Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews, 1859. USA. Julius Bien, engraver

From the balcony of a huge and ornate temple, a man contemplates “the terrestrial globe bursting forth from the midst of clouds and receiving luminous emanations from the Most High.” (1)  Around him is an extravagant array of  niches containing narrative scenes, friezes and frames enclosing blocks of text, rows of figures, Kabbalistic symbols and programs, Zodiac signs, and divine names.  Beneath, in Hebrew and English, is the title “Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews.   The work was reproduced and published (2) for the American public in 1859 together with an “Explication”,  a one hundred twelve page explanatory booklet translated from the original French, (3) by Max Wolff, rabbi of Ohabei Shalom Congregation in Boston, who later served as a cantor in San Francisco.

Title pages in Hebrew and English

Wolff lays out his project in an author’s preface:

“HAVING undertaken to edit and to publish a lithograph pictorial composed of various figures representing portions of the Torah or Law of Moses of the creation of heaven and earth of nature and its agencies of the seasons and their influences of the human frame and of the holy temple in Jerusalem each portion arranged within its own semicircle and located in due concatenation to give a full and comprehensible view of the observances enjoined by the religion of the Hebrews it becomes my duty to state that this pictorial representation was originally composed by the learned and accomplished Dr Rosenberg and by him published in Paris during the year 5611 1851…

…Accordingly I presume to appear before the public as the Anglo American editor of the learned Frenchman’s work and having secured the assistance of competent artists whose skill has done justice to the pictorial portion of the work I also submit a translation of the author s explication to which I have added some few remarks of my own such as the occasion seemed to call for and I fervently pray that as the eye of the beholder is pleased with the work of art so the mind of the reader may be convinced and give thanks to Him who hath decreed that from Zion shall go forth the law and the Word of God from Jerusalem.”

The Explication has been digitized as part of the Google Books project:

Bibliography:

Abraham Karp, Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress (Washington, 1991) and the on-line exhibition Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress: Art for the Home.

Yosef Goldman, Hebrew Printing in America (New York, 2006)

Footnotes:

1 From Wolff’s “Explication”

2 The printer was Julius Bien, a respected lithographer who fled Germany for New York after having participated in the unsuccessful revolution of 1848. While receiving US Government contracts for engraving geological and geographical publications,  he was also involved in Jewish communal life as director of both the Hebrew Technical Institute and Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York. (from Kestenbaum & Company, Important Hebrew Printed Books and Manuscripts Auction, June 26, 2001, lot 139 catalog description.

3 Dr. D. Rosenberg of Paris published an illustrated lithograph based on a kabbalistic understanding of Judaism in 1851.  It was so complicated and laden with details that he also had to publish an explication in French. (from Goldman, Hebrew Printing in America, vol. 2 pp. 896-897)

We received word Monday morning that one of our founders, Seymour Fromer, passed away on Sunday. There’s an obituary here, and instead of mentioning all of his accolades, honors, and deeds, we, the Magnes staff, would like to share our personal memories of Seymour. For although he was a Jewish community leader, and a driving force behind so many programs in the Bay Area, he was also very human and approachable. We will miss him greatly.

Please comment and leave your own memories of Seymour.

Julie Franklin, Registrar:

In May 2005, I started working at the Magnes, and on my second day at the Museum, Seymour came over and introduced himself and gave me a great background and history of the Museum and its collection. It was incredible!  After he left, I asked Elayne Grossbard who he was, and she told me that Seymour was the founder of the Magnes.  How incredibly humble Seymour was, and always in a good humor with a wry gentle smile.

I loved his frequent visits, when he carried a box with something interesting inside; I knew I’d be in for a good story.  My heart is breaking because I will never again hear the spell casting words that began most of our conversations: “I have got something I think the Museum will be interested in… “ and, like a magician, he would pull something marvelous out of the box.

“Thank you Seymour for sharing your joy and passion for life with me.”

Lara Michels, Archivist and Librarian:

Even though I have been at the Magnes a relatively short period of time, I have been affected by the personality and passion of Seymour Fromer.  I am blessed with the job of caring for and providing access to the library and archival collections that Seymour and his colleagues built over the past half-century.  Though I saw him only occasionally during the past year, I have thought of him often and  am deeply aware of how his special influence, care, and deep commitment to preserving Jewish (hi)stories from all over the world shape the daily work that I do here at the Magnes.  I like to see the Magnes, with its beautiful jumble of archives, library, and museum materials as an embodiment of Seymour’s understanding that the documentation of the history and culture of any people or place or time requires a commitment to preserving a full range of cultural products. Seymour loved the Magnes collections in all their complexity and diversity and, even though we who are charged with caring for these collections sometimes manufacture divisions and distinctions necessary for professional practice, it delights me and inspires me to think of Seymour Fromer’s Magnes as a wondrous creation—a Jewish cabinet of curiosity really–that secretly and playfully eludes my attempts to divide and conquer.

