New Year was three months ago
January 2, 2017 8:53 AM Subscribe
לשנה טובה תכתבו. Back in October, the podcast for the Yiddish Book Center (The Schmooze) interviewed Hannah Pressman of the University of Washington, who has a longstanding interest in Jewish postcards, especially those for the Jewish New Year.
It turns out these cards have a long history, as detailed by YIVO, pointing out that postcards themselves were proposed by a Jewish man, Emanuel Hermann.
Germany, with its advanced print technology, became the center for illustrated cards of Jewish interest in the 1880s. The new form of communication spread to Poland and the United States. As early as 1888, a writer for the Warsaw monthly Izraelita criticized the German Jewish practice of sending ornate and ostentatious postcards for Rosh Hashanah, and was disappointed with the sums of money spent on buying and mailing them.
The results are a record of Jewish life in the past, at least as imagined through the creators of the postcards. Thanks to The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, we can see examples of many of these cards. Some favorites:
-- This cheerful, horn blowing family, all producing the words "L'shana Tova" ("good year") from their paper trumpets.
-- Two women stroking a man's beard
-- Dive bombing flowers
-- Hot air balloon
-- A long and narrow car
It turns out these cards have a long history, as detailed by YIVO, pointing out that postcards themselves were proposed by a Jewish man, Emanuel Hermann.
Germany, with its advanced print technology, became the center for illustrated cards of Jewish interest in the 1880s. The new form of communication spread to Poland and the United States. As early as 1888, a writer for the Warsaw monthly Izraelita criticized the German Jewish practice of sending ornate and ostentatious postcards for Rosh Hashanah, and was disappointed with the sums of money spent on buying and mailing them.
The results are a record of Jewish life in the past, at least as imagined through the creators of the postcards. Thanks to The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, we can see examples of many of these cards. Some favorites:
-- This cheerful, horn blowing family, all producing the words "L'shana Tova" ("good year") from their paper trumpets.
-- Two women stroking a man's beard
-- Dive bombing flowers
-- Hot air balloon
-- A long and narrow car
Rosh Hashana was three months ago, and the Hebrew year 2016 ended 3,760 years ago. It was a good idea, getting that problematical year over with early.
posted by ardgedee at 10:03 AM on January 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 10:03 AM on January 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
In case anyone else was as intrigued as I was... The two women with the bearded guy is inscribed at the bottom with "bald from this one, bald from that" - it's a reference to a story in the Gemara that if a man marries two women, an older one and a younger one, the younger one will pull all of his grey hairs so he'll look younger, and the older one will yank out the dark ones so he'll look mature - and he'll end up bald. In other words, it's an expression meaning "damned if you do, damned if you don't."
Happy New Year everyone!
posted by Mchelly at 12:20 PM on January 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
Happy New Year everyone!
posted by Mchelly at 12:20 PM on January 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
Wow—I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it—these are amazing, and I thank you for the post!
> Rosh Hashana was three months ago
Somebody didn't read the post title...
posted by languagehat at 2:38 PM on January 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
> Rosh Hashana was three months ago
Somebody didn't read the post title...
posted by languagehat at 2:38 PM on January 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
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