December 28, 2020 – 12:34
Here’s a mezuzah tikkun I like. It’s from a fourteenth-century French book: a copy of Mahzor Vitry, mostly prayers, but also some halakha and miscellania in the back. The link is to the digitisation provided by the Bibioteca Palatina of Parma. This is one of the pieces of miscellania in the volume. You’ll see he […]
September 2, 2013 – 13:11
Hooray! I’ve just sorted out call forwarding. If you’re in the USA, you can call my US number, 718 664 4296, and it will forward straight to me in Canada, at no extra cost to you. If you’re in Canada, you can call 514-884-0199.
I’ve been getting too much spam here lately, so I’ve installed a little widget that will ask you for input to prove that you’re not a robot. It asks you to type in a word from a picture; the word is from archives which are being digitised, so you make a small contribution to advancing […]
This is DR9 R30, but there’s nothing much in the catalogue about it, which is too bad. It’s a token of appreciation for someone from his co-religionists, in Italian, dated Genoa 1956 (click image to see bigger). We’re looking at it because it has a pretty border, more or less; nothing particularly innovative or unusual […]
I thought this picture looked familiar when I saw it in the drawer. It’s the inside of the Great Synagogue at Stockholm, which still has organ at its Shabbat services, and is most particular about employing a non-Jewish organist to play. So what is this? An old-school Reform confirmation certificate, from 1939. (Click image at […]
This is from the wedding of Julius Lorsch and Rebecka Cahn, special call number DR6-R36. A Hochzeits-Hagada, dated 1911, Fulda. I like the little photos stapled to the top here. Julius has a very traditional German Yekkish käppchen, and Rebecka looks like she has those over-the-ears buns that were in style in the 1920s. Julius […]
At Whole Foods the other week, I found this…It smells exactly like an etrog, but it looks like no etrog ever. Sniff it and become Cthulu!
Today’s picture is of someone’s bar mitzvah invitation, from the early 1980s. Note how the invitation is printed with blue stripes and trimmed with fringe trim exactly like the scarfy tallitot beloved of Reform shuls. Can’t decide if this is sort of cool or dreadfully cheesy. The point of bringing you this, though, is that […]
February 25, 2013 – 14:18
And now, dessert! Menu item 13: Frozen Squishies, אשישי קפאין. Explanation 13: Song of Songs 2:8 says סמכוני באשישות, sustain me with raisin-cakes. Jastrow says that ashisha comes to mean any pressed kind of food, also a jug or contents thereof. So this might be a frozen raisin-cake, or it might be an ice-cream cake […]
February 10, 2013 – 21:28
Catalogue reference DR6-L6 is a menu from someone’s wedding. We’ll see the front today, and the inside next time. בעהי”ת By the grace of God פרי עץ הדר—זו שרה (ויק”ר ל’) “Beautiful Tree-Fruit”–this is Sarah (Vayikra Raba 30) מנוי מזונות Menu of Foods (Compare the blessing for snacks, בורא מיני מזונות) לשולחן ליל התקדש חג […]
