Collection of Postcards and Greeting Cards for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – Poems and Musical Notes – Europe and ...

Collection of Postcards and Greeting Cards for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – Poems and Musical Notes – Europe and the United States, Early 20th Century

24 postcards and greeting cards for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, featuring poems and rhymes in Hebrew and Yiddish and musical notes; some with color illustrations. Romania, Austria, Germany, England, United States, and elsewhere: various publishers, [ca. early 20th century]. Hebrew, Yiddish, German and some English.
Four postcards have undivided backs.
Average size: 14X9 cm. Condition varies. Some postcards were used, and bear inscriptions, postmarks and postage stamps (mostly on verso).
Enclosed: • Undivided postcard with a printed apology from a son to his parents on Yom Kippur eve, signed in print: "Zelig" (1907/1908). • Postcard with the text of Megillat Esther (micrography) and greetings for Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot.
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.