage Contract

Memorial Candle Labels (49)

Prayers for Blowing Shofar (2)

Poem, Marriage, by Daniel Pardo

Print, Jonah story

Print, Solomon and Sheba

Print, Soloman and Sheba

Print, Soloman and Sheba

Poem, Bar Mitzvah

Mizrah

Shiviti (Amulet)

Amulet

Esther Scroll Blessings

Esther Scroll Blessings

Esther Scroll Blessings

Shohet Certificate

Shohet Certificate

Coin - Alexander Jannaeus

Cameo of Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael

Amulet

Amulet

Gujarati Book of Verses

Photographs, Franklin Collection (5)

Sabbath Lamp

Lamp

Necklace of Coins

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Ethiopia

Germany

Germany

Italy

Europe

Near East

Near East

Italy (Mantua)

Italy

Italy (Padua)

Italy (Mantua)

Poland

Poland

—

—

Near East

Near East

Near East

—

Syria (Damascus)

Syria (Damascus)

Syria (Damascus)

Syria (Damascus)

Italy (Gorizia)

Syria (Damascus)

Italy (Ferrara)

Italy (Modena)

Italy (Venice)

Italy

Italy

—

Germany (Frankfurt)

Germany (Frankfurt)

Germany (Frankfurt)

Germany (Frankfurt)

Italy (Trieste)

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

Europe

Germany

Near East

Italy

Italy

Italy

Italy (Venice)

—

-

Near East

Siam

-

Germany

-

Ottoman Palestine

OBJECT LOCATION

NMNH, not Judaica

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

lost 1949

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

missing 1947

not indexed

NMNH-Arch, not indexed

NMNH-Arch, not indexed

Div. of Vertebrate Paleontology, not indexed

Div. of Vertebrate Paleontology, not indexed

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMNH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

missing

missing

NMAH-CL

seeT839-17

transferred to SI Library 5/21/65, not Judaica

NMAH-CL-Ref

NMNH

not Judaica

NMNH, not Judaica

SOURCE/DONOR

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard. Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E. Deinard, Jan. 14, 1927

E Deinard, Feb 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb 7, 1927

E Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard. Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

E. Deinard, Feb. 7, 1927

not deaccessioned

Senator Jesse Metcalf, Mar.8,1933

Daughters of Mrs. Alice Barney, Apr.29,1933

Miss Mary Maxwell UMBE

R to249
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

CATALOG NO

373693

376531

376671

376672

376673

376929

376930

377013

377032

377033

377034

377037

391201

391202

391203

391204

391205

392803

395735

396086

396087

396088

396089

396090

396091

397672

402932 A-J

402933 A-F

402934 A-E

402935 A-K

402936

402937

402938

402939

405411

406954

406955

406956

406957

418279

422330

492.4 I 13

60.1696

65.633

66.586

70.26

7110

7111

77.224

79.44.1

79.44.2

79.44.3

80.5.1-.15

ACCESSION NO.

134626

136485

136485

136485

136485

136485

136485

136485

136485

136485

136485

136485

192962

192962

192962

192962

192962

203592

211312

211312

211312

211312

211312

211318

211312

23736

256783

256783

256783

256783

256783

256783

256783

256783

268921

271309

271309

271309

271309

323171

—

-

200.122

275119

262735

-

39535

39535

1977.0312.01

1979.0044

1979.0044

1979,0044

—

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Ruler

Havdalah Set

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Lamp

Memorial Lamp

Memorial Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Hanukkah Lamp

Skullcap

Belt

Cuff

Collar

Atarah, collar

Bag

Bag

Torah, incomplete

Esther Scroll

Torah, Miniature

Torah, Miniature

Mezuzah

Mezuzah

Hanukkah Lamp

Seder Service, Moshe Zabari

Sabbath Set, Moshe Zabari

Havdalah Set, Ludwig Wolpert

Hanukkah Lamp, Ludwig Wolpert

Etrog Container, Ludwig Wolpert

Mezuzah, Ludwig Wolpert

Mezuzah, Chava Wolpert-Richard

Mezuzah, Ludwig Wolpert

Hanukkah Lamp

Shofar (Ram's horn)

Skullcap

Prayer Shawl

Atarah, collar

Pottery Drum ("Miriam Drum")

Bowl & Candle Set

Book: Ein Yaacob (4 vols.)

