Obj. ID: 56364
  Sacred and Ritual  Mizrah, Jerusalem, circa 1900

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).

Printed Mizrachs were an important part of Jewish art around the end of the 19th century. For the first time, the increasing efficiency of the printing and paper industries made such printed sheets available at reasonable prices to a much wider public that previously. Such Mizrachs a popular item from printers in the Holy Land: for use in that country, for sending as gifts abroad and as souvenirs for tourists. To this Mizrach has been added a panorama of holy places, with some titles in German as well as in Hebrew. Included is a scene of the Jordan River.  This is a variant printing of another Mizrach in the Gross Family Collection, 056.011.026. The larger oval vignettes of the holy places are arranged somewhat differently in the present example and there is one new image. In addition, there are two small oval vignettes. The border in this example is decorated and with texts, and the colors of the printing are different. This very large sheet was printed by Shmuel 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. 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. Almost 100 items from the Zuckerman printing house exist in the Gross Family Collection.