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Kitzur Maʿavar Yabok
Kitzur Maavar Yabok / Kitzur Ma’avar Yabbok / Hebrew Illuminated Manuscript Kitzur Ma’avar Yabok
Lost Art-ID
584347
Title
Kitzur Maʿavar Yabok
Additional title
Kitzur Maavar Yabok / Kitzur Ma’avar Yabbok / Hebrew Illuminated Manuscript Kitzur Ma’avar Yabok
Place of release
Nikolsburg / Mikulov
Date of publication
1748
Object type
Group of reported objects
Material / Technique
Parchment ; Ink ; Tempera
Height
28.00 cm
Width
16.00 cm
Description
37 parchment folios containing Hebrew text with occasional notes in Yiddish; 13 illuminations; leather binding (mounted on wooden boards); partially preserved metal bosses.
The illuminations are varying in size from miniatures (e.g., Jacob’s dream with angels descending the ladder) to half-page scenes featuring typical Chevrah Kaddishah [Burial Society] activities and scenes from the daily life around the sickness and dying, such as visiting the sick, prayers at the bedside, arrival of the Angel of Death, a family grieving, prayers for the deceased, taharah — ritual cleaning of dead bodies, sewing shrouds, internment, rituals upon living the cemetery including the custom of throwing a handful of grass and earth over one’s shoulder, etc.). The title page is fully illuminated and contains the following motives (from the top of the page to the bottom): 2 cherubim in front of a brick wall flanking a scene depicting 5 male members of the Chevrah Kaddishah tending a dying man; underneath the top panel and flanking the central text panel are Aaron (in a typical High Priest gear) and Moses (with the Tablets of the Law); the central text panel contains the title “Sefer Ma’avar Yabok" and a formulaic text mentioning the donors/patrons of the manuscript, all representatives of the Chevrah Kaddishah in “the Holy Community of Nikolsburg”: MH”R Mordechai Lemlish, M” Margaliot Yafe, HR”R Hirsh, son of Gabriel SG”L, HR”R Simchah Zachs, HR”R Aharon, son of Shimon Holitsch and the new gabai HR”R David, son of the illustrious Sofer SG”L. The manuscript contains prayers for the sick, dying, and deceased, as well as prayers at the cemetery and instructions in Yiddish, most likely for the female members of the Chevrah Kaddishah.
Provenance
In 1748, commissioned by the Chevrah Kaddishah (Burial Society) of the Jewish Community in Nikolsburg (NJC), in active use until 1929; In 1929, selected for the NJC “treasury,” a special collection of rare objects no longer in use for ritual purposes; In 1935, loaned by the NJC to the newly established Central Jewish Museum for Moravia and Silesia in Nikolsburg (CJMMS); In May 1938, shortly after the Anschluss of Austria, evacuation of the CJMMS collection inland, temporary storage at the Jewish Community in Brno (BJC); Late April/Early May 1942 transfer of the collection from BJC to the Jewish Religious Community in Prague (PJC), however, without the Kitzur ma’avar Yabok manuscript (Manuscript) which goes missing before March 31, 1942; the Manuscript is allegedly held by Rabbi Albert Schön and/or another person for unknown motives and under unknown circumstances; On March 31, 1942 Rabbi Schön’s deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto and later, in 1944, to Auschwitz-Birkenau where he is murdered; In or shortly after 1945 transfer of the Manuscript to the possession of Ruth Joklova, Albert Schön’s sister-in-law, from an unknown source and under unknown circumstances; Between 1968-1972, illicit exportation of the Manuscript from what was then Czechoslovakia and illicit import to the U.S.; In September 2010, put for an auction with Sotheby’s New York; In October 2010, withdrawn from sale upon request of the Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP), however, returned to the consignor, Ruth Joklova’s descendant; January 2016, long-term loan to the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMOTH); November 2017 return to the lender; current location unknown.
Literature / Source
Arthur Zacharias Schwarz: “Nikolsburger Hebräische Handschriften,” in: Studies in Jewish Bibliography and Related Subjects In Memory of Abraham Solomon Freidus (1867-1923) Late Chef of the Jewish Division, New York Public Library, New York: The Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1929, p. 170-181.
Heinrich Flesch: “Aus jüdischen Handschriften in Mähren“, in: Samuel Steinherz (ed.), Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Juden in der Čechoslovakischen Republik 2, Prag, 1930, pp. 287–288.
Ludwig Levy: “Zwei alte jüdische Friedhofsgebräuche,” in: Alfred Engel (ed.), Sefer zikharon le-ptichat ha-muzeon ha-yehudi be-kehilah kedoshah Nikolsburg / Památník Židovského ústředního musea pro Moravsko-Slezsko / Gedenkbuch im Auftrage des Kuratoriums herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Alfred Engel, Mikulov/Nikolsburg, 1936, pp. 45–50.
Yitzchak Zev Kahana: “Takanot ha-chevra kadisha d’k”k Nikolsburg”, in: Sinai: Yarchon le-torah, mada’ ve-sifrut, Jerusalem: Weiss, 1945, p. 182, note 6.
Judah Leib Maimon: Arim ve-imahot be-Yisrael: matsevet kodesh li-kehilot Yisrael she-nechrevu bi-yede aritsim u-temeim be-milchemet olam ha-acharona, Yerushalayim, Mosad ha-Rav Kuk, 1950, vol. 4, pp. 245 and 309 [2 plates].
Alexander Scheiber, “Shmuel b”r Zvi Hirsh Dreznitz, sofer ve-tzeir mi-Nikolsburg”, in: Asheret, 1, 1958, pp. 254-259 [particularly p. 256 under. No. 6 of the list of works by Dresnitz].
Iris Fishof: “A Signed Work by Samuel Dreznitz at the Israel Museum”, in: Robert Dán (ed.), Occident and Orient: A Tribute to the Memory of Alexander Schreiber, Leiden: Brill / Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1988, pp. 133-136 [particularly p. 135, footnote 7c].
Magda Veselská: “Jewish Museums in the Former Czechoslovakia”, in Julie-Marthe Cohen, Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek (eds.), Neglected Witnesses. The Fate of Jewish Ceremonial Objects during the Second World War and after, Crickadarn 2011, pp. 103–128.
Published since
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