Mezuzah

Shofar

Obituary of Zipporah Cohen (and photograph

from daguerrotype)

Yiddish Newspaper

Ladino Document

Samaritan Manuscripts (2)

Ornament

Print by Chaim Goldberg

Print by Chaim Goldberg

Print by Chaim Goldberg

Engraving Proofs

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

Germany (Nuremberg)

Poland

Italy

Poland

Poland

Holland

France (Paris)?

Poland (Bialystok)

Poland (Bialystok)

Holland

Morocco

Aust.-Hun. (Carpathia)

Aust-Hun (Carpathia)

Aust.-Hun. (Carpathia)

Aust.-Hun. (Carpathia)

Aust.-Hun. (Carpathia)

Ottoman Palestine

Ottoman Palestine

Near East

USA

USA

USA

USA

USA

Morocco (Tetuan)

USA (New York)

USA (New York)

Israel and USA

Israel and USA

Israel and USA

Israel and USA

USA (New York)

Israel and USA

Morocco

Israel (Tel Aviv)

Israel

Israel

Israel

—

Israel (Tel Aviv)

Lithuania (Vilna)

USA

USA

—

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

Samaria

USA (Philadelphia)

USA

USA

USA

USA

OBJECT LOCATION

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMNH + NMAH, both have same no

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH, not indexed

NMNH

SI Library NMAH-RB

NMAH-CL

MMAH-MI

NMAH, not Judaica

NMAH

NMNH-Anth Ar

NMNH-AnthAr

NMAH-Ceramics/glass

NMAH-GR

NMAH-GR

NMAH-GR

NMAH-GR

r

o

SOURCErDONOR

Alexius McGlennan, May 27,1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Virginia Hillyer, Oct., 1935

Mrs. Helen Kahan Schneider, Jan. 1,1952

Mrs. Helen Kahan Schneider, Jan. 1,1952

Mrs. Helen Kahan Schneider, Jan. 1,1952

Mrs. Helen Kahan Schneider, Jan. 1,1952

Mrs. Helen Kahan Schneider, Jan. 1,1952

Div. of History, Sept 15,1954

Catholic University of America, Aug. 20,1957

Catholic University of America, Aug. 20,1957

Catholic University of America, Oct. 15,1957

Catholic University of America, Oct. 15,1957

Catholic University of America, Oct. 15,1957

Catholic University of America, Oct. 15,1957

Catholic University of America, Oct. 15,1957

Talcott Williams purchase 1889 (entered 8/59)

Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Dr. and Mrs. Abram Kanof, 1964

Mrs. Elisabeth B. Willis, purchase Sept.14,1966

Israel Government Feb. 14, 1967

Israel Government Feb. 14, 1967

Israel Government Feb. 14, 1967

Israel Government Feb. 14, 1967

Stanley and Otto Evans Eskin, Jul. 27, 1976

G. Sims, May 24, 1982

I.M. Casanowicz

Dr. Lucinda de L. Templin, Jun. 9, 1954

University of PA, Jun, 1964

Seligman

SeeRSN81837Z02

formerly 216163, see 216163 in NMAH-CC

9PASAGE 2)

formerly 215155 & 6

Dr. J.Waldman, Feb. 25, 1977

C. Goldberg, Jan, 11, 1979

C. Goldberg, Jan. 11, 1979

C. Goldberg, Jan. 11, 1979

C. Goldberg, 1980

en

H

O

g

m

as

>

z

a

wn

o

o

•<
CATALOG NO.

81.243.1-4

86.0903

BM 449.1897

BM 545 G86 1629X

BM667.W6.N47/1889

BM675.D3A3 1833

BM675.D3A3 1920

BM 675.V58.258

BN 474.9.55

BS 1420 A2 1920

CH1929.16.1

CH1931.69.17

CH1952.120.2

CH1954.126.1

CH1956.7 2

CH1962.239.2

CH1966.3.13

CH1966.3.14

CH1981.28 18

CH1981.28.190

CH1981 28260

FBS715 1587(29658)

RSN 81837Z00

RSN81837Z01

RSN 81837Z02

RSN82631Z01(39909)

RSN 82632Z0O

RSN 82633201-5

T11269

T 11271

T11272

T11274

T11276

T 11550

T 1175

T147

T 148

T 150

T 153

T 154

T8095

T818

T820

T 839 1-65

T 841

T 841

Unnumbered

Unnumbered

Unnumbered

Unnumbered

Unnumbered

Unnumbered materials in

NMNH-Anth Ar

ACCESSION NO.

