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HIGHLIGHTS

Judaic Collection
The Museum is one of only two art museums in the nation with a collection of Jewish ceremonial art. The ceremonial art of the Jewish people is a rich and enduring legacy. The ritual objects, often made of precious metals and embellished with great artistry, are intended to beautify the ceremonies that define Jewish life and strengthen one’s relationship to family, community, and God. More than the expression of a particular faith, these objects address the universal relationship between spiritual belief and artistic imagination.

The Friends of the Judaic Art Gallery, an affiliate membership group, supports the Museum's Judaic Art Gallery through social and fundraising events.

Surrounded by exuberant rococo flourishes, heraldic lions--emblems of strength and the Israelite tribe of Judah--guard the twin tablets of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments. The crown is modeled after that of the Austrian Empire which ruled over much of Central Europe, including Bohemia, where this shield was made. Engraved on the cartouche at the bottom is a later dedication in Hebrew and Romanian, evidence that this shield eventually found its way to one of the Jewish congregations in the Balkans. The slotted opening is fitted with interchangeable plaques designating the day on which the Torah is to be read (in this case the Sabbath).

Bohemia, PragueTorah Shield (Tas), 1807Silver: repoussé, chased,
engraved, partially gilt; H. 14 7/8 x W. 13 in.Museum purchase, Judaic Art Fund and Museum Purchase Fund, 1980 (80.3.3

According to the Talmud, prayers should be made facing east, the direction of the rising sun and the symbolic direction of the holy city of Jerusalem. In homes and synagogues, the direction is often marked by a decorative plaque or hanging. This marker features a number of symbolic elements found on other objects in the gallery: the crown, heraldic lions, and the twin pillars of the ancient Temple.

The Hebrew inscription on the scroll proclaims: “Know before Whom you stand, before the King of Kings, the Holy One, praised be He.”

Central or Eastern Europe, possibly Danzig (Gdańsk) or Pressburg (Bratislava)Eastern Wall Marker for Synagogue, late 19th/early 20th centuryBrass: repoussé, chased, patinated; H. 31 5/8 x W. 23 in.Museum purchase, Judaic Art Fund and Museum Purchase Fund, 1980 (80.3.4)

This exquisite Torah Case or tik is one of a small group of Jewish ceremonial objects made by Chinese artisans, primarily for the Baghdadi Jewish communities of India. The Baghdadi Jews arrived in India from Syria, Iraq, and Persia in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Settling primarily in port cities, they were renowned traders, industrialists, and financiers with commercial interests stretching from Syria to China and Japan. This tik was one of the treasures of the celebrated Magen David Synagogue in Mumbai (Bombay). According to the inscription, it was dedicated by a rabbi as a memorial to his wife.

Religious objects tend to be conservative in design, and the Chinese artisans clearly respected the traditional Iraqi form as exemplified by the tik. The heavily worked surfaces of silver express an intricate pattern of leaf and petal, symbolic of the beauty of life and of the Torah enshrined within.

China, Hong Kong or ShanghaiTorah Case (Tik) with Finials (Rimmonim), 1886 (case), finials probably laterCase: silver: repoussé, chased, engraved, cast, appliqué, partially gilt, riveted, punched, die-stamped, enameled; wood; glass beads; silk textile; lacquered wool textile; H. 38 ½ x Diam. 11 ½ in.Finials: silver: repoussé, engraved, cast, chased, gilt; H. 6 ¾ x Diam. 2 ¼ in. Gift of Carlos and Terri Union Zukowski, their children and grandchildren in loving memory of Bettye and Ben Saslaw, Del Saslaw, and Doba and David Zukowski, 2006 (2006.9.1-2)

In Jewish households the spice container is used in the Havdalah (separation) ceremony marking the end of the Sabbath and the beginning of the secular week. Filled with fragrant herbs, the container is passed among family members, its fragrance symbolizing the hope that the sweetness of the Sabbath may carry through the coming week. In the European Jewish tradition, spice containers took a variety of fanciful forms. The most ubiquitous form is the Gothic tower, often fashioned in intricate silver filigree, pennants flying.

