Tallit - Italy. the 19th century

Tallit - Italy. the 19th century

Tallit ['Tald' or 'Manto di Pereira'] - Italy, 19th century. Silk fabric and delicate embroidery. An identical model of the decoration embroidered on its four Kanfot with the caption: "ואשא אתכם על כנפי נשרים והטלית יפרוש כנפיו עליכם. מאיר עיני ישראל"" and the monogram: "Meir Lifshitz", shields of David in the four corners of the wing, and birds.

Ivory silk prayer shawls with light blue stripes across them are very typical to Italian Jews. They are usually adorned with embroidery with ivory silk threads that equate to them a wealth of textures and restrained elegance. The prayer shawls were sometimes decorated with embroidered gilded metal wires, or pieces of lace and ribbons were embedded in them.

prayer shawls embroidered with the initials of their owners names (monograms) were very fashionable in the 19th century but were actually made as early as the 17th century, and have become a valuable personal item. From the 16th to the 18th century, Jews in northern Italy were involved in the silk industry. They produced, woven and traded in silk, worked as tailors and were sometimes even allowed to join the silk guilds. The availability of silk may explain the great popularity that silk prayer shawls have enjoyed among the Jews of Italy for generations. The tallit was among the traditional wedding gifts that the Jewish bride gave to the bride as part of the gift exchange between the in-laws' families.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the tallit, especially in the Piedmont region, was recorded on the bride's dowry lists and its monetary value was written. The groom apparently wrapped his tallit for the first time at the consecration ceremony, and according to the tradition practiced to this day, it is the same tallit that wrapped the couple in their position under the canopy.

The style of Italian prayer shawls also reached Tunisia, where in the twentieth century they produced silk prayer shawls which were decorated in the four corners in a Star of David model with knitting (crocheted) or lace. Such prayer shawls were prepared for the wedding ceremonies and were called "groom's prayer shawls".

See: Israel Museum Collection, Record No.: B77.0025 - 157/093.

65x205 cm. Tear along half of the middle fold line. Tears along some of the fold lins. Good-moderate condition.