Two Unfolding "Shanah Tovah" Cards – Picture of Participants in the First Zionist Congress, Portraits of Jewish ...

Two Unfolding "Shanah Tovah" Cards – Picture of Participants in the First Zionist Congress, Portraits of Jewish, Zionist, and American Figures / Map of Palestine – USA, Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century

Two "shanah tovah" cards:
1. Unfolding "shanah tovah" card published by Yehuda Katzenellenbogen (Judah Meyer Katzenellenbogen, among the founders of the Hebrew Publishing Company), [1899]. Missing several parts.
The card's exterior is made of gold embossed paper. The card is divided into a number of unfolding sections, with each face opening in several directions, inside and out, resembling a window with numerous wings folded over each other. In the interior sections there are new year's greetings and numerous portrait photographs and drawings of characters and personalities from Jewish history, as well as rabbis and Zionist figures – Moses, Aaron, the Gaon of Vilna, Moses Mendelssohn, Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau, Sir Moses Montefiore, and many others. One face bears the portraits of all the representatives participating in the First Zionist Congress held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897.
Other pictures include a group photo of the students and staff of the Jaffa Boys' School; a print showing Yom Kippur services at an army camp near the city of Metz, France; portraits of prominent Jewish Rabbis; and a host of other images. Interspersed among all these items pertaining to the Jewish world are portraits of non-Jewish figures such as George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Theodore Roosevelt, and others.
The card is missing several parts. See: Kedem Auction 87, lot 126.
In folded state: 12X9 cm. Fair-good condition. Tears and blemishes. One section detached, other sections partially detached.
2. Unfolding "shanah tovah" card with pictures and a map of Palestine. [Hebrew Publishing Company, New York, 1910?].
A sheet printed on both sides, folded and hardbound; "A Happy New Year" greeting on binding.
On one side of the sheet, poems for the new year and a series of pictures – portrait picture of R. Chaim Nahum Effendi, chief rabbi (Hakham Bashi) of the Ottoman Empire, and pictures of various sites and settlements in Palestine.
On the other side of the sheet, a Yiddish language map, printed in color – "Keller's Map of Palestine, Jerusalem and Syria" ("copyright 1910, Hebrew Publishing Company, New York"). The map shows the territories of the Twelve Tribes of Israel as well as the new Jewish settlements established in Palestine in early 20th century.
In folded state: 12X14 cm. Fair-good condition. Tears, some long, to fold lines. Some small open tears. Stains. Blemishes to binding. Open tear to spine.
Provenance: The Dr. Haim Grossman collection.

Dr. Chaim Grossman's Israeliana collection is exceptional in size, quality and variety. Grossman, an educator, historian and folklorist, was a methodical, knowledgeable and meticulous collector, and his deep understanding of Palestinian-Yishuv and Israeli material culture set the ground for a one-of-a-kind collection of mundane and less than mundane objects – from the ephemeral, the negligible, the widely available to the rare and singular.
The "shana tovah" collection left by Grossman – a considerable part of which is offered in the present auction – comprises thousands of postcards, cards, letters and other paper items made and sent year after year in, by and for Jewish communities: in Eastern and Western Europe, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, North Africa, North and South America, as part of the tradition of sending hand-written, hand-drawn or printed new year’s greetings, which originated in German Jewry but with the rise of postcards spread to most communities. The earliest items in the collection date to the 1860s; the latest were made in the late 20th century. It includes both beautifully designed, rare, early and singular postcards and cards, and mass-made, highly popular items sold in large quantities, in varying production quality and in dozens of repeating versions, each according to the technical abilities achieved by the local publication industry.
The collector's devotion to his collection is evident in the sheer number of items, in the wealth of techniques, visuals and themes, and in the thorough, intersectional categorization by period, origin, motif, technique and material. Glitter and relief embossing, scraps, lace and golden ink, lithography and celluloid transparencies, plastic, textile and metal decorations; Yiddish, Hebrew, English, Russian, French, Polish, German greetings; children, angels, families, pets, immigrants, travelers, professionals; portraits and tinted reproductions; Judaism, Zionism, the state, the army; the ritual and the mundane; any new year's greeting, in any form whatsoever, had a place in Grossman's collection and was honored as a historical testimony, as a timeless, invaluable treasure.