Francesco Spagnolo, Director of Research and Collections:

I first came to the Magnes in the “old fashioned” way. Seymour Fromer brought me in – he captured me, literally: I had just moved to the Bay Area, and a mutual friend, Cantor Julie Blackman, had introduced me to him. Both he and Julie struck me as steeped in Old World courtesy, a character that reminds me of my grandparents’ generation, of those who rebuilt Europe after the great destruction, who founded the State of Israel, and who created a better world for their children; a kind of courtesy that I rarely see practiced anymore: the well-rehearsed routine that involves welcoming the newcomers, assessing their abilities, and promptly putting them to work. Seymour gave me the grand tour of the collections, which he knew like the back of his hand, and shared with me his love for Jewish music and his understanding for its relevance in telling the Jewish experience. A few months later I became the “music curator” at the Magnes, and from there its director of research and collections. I feel grateful to Seymour not only for having opened for me the doors of the Magnes and its infinite possibilities, but also for helping me in creating here a home away from home. His energy was that of the pioneers, of the dreamers, of those who build the world with their own hands. May his memory always be a blessing.

Groundbreaking for the Reutlinger Rare Book Room and Library

Perian Sully, Collection Information Manager:

I’ve always been amazed by Seymour’s mind. I started working at the Magnes in November, 2005, and quickly found what a rich resource the Magnes had in Seymour. Since it is my job to try and track down information about items in our collection, be it the provenance, the date, or the circumstances surrounding its acquisition, Seymour often became my only authoritative source. I could go to him with a question about one specific object and he would rattle off its history, the year it came in, and who gave it to us. His mind was extraordinary. I will greatly miss Seymour as a resource.

But maybe more importantly, he was always humble, and eager to be involved in our work. He often had opinions, good and bad, about how the Magnes was being run; it was clear that even through retirement, his heart was still here. I will also greatly miss Seymour as a supporter, a champion, and a partner.

Jacki Arase, Assistant Registrar:

I’m so saddened by this news.  Seymour was such a kind and gentle soul.  I always enjoyed talking with him and had great fun going over the new acquisition proposals he brought in.

I just saw him two weeks ago.  He was sitting in front of his house waiting for his daughter to pick him up.  They were going to Redwood City to see Rebecca in the hospital.  He, likes always, was very congenial.  Asked about the kids and how the Magnes was doing.  He, of course, mentioned he had a few more acquisition proposals to bring in.  He always had the welfare of the Magnes collection on his mind.  He never once mentioned his illness.

I knew in my heart that was probably the last time I would see him.  It is a beautiful memory I will cherish forever: him sitting in the sunlight on the large boulder in front of his house with the Magnes Museum to the right in back of him.

Elayne Grossbard, Judaica Curator:

Seymour both inspired and supported other collectors who shared, or learned to share, his passion for collecting. He remembered information about donors, like he did about everything else, in absolutely remarkable detail – I don’t think he forgot anything. It’s almost impossible for me to say anything about him without superlatives and that’s just in my little corner of things. I’m putting stories for which I have reasonably good notes but again, that’s an artificial limit. He used to come and sit in my office and show me pieces he had brought in and just schmooze about the art.

He never considered anything to be beneath his notice and recognized treasures even if the owners didn’t; everything was potentially a treasure: the Olat Shabbat prayer book which is one of the stars of the collection was brought in by an old lady who said she had a book that she didn’t want anymore. Read more from Elayne Grossbard

Heikhal Torah Ark, India, 17th century, polychrome and gold leaf wood. Accession #67.0.3 a-z

The Magnes’ magnificent red and gold Torah ark from India is now on display in the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s year-long exhibition “As it is Written.” It has not been displayed since the museum’s Telling Time exhibit in 1999-2000 and the CJM show gives it a spectacular setting.

A little background:

The Jews of Cochin were a very old community who built numerous synagogues in the Cochin area during the 16th-17th century.  The synagogue ark, known as a heikhal in Indian and Sephardic communities, reflects the influence both of Sephardim who came to Cochin by way of Holland and Italy as well as that of local Indian churches and Hindu temples; though the buildings continued to be altered and renovated over the centuries they preserved their original style.

