Ceremonial Synagogue Textiles
from Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Italian Communities
Translated from the Hebrew by Yohai Goell
A masterful survey of the evolution of synagogue textile designs spanning fifteen centuries of Jewish history. Bracha Yaniv offers a detailed analysis of the design and production of mantles, wrappers, and binders of Torah scrolls, as well as of the Torah ark curtain and valance, an analysis that extends to the texts of inscriptions marking the circumstances of donation. Richly documented and illustrated, it will be cherished by academics, museum curators, and others interested in the Jewish cultural heritage.
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Meticulously documented and richly illustrated, this is the first exhaustive survey of synagogue textiles to be available in English. In it Bracha Yaniv, a leading expert in the field of Jewish ceremonial textiles, records their evolution from ancient and medieval times to the present. The product of many years of archival, bibliographical, and field research, the volume contains a systematic consideration of the mantle, the wrapper, and the binder of the Torah scroll, and the Torah ark curtain and valance, as used in different parts of the Jewish diaspora. It discusses the variety of cultural factors that inspired the evolution of these different items and their motifs, and highlights the intricate thematic connections between them. The fabrics used are described in painstaking detail, as are the techniques and modes of production; the inscriptions marking the circumstances of donation are similarly subjected to close analysis. Fully annotated plates demonstrate the richness of the styles and traditions, drawing attention to regional customs. Throughout, emphasis is placed on presenting and explaining all relevant aspects of Jewish cultural heritage and practices.
One of the key elements of this path-breaking study is the analysis of the motifs on Torah ark curtains. Professor Yaniv’s work enables us to see how the ark variously represents the gateway to heaven, recalls the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, and symbolizes both the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle and its implements. In describing how these motifs on Torah ark curtains and on other ceremonial textiles were produced it also throws light on the differing roles of men and women in the creation of textile items and on the economics of production.
The volume’s concluding section contains transcriptions, translations, and annotations of some 180 inscriptions recording the circumstances in which different items were donated, providing a valuable survey of customs of dedication. Taken together with the comprehensive bibliography, inventory lists, and other documentation brought together from different archives, this work will help with the identification of the origins of textile items in museum collections and facilitate further research. It is an invaluable reference book for the scholarly community, museum curators, and others interested in the Jewish cultural heritage.
About the author
Bracha Yaniv is Head of the Department of Jewish Art at Bar-Ilan University. Her research topics are Jewish ceremonial objects and synagogue art. She is also the author of The Carved Wooden Torah Arks of Eastern Europe, forthcoming from the Littman Library.
Contents
Preface
1 Development of Ceremonial Synagogue Textiles in Ancient and Modern Times
Wrapping and Storage of the Torah Scroll • Development of the Torah Scroll’s Mapah: Wrapper, Binder, and Mantle in Ashkenaz, Italy, and Spain • The Torah Ark Curtain (Parokhet) • The Cover for the Reader’s Desk
2 Ma’aseh Oreg and Ma’aseh Rokem: Fabrics and Various Techniques
Luxurious Fabrics
Development of Silk Production in Europe • Jews in International Commerce
Embroidered Objects
Embroidery by Women Donors—Linen and Silk • Professional Embroidery
Passementerie
Professional Training and Organization for the Production of Ceremonial Textile Objects
Halkhah and Tradition Relation to Production of Ceremonial Objects from Fabrics in Secondary Use
3 The Torah Wrapper and Torah Binder
The Torah Wrapper in Italy and the Sephardi Diaspora
The Torah Binder: Terminology, Customs, and Design
The Design of the Binder: Linen or Silk Binders Embroidered by Young Girls or Women • Torah Binders Made of Randomly Chosen Diverse Materials
4 The Torah Mantle
Terminology, Design, and Iconography
Mantles in Europe and in the Portuguese Congregations of Western Europe
Mantles in Italy • Mantles in the Portuguese Diaspora: The Netherlands and England
Mantles in the Sephardi Diaspora
Mantles in Morocco • Mantles in Algeria • Mantles in Anatolia and the Balkans
shkenazi Mantles in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe
5 The Torah Ark Curtain and the Torah Ark Valance
Parokhot of Luxurious Embroidered or Patterned Fabrics
Parokhot with Jewish Motifs
The ‘Gateway to Heaven’ Motif on Parokhot from Anatolia, Italy, and Central and Western Europe • Motifs Resulting from Identification of the Torah Ark with the Ark of the Covenant • The ‘Temple and Its Vessels’ Motif on Italian and Ottoman Parokhot and on Ashkenazi Parokhot and Kaporot • The ‘Giving of the Torah’ Motif on Parokhot from Northern Italy
Epilogue
Dedication of Ceremonial Objects
Inscriptions as a Reflection of Customs of Dedication
Annotated Listing of Dedicatory Inscriptions
Annotated Plates of Representative Textile Objects in the Synagogue
Wrapping the Torah Scroll (Finimento), and the Parokhet, in Italy
Wrapping the Torah Scroll in the Portuguese Congregations in Western Europe
Wrapping the Torah Scroll, and the Parokhet, in Morocco
Wrapping the Torah Scroll, and the Parokhet, in Algeria
Wrapping the Torah Scroll, and the Parokhet, in Sephardi Synagogues in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans
Wrapping the Torah Scroll, the Parokhet, and the Kaporet in Ashkenazi Communities
Wrapping the Torah Scroll, the Parokhet, and the Kaporet in Central Europe
Wrapping the Torah Scroll, the Parokhet, and the Kaporet in Eastern Europe
Appendices
Inventory Lists
Documents
Aspects of Textile Ceremonial Objects
Lists and Indices
Bibliography
List of Figures
Collections
Indexes