Obj. ID: 26222
Sacred and Ritual Objects Torah pointer, Hanau, circa 1910
The following description was prepared by William Gross:
The pointer used by the Torah reader to keep the place is known in European communities as the *yad, "hand," or the eẓba, "finger," and in Sephardi and Eastern communities as the moreh, "pointer," or kulmus, "quill," the former because of its function and the latter because of its shape. Halakhic sources also use the terms moreh or kulmus. The pointer was originally a narrow rod, tapered at the pointing end, usually with a hole at the other end through which a ring or chain could be passed to hang the pointer on the Torah scroll.
The original form of the pointer was preserved in Eastern communities, the differences from one community to another being mainly in length and ornamentation. In certain communities a hand with a pointing finger was added, and accordingly the pointer came to be known as a yad, "hand," or eẓba, "finger." Pointers are made for the most part of silver or silver-plated brass, but in a few European communities they used to be made of wood. In such cases the pointers were carved in the local folk-art style.
This very elegant Roah Pointer is another example of the type of Jewish ritual art produced by the firm of Lazarus Posen in Frankfurt a.M. and Berlin. It was most probably produced in Hanau in the "Historismus" style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This particular Yad is pictured in a Posen catalogue, with the inventory number 3304. There is an identical pointer in the Prague Jewish Museum, but it carries different marks.