After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 a large part of the Jewish population of India went voluntarily to Israel and the Cochin synagogues were gradually abandoned.  During the 1960’s Seymour Fromer and his associate Rabbi Bernard Kimmel rescued as much as they could of the remaining Indian Jewish books and ceremonial art.  They discovered this dismantled and crated synagogue heikhal in an Ernakulam synagogue and had it shipped to the museum where it was reassembled and restored.

Orna Eliyahu-Oron, author of the definitive study, Heichalot (Torah Arks) from the Synagogues of Cochin Jews in India (Jerusalem 2004) kindly shared the following information about the Magnes ark, based on her research of its style and on the documents and oral testimonies of the synagogue’s congregants:

• The Heikhal’s origin is the Tekumbagum Synagogue in Mattancheri-Cochin, the same neighborhood where the famous Paradesi Synagogue is found … there is also a Tekumbagum Synagogue in Ernakulam.  These identical names most likely stem from an ancient synagogue by the same name in Cranganore, north of Cochin, a place that had been the center of Jewish life in Kerala during the Middle Ages.

• The Tekumbagum Heikhal is dated by its style and other historical evidence to the last major renovation that synagogue underwent – in 1647.

• The Heikhal was probably identified as originating in Ernakulam because it had been dismantled and stored at the Kadavumbagum Synagogue there.  It had belonged to the only one of eight Kerala synagogues which had been physically demolished by the last members of its congregation upon their emigration to Israel (sometime after 1954) but the Heikhal itself was not destroyed.   Storing de-commissioned Heikhalot in synagogues was apparently regular practice among Kerala Jews, and Eliyau-Oron found the remnants of three even older Heikhalot in the attics of synagogues.

If you’re in the Bay Area, please come and see the ark – if not, enjoy it online.

Sukkot celebrates the end of the harvest season. Families and their guests enjoy festive meals in little huts decorated with seasonal fruits and vegetables, recalling the temporary dwellings of the biblical Israelites during their desert wanderings.

Plate for Sukkot, Germany, 20th Century, Pewter. 66.0.1

Illuminated Manuscript Sukkah Decoration - Prayers for Sukkot

I have been watching Ken Burn’s new documentary on the National Parks and thinking about the ways in which archives make this kind of project possible.  Of course, the average viewer may not ponder where those beautiful images of our National Parks reside today and how they survive from generation to generation, but I do.  I know that most of them survive and remain accessible because of the work of dedicated archivists, whose work is, in turn, often made possible and sustained by public support and enthusiasm.

October is American Archives Month and California Archives Month.  The theme for American Archives Month is “Celebrating the American Record” and the theme for California Archives Month is “Celebrating Cultural Diversity.”  In many ways,  the documentary on the National Parks is a celebration not only of the American commitment to these glorious public spaces, but also a celebration of our dedication to preserving the historical record that allows us to continue to tell the story of Yosemite and Yellowstone and Death Valley.

And, in line with the California Archives Month theme, I say let’s celebrate and renew our commitment as Americans and Californians to preserving and making accessible a diverse historical record–made up of records from all the ethnic, racial, religious, and social groups who have built (and continue to build) this country and this state.  The story of the National Parks, like most American stories, is best told from a diverse set of records.  And those materials don’t survive without a public commitment to grow and nurture our great (and inclusive) American historical record.

To mark American Archives Month and California Archives Month, as well as the history of our National and State Parks and the history of the Jews of the Western United States, here are a few images of Yosemite from the wonderful archival collections of the Magnes.

Alice Rosenberg, unidentified woman, Lucy Heyneman, Harry Treat, and Lionel Heyneman driving through the Wawona Tree at Mariposa Grove, Yosemite, July 1919 (wjhc1971-010-ar1-001_1)

Ice skating at Yosemite, January 1909 (wjhc2005-004-ar1-151)

Gerstle family ice skating at Yosemite, January 1909 (wjhc2005-004-ar1-036)

One of the best-known paintings in the Magnes Museum is “The Jewish Wedding,” signed in Cyrillic letters ‘A. Trankowski’. According to museum records, its original owner lived in Odessa and then sold the painting in the US in the 1940s. The painting later turned up in New York and was purchased for the Magnes by friends of the original owner’s daughter. The provenance is curious but the painting itself is even more of a mystery – who was the artist? When did he paint it? Why did it become so popular? And most of all – is it a forgery?