1986.0903

22325

207992

207992

207992

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Prints by I. Amen

Photograph

Talmud

Book: Guide to the Perplexed

Prayer book

Prayer Book

Prayer Book

Prayer Book for Festivals

Prayer book

Psalter

Sukkah decoration

Etrog container ?

Torah pointer

Greeting Card

Papercut

Painting

Torah Pointer

Torah Pointer

Sampler

Sampler

Sampler

Bible (3 vol.) ed Hutter

Rubber Stamp

Book by E Deinard

Hebrew Newsletters

Sukkah Decoration

Sukkah Decoration

Fascicles by E. Deinard

Lamp, servitor

Torah Finial Bells

Lamp, fragment

Esther Scroll Case

Tefillin

Sukkah Decoration

Amulet Fragments

Oil Tray

Oil Tray

Lamp, fragment

Cablestick, fragments

Lamp, fragment

Spice Box

Dreidle

Esther Scroll Case

Group of Miscellanous Documents

Group of Document Fragments

Torah Fragments (2)

Rabbinical Commentary, ws. Buxtorf

Print of Synagogue of Toledo

Print of Synagogue of Toledo

Prayerbook

Tefillin (1)

Photographs of Holy Land (Bonfils) (7)

JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OBJECT LOCATION SOURCE/DONOR

z

2

CDm

71

USA

USA

Lithuania (Vilna)

Switzerland (Basel)

USA (New York)

Germany (Sulzbach)

Israel (Jerusalem)

India (Bombay)

Germany

Ot. Pal. (Jerusalem)

Italy (Venice)

Denmark

Aust.-Hun (Vienna)

Germany

Europe

USA (New York)

France

Italy

E. Europe

Germany

Germany

Germany (Hamburg)

USA (New York)

Ottoman Palestine

USA (Baltimore)

Italy

Italy

USA

—

Israel (Jerusalem)

Italy (Venice)

-

Italy?

Germany (Felheim)

Turkey?

Ottoman Palestine

Eastern Europe

Ottoman Palestine

._

Switzerland (Basel)

France (Paris)

France (Paris)

Europe

NMAH-GR

NMAH Photo-Hist

NMNH-Anth Lib

NMAH-RB

NMAH Lib.

NMAH-RB

NMAH-RB

NMAH-RB

NMNH-Anth Lib

NMAH-RB

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

Cooper-Hewitt

NMAH-RB

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMNH

NMAH-RB

NMAH-CL

NMAH-CL

NMAH-RB

NMNH

I. Amen, 1981

B. S L. Luther

Aug. 21, 1985

Turner Collection

E. Deinard. 1955 (formerly 315401)

Rev. H. Cohen, Aug.,1892 (formerly 154568)

E.Deinard, 1955 (formerly 315402)

Erhich Galley, 1929

Mrs. Hewitt, 1931

Anonymous

D. Hasrrower, 1954

R. Greenleaf, 1956

L. Dabo, 1960

R. Friedman, 1966

R. Friedman, 1966

G. Oppenheimer. 1981

G. Oppenheimer, 1981

G. Oppenheimer, 1961

Purchase April 1895 (formerly 158225)

Subscription of Cyrus Adler, 1892/3 (see 70.26)

E. Deinard, Sept., 1902 (see 217679)

1920?

belongs to 315250

belongs to 315297

belongs to 315258 or 9

E. Detnard, 1955 (may be 315320)

maybe 130293?

original # is 334034

may belong to 315315-6

may be 315279

may belong to 397672

H. Friedenwald, Jan. 28, 1890, (may be

130298?)

may belong to 315249 or 315259

may belong to 315249 or 315259

original # not determined

E. Deinard, 1955, (belongs to 315224)

E. Deinard, 1955, (belongs to 315394 A)

E. Deinard, 1955, (belongs to 315394 A)

E. Deinard, 1955, (belongs to 315394)

formerly 158293

Deinard?

formerly 154405
JUDAICA AT THE SMITHSONIAN KJ

CATALOG NO.