GaliciaSpice Container, probably mid-19th centurySilver: filigree, cast and cut; H. 14 ½ in.Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Shavitz of Greensboro, North Carolina, 2005 (2005.19)

Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert, American, born Germany, 1900-1981Passover Seder Set with Plates, Dishes, and Wine Cup, designed 1930, fabricated 1975Silver: hollow-formed, pierced; glass; ebony; H. overall with cup: 9 3/4 in.; Diam. of plates:13 3/4 in.Museum purchase, Judaic Art Fund, 1976 (76.4.6/a-j)

The Feast of Passover commemorates the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. The ceremonial meal, or seder, is a family affair. Symbolic foods are served, including some that remind of the bitterness of slavery and the sweetness of freedom. Unleavened bread, or matzoh, is shared in commemoration of the hasty flight out of Egypt—so hasty that the bread was not allowed to rise.

Ludwig Wolpert was one of the most influential designers of Jewish ceremonial objects in the twentieth century. Trained in Germany in the 1920s, he embraced the prevailing modernist style, marked by clean geometry and a restrained use of ornamentation. This sleekly elegant seder set is a later version of Wolpert’s first masterpiece of Judaica. The elements of the ensemble are carefully ordered: three plates for matzoh, six dishes for the symbolic foods, and the wine cup, decorated only with an appropriate quotation from Psalm 116: “I raise the cup of deliverance and invoke the name of the Lord.”

This sumptuous plate is decorated with folk artlike scenes depicting the preparations for the seder. The Hebrew inscriptions name the symbolic foods to be placed on the plate and the order of the meal. One quotation proclaims the central meaning of Passover to the Jews: “It is this promise that has sustained our ancestors and us; for not just one enemy has arisen to destroy us; rather in every generation there are those who seek our destruction, but the Holy One, praised be He, saves us from their hands.”

Ilya Schor, American, born Poland, 1904-1961Passover Seder Plate, about 1952-1955Silver: hollow-formed, pierced, chased, repoussé, engraved, appliqué; Diam. 17 in.Gift of Drs. Abram and Frances Pascher Kanof, 1982 (82.21.1)

Hanukkah, the festival of lights, commemorates a miracle associated with the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem following the Jewish victory over the Greeks in 165 b.c. In celebration candles are lit, one for each of the eight days of the festival. This lamp is of a “bench-type” common throughout Central and Eastern Europe. It was made by a prominent Warsaw silversmith The backplate is decorated with customary symbols: the crown for the divine law and a basket filled with nature’s abundance.

Ludwik Bernard Nast, Polish, active in Warsaw mid-19th centuryHanukkah Lamp (Hanukkiah), 1854Silver: repoussé, chased, engraved, cast; 9 13/16 x 10 ¼ x 2 13/16 in.Gift of Zelda Bernard in memory of her beloved husband, Herman W. Bernard, 2005 (2005.21)

This large Hanukkah lamp is one of the masterpieces of Jerusalem’s Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts (today Bezalel Academy of Art and Design), the first modern design school for Jewish ritual objects. Such an impressive lamp in the form of the menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, would be appropriate for either a synagogue or a wealthy home. Bezalel artists like Ze’ev Raban worked to create a self-consciously “Hebrew style,” rooted in the romantic belief that the artistic traditions of the local Palestinian Arab and Jewish communities were closest to the forms and styles of art of the ancient Hebrews.

Ze’ev Raban (Wolf Rawicki), Israeli, born Poland, 1890-1970Standing Hanukkah Lamp (Hanukkiah), about 1930Silver, repoussé and etched, filigree, inset with colored glass; wood base; H. 35 ½ in.Purchased with funds from the North Carolina Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest), the Friends of the Judaic Art Gallery, and JoAnn Pizer-Fox and Stanley H. Fox in honor of their children, 2005 (2005.8)