Object numberM2007/076:005
DescriptionMiniature manuscript containing a combination of blessings and prayers (picking the first fruit; Birkat Ha Mazon (Grace after meals); reading of the Shema before retiring at night; playing card games), in original hand tooled leather case. The book, handwritten on vellum, contains numerous illustrations by Meshullam Zimmel ben Moses of Polna (Bohemia), a scribe and artist renowned for the accomplished delicacy of his line. The cover in gold leaf is decorated with a central motif and corner designs featuring birds.
It was given as a wedding gift to the bride, Breindel, the daughter of Yidl of Police, (small city in the mountains of Bohemia, Czech Republic, in 1750. Police is also known as Politz, its German name). It was in the possession of Theodore Ulmer, father of the donor Alice Katz. He received it from a cousin, the Bodansky family.
It harks to an artistic renaissance in the early decades of the 18th century, when Court Jews in Germany and Central Europe began to commission elaborately decorated Hebrew books as luxury items.
Part of a collection of Judaica - prayer books, kiddush cups, spice box – items that came in the Ulmer family lift from Vienna to Sydney in 1939, and certificates, identity and repatriation documents related to the donor’s husband, Joseph Katz, who was liberated in Mauthausen in 1945.
Alice Katz (nee Ulmer) was born 9 March 1924 in Vienna to Theodore and Emma Ulmer. She had an older brother, Alfred, born 22 October 1919. The family immigrated to Australia when she was 14, arriving in 1939. She finished schooling in Austria, and went straight to work in Australia as a dress maker. She married Joseph Katz, the only survivor of his family, on 8 September 1949; he was 11 years older than her, and had come to Australia in 1947.
It was given as a wedding gift to the bride, Breindel, the daughter of Yidl of Police, (small city in the mountains of Bohemia, Czech Republic, in 1750. Police is also known as Politz, its German name). It was in the possession of Theodore Ulmer, father of the donor Alice Katz. He received it from a cousin, the Bodansky family.
It harks to an artistic renaissance in the early decades of the 18th century, when Court Jews in Germany and Central Europe began to commission elaborately decorated Hebrew books as luxury items.
Part of a collection of Judaica - prayer books, kiddush cups, spice box – items that came in the Ulmer family lift from Vienna to Sydney in 1939, and certificates, identity and repatriation documents related to the donor’s husband, Joseph Katz, who was liberated in Mauthausen in 1945.
Alice Katz (nee Ulmer) was born 9 March 1924 in Vienna to Theodore and Emma Ulmer. She had an older brother, Alfred, born 22 October 1919. The family immigrated to Australia when she was 14, arriving in 1939. She finished schooling in Austria, and went straight to work in Australia as a dress maker. She married Joseph Katz, the only survivor of his family, on 8 September 1949; he was 11 years older than her, and had come to Australia in 1947.
Production placePoland
Production date 1780 - 1780
Object nameprayer books
Materialparchment
Language
- Hebrew
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Mrs Alice Katz