Obj. ID: 1444
Sacred and Ritual Torah mantle (Late 19th cen, Salonika)
The trapezoid Torah mantle comprises a cloak attached to a round top. It has a vertical back opening, and is decorated with four central vertical foliate patterns set against a starry and flowery background. A scrolling stem runs along the edges. The round top has two openings for the Torah staves. A band surrounds the top and the bottom edges of the cloak.
Online collection of the ritual objects from the E. Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute is available here: http://cbj.jhi.pl/collections/964689
- The Torah mantle is a secondary use of a cushion cover, adjusted to be a mantle.
sub-set tree: 
Cloth: dark red cotton velvet
Lining: pink uneven twill, white cotton tabby
Decoration: gold threads in laid and couched embroidery
Foundation: cardboard
Inscription: none
Additions: machine-made band
Width: 103 cm
Diameter: 26 cm
Intact
A collection of ritual objects was confiscated from the Greek Jews when they were transported toAuschwitzduring World War II. This Torah mantle was handed over to the Jewish Historical Institute (JHI) in 1949 fromTorun, a city in northernPoland, where the Nazis had concentrated the ritual objects from different places, mainly fromPoland.
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.