Obj. ID: 56386
  Sacred and Ritual  Mizrah, New York City, NY, 1937

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

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).

The production of printed Mizrach plaques increased markedly in the last half of the 19th century and into the 20th century. Such pages were printed in many places. This is a Mizrach with a Zionist orientation, featuring in the center a large map of Eretz Israel with the 22 Jewish colonies from early settlement days indicated. On the two sides, listed in Yiddish, are the names of the colonies, while above and below are illustrations of some of the Holy Places and cities in the Holy Land. This production from 1937 is a new edition of an earlier work from 1914, also in the Gross Family Collection, 056.011.0**.