Obj. ID: 10848
Sacred and Ritual Torah mantle, Thessaloniki (Salonika)?,
The trapezoid Torah mantle comprises a cloak attached to a round top, with a vertical back opening.
A foliate pattern comprising branches and open flowers runs horizontally along the center. Additional flowers are scattered all around the cloak.
A dedication is embroidered on the front top, in square filled letters, which reads:
"הקדש די ויקטוריה/ משה קואינקה ת"ם (תבורך מנשים; שופטים ה:כד)."
"A dedication of Victoria, (the wife of) Moses Ku'inkah, 'may she be blessed above all women' (Judg. 5:24)."
The round top has two openings for the Torah staves. A fringed strip surrounds the top and the bottom edges of the cloak.
The Torah mantle is made up of several pieces of cloths adjusted to the trapezoid shape. It is a secondary use of a wedding dress (Bindel) or another piece of clothing.
sub-set tree: 
Cloth: brown silk satin
Lining: green cotton satin with an additional woof thread
Decoration: gold threads in laid and couched embroidery
Foundation: cardboard
Inscription: gold threads in laid and couched embroidery
Foundation: cardboard
Additions: fringed band, paillettes
Width: 880 mm
Diameter: 810 mm
Intact
A collection of ritual objects was confiscated from the Greek Jews when they were transported toAuschwitzduring World War II. This Torah mantle was transferred to the Jewish Historical Institute (JHI) in 1948 from Narożno, a city inLower Silesiawhere the Nazis stored the objects.
Amar, Ariella, and Irina Chernetsky, Jewish Art in Greece: The Collection of the Jewish Museum of Greece (Jerusalem, The Center for Jewish Art, Internal publication,The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, May 2007)
Juhasz, Esther, “Arigim ve-rekamot ba-bayit u-ve-veit ha-keneset”, In Yehudei Sepharad Ba-Imperia Ha-Ottomanit, ed. Esther- Juhasz, ( Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1989), 64-119 (In Hebrew)
Juhasz, Esther, “The Material Culture of Sephardic Jews in the Western Ottoman Empire, (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries) In The Jews of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Avigdor Levy ( Princeton: The Institute of Turkish Studies, 1994), 575-583.
Online collection of the ritual objects from the E. Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute is available here: http://cbj.jhi.pl/collections/964689