Collection of "Shanah Tovah" Greeting Cards and Postcards – Zionist Organizations and Personalities – Postcards ...

Collection of "Shanah Tovah" Greeting Cards and Postcards – Zionist Organizations and Personalities – Postcards Signed by Heinrich Loewe and David Wolffsohn, Postcards Published by "Levanon" in Moscow, and More

Seventeen Zionist postcards and greeting cards with "shanah tovah" greetings. Jerusalem, Vienna, Moscow and elsewhere, late 19th and early 20th century.
• Two undivided-back postcards published by Heinrich Loewe in Jaffa, with pictures of three moshavot: Rechovot, Gedera and Rishon LeZion. One postcard bears a brief message handwritten by Loewe, dated "Kaisertag" ["Emperor's Day"]. The postcards was sent by mail in October 1898, during Emperor Wilhelm II's visit to the Holy Land.
• Color postcard signed by David Wolffsohn, president of the Zionist Congress, and his wife Fanny (sent from Baden, 1904).
• Two personalized postcards of the philanthropist Jacob Moser, founder of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium (1911/12).
• "Shanah tovah" postcard showing a group photograph taken in front of the Palestine pavilion of the Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin, held in 1896. Vienna: Zion, [early 20th century]. Seen in the photograph are Heinrich Loewe, Moshe David Schub and others.
• Postcard published by "Levanon", numbered 1: picture of Beit Ne'eman (later the National Library of Israel) and its founder Yosef Chasanowich (sent in 1912).
• Another postcard published by "Levanon": picture of Jewish guards (sent to Jerusalem, 1924).
• Postcards and greeting cards from the Bnei Zion society in Mykolaiv (1899); Tze'irei Zion and JNF in Russia (1919); Keren HeChalutz HaMizrachi (1935); and more.
The "shanah tovah" greetings were added to some cards and postcards by stamp or by hand.
17 items. Approx. 14X9 cm (some larger or smaller). Condition varies.
Provenance: Collection of Dr. Chaim Grossman.

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.