“The Jewish Wedding” was illustrated in the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (1942) volume 8, p. 578, and in the September 1902 issue of the German Jewish cultural magazine Ost und West. It was also reproduced on a postcard printed in Berlin around 1905 and on a similar one from Warsaw.  Still another postcard, probably also early 20th century and perhaps printed in New York, has a Jewish New Year’s greeting and text - it was available online not long ago.

Reproduction of the Trankowski painting in the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (1942)

Postcard reproduction of the painting "Judische Hochzeit" by A. Trankowski

All of these reproductions are slightly different, mostly in the background, from the Magnes painting.

Sheila Braufman, former Magnes curator, had researched Trankowski for years, consulting experts worldwide; though he clearly was an experienced artist, very little information about him – or other paintings by him – came to light.  She learned that he was probably from Russia, worked during the late 19th or earlier 20th century, that the signature was pre-Russian revolution in style, and that based on the architecture in the painting it possibly depicted a village in the Ukraine. She was able to correct some of the original faulty information in the records, including the identification in the Encyclopedia that it was Polish, but it remained a mystery.

But there was an unexpected turn of events…

A few years ago, Sotheby’s Tel Aviv contacted us about a photograph of a similar painting shown to them by a private collector– they had never seen the actual painting and didn’t know if it was signed. They knew nothing about the artist either and wanted to know if we could provide any information.

Then, last year, I received a call from a family in Philadelphia who owned an almost identical painting (they were the ones who had contacted Sotheby’s, in fact.)   After we spoke on the phone, Dalia Singer wrote me that in 1965, her father, who had immigrated to Israel in 1921, was re-united with a sister who had remained in Russia.  She gave him an unsigned painting that she said had been rolled up in their parent’s closet and he took it back to Israel.  A year later, he described the image to an artist he knew in Tel Aviv who  immediately recognized it and showed him the postcard, printed in Warsaw, where the name  A. Trankowski appears – the artist knew about the Magnes painting as well.  The family was amazed to find that there were other versions and wanted to learn more…

Singer had done her own research and discovered that two paintings signed Alexey Ivanovich Trankowski had been offered for sale at the Bruun-Rasmussen auction house in Copenhagen in 2007.  In fact, within the last few years, genre paintings – not of Jewish themes – signed ‘Trankovsky’ have been sold at auction in New York as well.

I was able to visit the Singers and look at their painting. Like all the other reproductions, it too was slightly different from ours – this one has a little boy in the lower right-hand corner.   So, is our painting a forgery?

The answer is – yes and no. An article on Trankowski by Vladimir Petrov in the magazine “Antikvarnoe Obozrenie,” was mentioned in the Bruun Rasmussen 2007 on-line catalog. Petrov identified Trankowski as one of a group of Russian genre artists at the end of the 19th century whose work was so popular that their paintings were copied extensively, often with the signatures of the original artist. Hillel-Grigory Kazovsky, director of the Jewish museum in Moscow, wrote that Trankowski was a member of the Moscow Union of Artists and was not a Jew but he had no further information about him. Interestingly, a reference work on Russian salon artists of the late 19th century lists an artist named Trankowski but with initials M.K., according to an expert at Sotheby’s.

How and why would this image – clearly a fanciful portrayal of a traditional wedding – have been reproduced in Jewish contexts so soon after it was painted that Jewish publishers must surely have known where it came from? Michal Friedlander, Judaica curator at the Berlin Jewish museum, suggests that they may have been happy to find a good reproductive image for illustration even if they knew that the artist wasn’t Jewish. In our painting’s case, the reproductions tell us something about the limited availability of Jewish ceremony images in the early twentieth century. To this day, images by non-Jewish artists are used to illustrate Jewish ceremonies and subjects in Jewish art and culture museum exhibitions and publications.

The painting continues to be reproduced. Other recent reproductions include the book Picturing Berkeley: A Postcard History By Burl Willes, – you can see a reproduction here and also: “Tantsn Is Lebn”: Dancing in Eastern European Jewish Culture by LeeEllen Friedland, Dance Research Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2. (Autumn,1985), pp. 76-80.

My greatest thanks to Dalia Singer for generously and enthusiastically sharing her story.

This is the third blog post about the Magnes ephemera collection.  The term ephemera describes all sorts of works printed or written on paper that had only a temporary usefulness and were never intended to last very long and they are among the fascinating pieces in the museum.  Some are examples of types that are well known mainly to scholars and collectors,  while others, like this page, are mysteries that are wonderfully rewarding to solve.

