Obj. ID: 39215
  Sacred and Ritual  Shabbat and Holiday Challah Cover, Jerusalem, circa 1863

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 is among the very earliest printed cloths with illustrations of the Holy places. From the blocks used to depict the Holy places and the Temple implements it is possible to surmise that this was printed by Yechiel Brill and his partners Michael Cohen and Yoel Solomon, among the first printers in Jerusalem. The Temple Menorah image is the same as that on a single printed page in the Gross Family Collection, 123.011.006. Additionally the two decorative vertical columns are the same as used in the title page of the book "Shevet Musar", published by these printers in 1863. After this very early example, hundreds of different versions were produced by all the printers of Jerusalem for the next eighty years. Many of them were produced for various Holy Land institutions, which sent these textiles to their supporters abroad.