Unnumbered materials in

NMNH-AnthAr

Unnumbered materials in

NMNH-AnthAr

Unnumbered materials in

NMNH-Anth Ar

Unnumbered materials in

NMNH-Anth Ar

Unnumbered materials in

NMNH-Anth Ar

Unnumbered materials,

NMAH-AR

Unnumbered materials,

NMAH-AR

Unnumbered materials,

NMAH-AR

Unnumbered materials,

NMAH-AR

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

Unnumbered NMAH-CL Ref

ACCESSION NO. OBJECT DESCRIPTION

Photographs of Holy Land (Bonfils) (32)

Photographs of Drawings (2)

Prints, Picart (2)

Photographs of Holy Land (Bonfils) (29)

Prints, Tabernacle (6)

Photographs by Suttner Wells Coll.

Reference Material of Warshaw Collection

Photographs by A. Alland (10)

Greeting Cards (36)

Photographs, synagogues (15)

Photographs, artworks by Irving Wiles(8)

Photograph - Zionist Delegate's Cards

Photograph, Jewish ceremonial objects (5)

Photographs, published objects

Photographs, Benguiat Collection

Photographs, ancient synagogues (3)

Book Illustrations (3)

Photographs of Anglo-Jewish Hist. Exh. (12)

Photographs - Jewish ceremonial objects (4)

Reproductions, paintings by M. Oppenheim (12)

Photograph of Oheb Sholom Synagogue

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OBJECT LOCATION

USA and Czech.

(Prague)

USA

USA

USA and Germany

-

USA

Switzerland

England (London)

—

-

Palestine

-

England (London)

England

Germany (Frankfurt)

USA

NMAH-AR

NMAH-AR

NMAH-AR

NMAH-AR

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

NMAH-CL Ref

SOURCE/DONOR

formerly 154465

formerly 154552 & 3

formerly 154575

formerly 154991

formerly 158264

Donald Suttner Wells, 1985

Warshaw Purchase, Jul.30,1971

A. Alland, 1986

Norcross Collection, 1957

formerly 154419-32 (154430 missing)

R. Seward, 1892 (formerly 154472-5, 154554-7)

Purchase, 1902

Arthur Franklin, Aug. 11, 1924

Purchase Mar. 7, 1890 (formerly 154405)

Purchase Aug., 1892 (formerly 154570)

Wm. Wesley, 1892 (formerly 154629)

Simon Dalsheimer, 1892 (formerly 154569)

formerly 158468

C/3

H

CO

O

z

X

>

Z

D

H

m

n

o

o
REQUIREMENTS FOR SMITHSONIAN SERIES PUBLICATION

Manuscripts intended for series publication receive substantive

review (conducted by their originating Smithsonian museums or

offices) and are submitted to the Smithsonian Institution Press with

Form SI-36, which must show the approval of the appropriate

authority designated by the sponsoring organizational unit. Requests

for special treatment—use of color, foldouts, case-bound covers,

etc.—require, on the same form, the added approval of the

sponsoring authority.

Review of manuscripts and art by the Press for requirements of

series format and style, completeness and clarity of copy, and

arrangement of all material, as outlined below, will govern, within the

judgment of the Press, acceptance or rejection of manuscripts and

art.

Copy must be prepared on typewriter or word processor,

double-spaced, on one side of standard white bond paper (not

erasable), with 11A" margins, submitted as ribbon copy (not carbon

or xerox), in loose sheets (not stapled or bound), and accompanied

by original art. Minimum acceptable length is 30 pages.

Front matter (preceding the text) should include: title page with

only title and author and no other information; abstract page with

author, title, series, etc., following the established format; table of

contents with indents reflecting the hierarchy of heads in the paper;

also, foreword and/or preface, if appropriate.

First page of text should carry the title and author at the top of the

page; second page should have only the author's name and

professional mailing address, to be used as an unnumbered footnote

on the first page of printed text.

