Sukkot is a festival that lends itself to broad artistic expression, with particular focus on the special mitzvot so intimately associated with this great festive Yom Tov – beginning, of course, with the sukkah and the arba minim and ending with hoshanot and Simchat Torah. Many of our greatest artists and others have produced striking graphic works on these subjects, and I present here a small selection of original artwork from a collection of Sukkot materials.
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Born to Orthodox Jewish parents in Germany, Daniel Moritz Oppenheim (1800-1882) was the first Jewish painter of the 19th century to work within the German non-Jewish world while still strongly affirming his Judaism. While remaining observant within the community of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch in Germany, he was granted a prized Frankfurt citizenship (1852), no mean feat for a Jew in those times. His work, which explores the encounter between Jewish traditions and the modern world as experienced by post-emancipation European Jewry, focuses on portraying Jewish family life as close and strong and depicts Jewish culture, traditions, and faith in a positive light for German audiences.
In The Feast of the Tabernacles, the beautiful and technically impressive engraving shown here, Oppenheim depicts the head of the family reciting Kiddush in a magnificently decorated sukkah surrounded by what appear to be family members, one holding a new infant. Two young boys look in at the proceedings from the outside while the wife – who, in a humorous touch, appears to be viewed disapprovingly by the family cat – brings hot soup out to the sukkah.
Also exhibited here is a postcard and a Tomor label featuring the same scene. Oppenheimer’s popular work was frequently used on Jewish greeting cards and other materials at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century. Tomor is a kosher dairy-free margarine made in Germany, and the “Sana-Gessellschaft” (Sana Company) of Kleve Kosher Tomor margarine issued collector promotional labels (circa 1904) illustrating various Jewish scenes with German subtitles. Sana’s parent company was the Van den Bergh Margarine Works, founded by Simon Van der Bergh (1819-1907), a Dutch industrialist and an Orthodox Jew.
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The Graphic was a British weekly illustrated newspaper, first published on December 4, 1869, as a rival to the popular Illustrated London News. The paper, which was printed on fine toned paper of beautiful quality made expressly for the display of engravings, quickly became a great success and a haven for artists and, over the course of its 3,266 issues (it ceased publication in July 1932), had immense influence within the art world, with its admirers including Vincent van Gogh.
Exhibited here is The Feast of Tabernacles at the North London Synagogue – The Reader Taking the Palm Branch, which appeared on the front page of The Graphic on November 2, 1872. Although it is never specified, there can be no doubt that text accompanying this original engraving is describing the Hoshanot ceremony at the shul:
During the celebration of the festival, the interior of the synagogue presents a curious and somewhat picturesque scene, especially at the moment represented in the engraving, when the principal Reader, chanting words of thanksgiving, waves the branches of palm, willow, and myrtle which, together with a citron, have been placed in his hand by the Shom’mus [sic] . . .
The morning service commences from about nine, and consists of prayers and passages from the Old Testament, alternately chanted or intoned by the principal Reader – the Rev. Mr. Wasserzug – and the congregation, the effect, notwithstanding a certain degree of monotony, being extremely musical. No music books are used, but nearly all present have prayer-books in Hebrew, or in Hebrew and English. As the service proceeds, [the Arba Minim] are handed to the Reader and other officials, also to certain members of the congregation, the emblematical of which is explained in the passages chanted by the Reader. At certain portions of the service, the various branches are waved in various directions by their respective holders, and after a short time, a procession, headed by the Reader, is formed, consisting exclusively of persons carrying branches, and which slowly makes the circuit of the building.
The article goes on to discuss in detail the details of the Torah reading by Rev. Morris Joseph, “a young Jewish clergyman of much eloquence” and Birkat Kohanim, which I was amused to note is characterized as being performed by people “bearing the name of Cohen or Levi.”
Chaim Wasserzug (1822-1882) was a leading English chazzan and composer whose introduction of four-part choral singing generated significant opposition by the Chasidim. When the North London Synagogue opened in 1867, he was elected its First Reader, a position he held until his death.
