Obj. ID: 39360
Sacred and Ritual Objects  Tallit Bag, Jerusalem, circa 1910

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

The Tallit is a Jewish prayer shawl, worn on the shoulders over the outer clothes during morning prayers and on a few special occasions as well, such as Yom Kippur evening or the wedding ceremony. Traditionally the Tallit is made of wool or linen, but sometimes from other textiles as well, such as silk or polyester and cotton. In most cases, the Tallit is worn from the time of the Bar Mitzvah and is often a gift from father to son on that occasion. Many adult Jewish males own their own Tallit and carry it to the synagogue for prayer. Most utilize some sort of container in which to place the Tallit for the journey.

This example is a Tefilin bag printed with the Holy Land images on a light brown cotton fabric. These images were often used on many varieties of Jerusalem printing of the time, including books. This object was accompanied by a companion textile bag for the Tefilin, 018.015.005 in the Gross Family Collection. This example was not an institutional commission, but apparently a commercial venture of the publisher. This cloth was printed in the workshop of one of the foremost printers in Jerusalem, Avraham Moshe Luncz, who printed in Jerusalem for more than 30 years. There are some 30 objects in the Gross Family Collection that were printed by Luncz.

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 there 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. he earliest examples, yet from the 19th century, were produced by the famous printers of that period in Jerusalem.

Abraham Moses Luncz (December 9, 1854–1918) (Hebrew: אברהם לונץ) was a Russian scholar and editor born at Kovno, Russia. At age 14 he came to Jerusalem.[1] Luncz, who suffered from early blindness, founded, in conjunction with Dr. Koisewski, an institution for the blind at Jerusalem.

In the exploration of the Holy Land, Luncz has rendered great services from the historical, geographical, and physical standpoints, through his guide-books for Palestine, his Palestine annuals, and his Jerusalem almanac. He owned a Hebrew printing press in the Ezrat Yisrael neighborhood, across the street from his own home in Even Yisrael. From there he issued a number of works by Palestinian scholars, Estori Farḥi's Kaftor wa-Feraḥ and Josef Schwarz's Tebu'ot ha-Areẓ being the first works published. He also produced a travel guide to Israel. As of 1904, he had in press a new edition of the Jerusalem Talmud with commentary and introduction. Inscription: Atifat ha-Tallit