Obj. ID: 39214
Sacred and Ritual Objects  Shabbat and Holiday Challah Cover, Jerusalem, circa 1910

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

Such printed textiles were made as souvenirs, as gifts from Jerusalem institutions for their supporters abroad and directly as ritual items. Such cloths are to be found in virtually every country in which Jews reside, having been sent their by institutions or as souvenirs. The iconographic scheme usually centered around images of the Holy Sites with other Jewish symbols. The textiles were printed on a variety of fabrics ranging from simple cotton to silk. They were usually textiles either for the Pesach Seder table or for use on Shabbat and Holidays as challah covers with the appropriate prayers of the Kiddush of that event. The earliest examples, yet from the 19th century, were produced by the famous printers of that period in Jerusalem.

This Shabbat and Holiday cloth example is one of particularly fine images printed on an excellent quality yellow Damask textile. This was printed in the workshop of one of the foremost printers in Jerusalem, Shmuel Halevy Zuckerman. Shmuel ben Ya’akov Halevy Zuckerman was born in Mesiritch in 1856. As a six-year-old child he made Aliyah with his parents. He learned the printing trade while working for Yisrael Bak, after whose death he continued in the printing house of Bak’s son Nisan. He soon went to London, however, and worked in printing there before returning to Eretz Israel to work in the shop of Ag”n. By 1885 he was a partner in that enterprise and from 1886 became the sole owner, publishing books under his name, becoming one of the foremost printers in Jerusalem. The press operated in the Old City of Jerusalem until Zuckerman moved it to the new city in 1926. Up to 1890 almost 80 books were printed from his press in addition to many single sheets. More than100 items from the Zuckerman printing house exist in the Gross Family Collection. Gift from Va'ad Kollelot Austreich Galitzien

Inscription: Lichvod Shabbat ve-Yom Tov