The back story on R. Morris Joseph is one of the most fascinating, albeit largely unknown, narratives in the history of British-Jewish clergy. Born in 1848 and educated at the famous Jews’ College, he accepted his first pulpit in London in 1868 before moving to a pro-Reform Liverpool congregation in 1875. Serious issues arose, however, when he was up for a position at a new synagogue in Hampstead and he agreed to demands from synagogue leadership that he implement significant changes, including doing away with Birkat Kohanim, having a mixed choir, and conducting part of the service in English – all of which, surprisingly, Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler approved.
However, in 1892, R. Adler “inhibited” Joseph from accepting a United Synagogue pulpit for several reasons, primarily because Joseph claimed that he could not “in good conscience” read aloud any prayers that called for the restoration of Temple animal sacrifices. Joseph went on to publish several books and collections of his sermons, many of which are still available in print, including Judaism as Life and Creed (1903), in which his theology closely mirrors that of Solomon Schechter, the founder of Conservative Judaism who lived in England from 1882 to 1902.
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Exhibited here is Night Meal in the Sukkah, an original miniature etching by Joseph Budko. The deep darkness of the composition is broken only by a feeble light from the sukkah, which permits us only the barest glimpse of figures sitting at a table inside, and even the weak flickering stars are barely discernable against the inky black of the night sky.
Budko (1888-1940) created a whole new Jewish iconography ranging from Zionist symbols to representations of the world of the shtetl of his youth. Developing a unique style that combined his personal approach with Jewish character and which synthesized Jewish tradition with a modern artistic approach, he was among an influential group of Jewish graphic artists who embraced the revival of the woodcut, a medium that lent itself perfectly to expressing the views of Israel and Jewish culture in various lands. He used the expressive form of the printing methods – etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs – to revive the use of graphic and book illustration in the Jewish art world.
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Shown here is a print of the well-known depiction of Sukkot by Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) in which, employing the iconic style characteristic of his work, he renders a man and an elderly mother sitting in a wooden sukkah at a beautifully set table. To the left, his wife, dressed in her Yom Tov finery and accompanied by her two young children, brings a fish on a plate into the sukkah while, to the right, a young man in a fur hat holds his lulav, etrog, and tallit bag.
Renowned as one of the greatest illustrators of his time, Szyk’s work was particularly noted for his refined draftsmanship and calligraphy in the style of medieval manuscript illumination executed in a close imitation of Middle Ages illuminated manuscripts. His colors have the brilliance of Gothic stained-glass windows, his Hebrew lettering is exquisitely decorative, and his illustrations and illuminations evidence profound familiarity with Jewish tradition and folklore.
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Shown here are three bright, colorful, and exceptionally artistic Sukkot lithographic die-cuts: (1) A seller in distinctive Mideastern dress picks etrogim off his tree and offers samples to a discerning potential purchaser, who carefully examines the fruit in his hand. (2) In this synagogue scene, five hatted men holding their lulavim and etrogim are joined by two young boys, one holding a siddur, as they all march in a Hoshanot parade. (3) A man in a large yarmulka to the left holds his lulav and etrog, which has just been removed from its beautiful case sitting on the shul bench, as four other men with their own lulavim and etrogim watch from the synagogue pews.
Such die cuts, also known as “prasim,” became very popular at the turn of the 20th century and were often used for prizes awarded to Jewish children.
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Displayed here is Sukkot, an illustrated plate inscribed in the plate by Zev Raban from his famous Chagenu (“Our Holidays,” 1925), a handsome collection of illustrations of the Jewish holidays. Rendered in the gorgeous color that characterizes much of his work, Raban’s central focus, which is framed by beautifully-colored lulavim and etrogim topped by pomegranates (left) and grapes (right), is a young girl holding on to the arm of her brother, who is carrying a lulav and an unusual etrog box while their parents sit behind them in a decorated Jerusalem sukkah.