Center heads of whatever level should be typed with initial caps of

major words, with extra space above and below the head, but no

other preparation (such as all caps or underline, except for the

underline necessary for generic and specific epithets). Run-in

paragraph heads should use period/dashes or colons as necessary.

Tabulations within text (lists of data, often in parallel columns) can

be typed on the text page where they occur, but they should not

contain rules or numbered table captions.

Formal tables (numbered, with captions, boxheads, stubs, rules)

should be submitted as carefully typed, double-spaced copy

separate from the text; they will be typeset unless otherwise

requested. If camera-copy use is anticipated, do not draw rules on

manuscript copy.

Taxonomic keys in natural history papers should use the

aligned-couplet form for zoology and may use the multi-level indent

form for botany. If cross referencing is required between key and text,

do not include page references within the key, but number the

keyed-out taxa, using the same numbers with their corresponding

heads in the text.

Synonymy in zoology must use the short form (taxon, author,

yearpage), with full reference at the end of the paper under

"Literature Cited." For botany, the long form (taxon, author,

abbreviated journal or book title, volume, page, year, with no

reference in "Literature Cited") is optional.

Text-reference system (author, yearpage used within the text,

with full citation in "Literature Cited" at the end of the text) must be

used in place of bibliographic footnotes in all Contributions Series

and is strongly recommended in the Studies Series: "(Jones,

1910:122)" or "...Jones (1910:122)." If bibliographic footnotes are

required, use the short form (author, brief title, page) with the full

citation in the bibliography.

Footnotes, when few in number, whether annotative or bibliographic, should be typed on separate sheets and inserted immediately after the text pages on which the references occur. Extensive

notes must be gathered together and placed at the end of the text in

a notes section.

Bibliography, depending upon use, is termed "Literature Cited,"

"References," or "Bibliography." Spell out titles of books, articles,

journals, and monographic series. For book and article titles use

sentence-style capitalization according to the rules of the language

employed (exception: capitalize all major words in English). For

journal and series titles, capitalize the initial word and all subsequent

words except articles, conjunctions, and prepositions. Transliterate

languages that use a non-Roman alphabet according to the Library

of Congress system. Underline (for italics) titles of journals and

series and titles of books that are not part of a series. Use the

parentheses/colon system for volume (number):pagination:

"10(2):5-9." For alignment and arrangement of elements, follow the

format of recent publications in the series for which the manuscript is

intended. Guidelines for preparing bibliography may be secured from

Series Section, SI Press.

Legends for illustrations must be submitted at the end of the

manuscript, with as many legends typed, double-spaced, to a page

as convenient.

Illustrations must be submitted as original art (not copies)

accompanying, but separate from, the manuscript. Guidelines for

preparing art may be secured from the Series Section, SI Press. All

types of illustrations (photographs, line drawings, maps, etc.) may be

intermixed throughout the printed text. They should be termed

Figures and should be numbered consecutively as they will appear

in the monograph. If several illustrations are treated as components

of a single composite figure, they should be designated by lowercase

italic letters on the illustration; also, in the legend and in text

references the italic letters (underlined in copy) should be used:

"Figure 9b." Illustrations (hat are intended to follow the printed text

may be termed Plates, and any components should be similarly

lettered and referenced: "Plate 9b." Keys to any symbols within an

illustation should appear on the art rather than in the legend.

Some points of style: Do not use periods after such abbreviations as "mm, ft, USNM, NNE." Spell out numbers "one" through

"nine" in expository text, but use digits in all other cases if possible.

Use of the metric system of measurement is preferable; where use of

the English system is unavoidable, supply metric equivalents in

parentheses. Use the decimal system for precise measurements and

relationships, common fractions for approximations. Use day/month/

year sequence for dates: "9 April 1976." For months in tabular listings

or data sections, use three-letter abbreviations with no periods: "Jan,

Mar, Jun," etc. Omit space between initials of a personal name: "J.B.

Jones."

Arrange and paginate sequentially every sheet of manuscript

in the following order: (1) title page, (2) abstract, (3) contents, (4)

foreword and/or preface, (5) text, (6) appendices, (7) notes section,

(8) glossary, (9) bibliography, (10) legends, (11) tables. Index copy

may be submitted at page proof stage, but plans for an index should

be indicated when the manuscript is submitted.