Obj. ID: 56025
  Sacred and Ritual  Mizrah, Wissembourg, circa 1860

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

Mizrah (Hebrew: מזרח "east") is the Hebrew word for "east" and the direction that Jews in the Diaspora face during prayer. Jewish law prescribes that Jews at prayer face the site of the Temple in Jerusalem. In addition, "Mizrach" refers to an ornamental wall plaque used to indicate the direction of prayer in Jewish homes. In a synagogue, that direction would be obvious as it is the side of the building on which the ark was placed. But in a home or Sukkah the direction had to be indicated. It is customary in traditional Jewish homes and the Sukkah to mark the wall in the direction of Mizrach to facilitate proper prayer. For this purpose, people use artistic wall plaques inscribed with the word Mizrach and scriptural passages like "From the rising (mi-mizrah) of the sun unto the going down thereof, the Lord's name is to be praised" (Ps. 113:3), Kabbalistic inscriptions, or pictures of holy places. Such plaques were most often manuscript forms or printed sheets, ranging from the simplest idea of the word only to elaborately decorated pages with a wide range of images and texts. These plaques are generally placed in rooms in which people pray, such as the living room or bedrooms. The four letters of the Hebrew word MiZRaCH are sometimes indicated as the initial letters of the Hebrew phrase Metzad Zeh Ruach Chaim (From this side the source of life).

This design for a Mizrach is found in a number of different examples, apparently, all printed either in Alsace or the adjacent area of Germany, the two areas being tightly bound from a Jewish cultural point of view. While the general form is quite similar, there are sometimes differences in the scenes portrayed, mostly of biblical origin. In this example the central illustration is one of Mourning for the Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, with the image derived from the German Romantic painting by Bendeman. On the two sides are portrayed four biblical events: the Sacrifice of Isaac, the Judgement of Solomon, Moses striking the rock to bring forth water in Sinai, all three of which are generally based on 17th-century biblical etchings by the artist Matthaeus Merian, and the Blessing of Ya'akov.

This was printed by the lithography firm of C. Burckhardt who identifies himself as the successor to Wentzel, the printer in Alsace of many Jewish prints and perhaps the originator of the form of the Mizrach. There is one other Mizrach in the Gross Family Collection from this printing house.

There is an identical copy of this Mizrach in the Jewish Museum in Prague on which the printer is identified as a Prague printer Johan Lovic. There are also almost identical prints from the same area in the Gross Family Collection, 056.011.099, 056.011.090, and 056.011.107, but printed by a different press.