Raban (1890-1970), who acquired his reputation through the designs he created for Bezalel, was undoubtedly one of the most important artists and designers in pre-state Eretz Yisrael. Synthesizing European techniques with authentic Jewish art based on specifically Jewish motifs, he developed a visual lexicon of Jewish themes with decorative calligraphic script and other decorative devices which came to be known as the “Bezalel style.” His work, which closely follows the historical events of the building of the Jewish State, reflected his desire to strengthen the identity of the emerging Medinat Yisrael through the revival and artistic expression of Jewish symbolism.
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The Century Magazine, which began as an Evangelical Christian publication, was a highly influential illustrated monthly first published in the United States in 1881. Shown here from its January 1892 issue featuring an illustrated story on “The Jews of New York” is the “Feast of Tabernacles” by American artist Irving Ramsey Wiles (1861-1948). In his early years before becoming renowned as a champion of American grand manner portraiture, as redefined by John Singer Sargent and James Whistler, Wiles published his illustrations in various American magazines, such as the Sukkot image exhibited here.
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Exhibited here are two lovely and representative examples of Alphonse Levy’s style, two beautiful Sukkot cards, each depicting an elderly Jew in tallit and top hat. In the first, the Jew is holding a lulav in his hand and, in the second, he is lovingly admiring his etrog.
Born into a strictly Orthodox family, Levy (1843-1918), affectionately called “the Millet of the Jews,” infused his subjects, who came from among the native and pious Jews of the French villages, with a rare combination of whimsy and love. In particular, he was struck by the beauty and majesty of Jewish tradition, which formed the core of the subject matter of his work and, against bitter criticism from the upper-class Jews of Paris, who refused to recognize his work, he remained determined to be “the witness of the lives of the Jewish people.” His best-known works remain the exaggerated, yet affectionate, depictions of the rural Jewish community of his childhood, as he sought his subjects from the Jewish people of modest means, the native and pious of his family’s villages in Alsace and Lorraine.
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Did you know that, back in 2010, the United States issued a 44-cent stamp featuring a depiction of the Sukkot glass window at Heichal Shlomo, the former seat of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate located next to the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem?
That’s because it didn’t – although the stamps exhibited here do constitute legitimate United States postage. These stamps are “personalized” U.S. stamps that I created from a photograph that I took of the Sukkot window at Heichal Shlomo.
In the United States, personalized stamps – also known as “customized postage” – are not really stamps but rather are a form of meter labels that are governed by the U.S. Postal Service. Customized postage is commercially available, but the USPS has authorized different companies to generate, transmit and print the indicia barcodes, ensure that images conform to USPS standards, market and sell customized postage, and fill customer orders.
Postal regulations specifically exclude “objectionable” pictures on the stamps, and private firms are held to high standards regarding both the subject and the image of the personalized stamp. These rules prohibit, among other things, content or images that are partisan or political; that are illegal, deceptive, defamatory, or obscene; that violate any person’s privacy rights; that discriminate based upon race, gender, etc.; or that portray firearms, gambling, graphic violence, drug use, or the consumption of alcoholic beverages or tobacco. However, some prohibited labels occasionally do get through. For example, in 2004, stamps.com let through labels featuring the Rosenbergs, Ted Kaczynski, Monica Lewinsky’s dress, Slobodan Milošević and Nicolae Ceauşescu. The USPS was not amused.
Another area for exclusion is “content or images actively advocating or disparaging the religious agenda of any person or entity.” Topic for discussion: how long do you think it will take for some nutcase leftist extremist to protest that, by authorizing the stamps/labels exhibited here, the USPS is promoting “Zionist theft of Palestinian lands?”
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Finally, exhibited here is an undated beautiful etching of “The Great Jewish Synagogue, Celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles” by Thomas Homer Shepherd (1793-1864). The Great Synagogue, built in 1690, was the first Ashkenazi synagogue built in London after the Jews returned to England at the end of the 17th century, and Shepherd was a British topographical watercolor artist best known for his architectural paintings. Intriguingly, beneath the etching on the right is the name “H. Melville” – who is surely not the famous novelist and the author of “Moby Dick!”
Wishing all a Sukkot celebration b’simcha!
