Obj. ID: 33417
Sacred and Ritual Objects Torah shield, Late 18th - early 19th century
The silver Torah shield is rectangular and topped by a semi-circular arch. The shield bears a rectangular medallion in its center with a dedicatory inscription in Hebrew. The inscription reads:
ק' ל' יי [=קודש לה']
"Dedicated to God"
The inscription is most probably done at the same time the shield was produced.
The Hebrew inscription around the medallion was most probably added later by another master. The inscription reads:
ז'ה' [=זאת הנדבה] בעב [=בעבור] ה' [=הילדה?] מירישע / במ [=בת מורינו] טוביאה
"This is the donation for the sake of the girl [?] Mirshe / a daughter of our teacher Tuvia".
The name Tuvia is written with a mistake.
This Torah shield is a votive deposit. For similar Torah shields see CJA objects 6365, 311, 642, 17739. On this type of small Torah shields mentioning children and mostly donated in the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century see Vladimir Levin, “The Social Function of Synagogue Ceremonial Objects in Volhynia,” in Synagogues in Ukraine: Volhynia, by Sergey Kravtsov and Vladimir Levin (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center and the Center for Jewish Art, 2017), 139–73.
sub-set tree:
Sialitskaya, Darya, ed. The Second Birth: The Reconsctruction of the Jewish Collection of the Belarusian State Museum in the 1920s–1930s. Minsk: Belmytservis, 2021., I.18.
Vladimir Levin, “The Social Function of Synagogue Ceremonial Objects in Volhynia,” in Synagogues in Ukraine: Volhynia, by Sergey Kravtsov and Vladimir Levin (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center and the Center for Jewish Art, 2017), 139–73