The text of our page is not part of the ordinary Jewish liturgy found in prayer books – it is a Hebrew poem titled ‘A Prayer for the Welfare of the King.’ There is no record of the donor or of how the piece entered our collection – interestingly, a tear has been patched with a different kind of paper and a photocopy of  hand-written, tentative, unsigned English  translation was found in our paper files, suggesting that whoever owned it valued it enough to attempt to read and repair it. (1)

A Prayer for the Welfare of the King - 2007.0.33

The poem is an ode to Prince Alexander Johann I who united the Danube principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1862 to form the Kingdom of Romania. It was composed by Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michel, Chief Rabbi of Bucharest, Romania, known as the MALBIM (2), to celebrate the Romanian national holiday on 24 January 1862, when it was read publicly by the chief rabbi and by the congregation. Besides being printed on paper at the time, the words were also printed in Hebrew and Romanian on a silk banner decorated with the national coat of arms. The MALBIM was a controversial figure because of his differences with the local community and he used this occasion to deliver a sermon bemoaning his ill treatment and appealing for support.

The ode was not published until 1969 when a researcher who had obtained permission to examine Jewish documents in the Bucharest municipal museum included it in a scholarly article – it was one of four poems on national themes composed by the MALBIM, only two of which were found there. The banner was preserved in the museum as well.

The Magnes copy is undated – it appears to be cut down around the edges since only a part of one frame line remains along one side, but in its present condition there is no national symbol visible at the top nor is any other writing evident. The script is block letters, imitating print, and not cursive, so the handwriting could not be positively identified as a MALBIM autograph by the Institute for Microfilmed Manuscripts of the Jewish National and University Library, which has a collection of his autograph manuscripts, nor by a scholar who has a similar private collection. (3)

Where does our piece come from, then? Until more information comes to light about earlier printings of the poem  we can only speculate that it may have been copied by a contemporary of the MALBIM on one of the occasions when it was read, (4) or else transmitted somehow to his or her descendant, although it is a mystery why someone in a later generation would have wanted to write it down.  Perhaps it was even transcribed by the author himself…

(1) A very long and flowery poem, it begins:

A Prayer for the Life of our monarch the King and on behalf of the welfare of his state
On the day our king Alexander Johann I came to our city …
Let us pour out our words before You, O Lord
Open the gates of Your heavens and let Your light shine
Grant him long years of life
Shower him with majesty and glory…

And ends…

May the Lord’s bounty spread over its cities like the dawn
And envelop the country’s highest peaks
And may its fruited valleys ring with music

(click the More.. link for a longer translation and additional information) (more…)

Hank and Mary Hoexter celebrate their 60th birthday and their 35th wedding anniversary (wjhc1975-013-ar1-001)

Magnes volunteers Hank and Mary Hoexter celebrated their 87th birthdays this week.  They were born on the same day of the same year–August 24, 1922!  What are the odds of that?  They have been married now for 62 years.

And to top it all off, the Hoexters have been volunteering up in the Western Jewish History Center for more than three decades.  Mary started her volunteer work at the Magnes in 1973 and Hank followed shortly thereafter (upon his retirement). They still come every Wednesday.

The Magnes has depended upon the loving and careful work of its volunteers since its inception.  Hank and Mary are treasures and we wish them many more years together.

Happy Birthday!

In this group of Flickr “sets” the Magnes presents online for the first time a wide selection of digitized items from its Western Jewish Americana and Global Jewish Diaspora archival collections.

The decision to give direct access to (often unprocessed) archival digital files reflects the attempt to integrate digitization technologies and social networking with traditional archival practice, and expands a “minimal processing” approach to collections. While our archival holdings are processed at “collection level,” access at “item level” is provided digitally, and users can browse these items as they become available online.

The “code name” for this operation, From the Dusty Archives…, is of course a bit ironic. Often, archives are seen as dusty and inaccessible places, as our users often remind us. While dealing with our own share of dust, we also strive for openness and accessibility. Online access and social media features are certainly a way to achieve that. While encouraging researchers to visit the archives to access the primary sources, and to unearth the many documents that have not been digitized, we are also eager to recreate, in a digital form, the sense of discovery that archival research constantly provides.

New files representing our archival holdings are uploaded to these sets on a weekly basis, on the basis of the online publication platform already established for the Magnes Jewish Digital Narratives and thanks to the software MemoryMiner, which allows to digitally archive each upload, and thus to keep increasing the volume of metadata as archival descriptions are expanded).

Comments and social tagging features are open to all Flickr users, and the use of the files (and, of course, of the history and cultures they represent) is encouraged under a Creative Commons License.  All other uses of these materials are allowed under the Magnes’ Rights and Reproduction terms and conditions, which are available here.

Enjoy! (And please provide your feedback).