Two "Shanah Tovah" Postcards and a Greeting Card – The Jewish Legion and Conquest of Palestine by the British – ...

Two "Shanah Tovah" Postcards and a Greeting Card – The Jewish Legion and Conquest of Palestine by the British – Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Cairo

Two "shanah tovah" postcards for soldiers in the Jewish Legion and a "shanah tovah" greeting card commemorating the British conquest of Palestine. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Cairo, ca. 1917-1919.
1. "Shanah tovah" postcard depicting silhouettes of soldiers. Emblem of "Beit HaTzava HaIvri" on verso. Cairo: "Mashiach" by M. Eini.
14X9 cm.
2. "Shanah tovah" postcard for Rosh Hashanah 1919, in support of Magen David Adom. With emblem of the "First Judeans" of the Jewish Legion. Tel Aviv: Ahdut.
13X8 cm.
3. Folded "shanah tovah" greeting card commemorating the conquest of Jerusalem by the British troops; strip of paper pasted on front: "In memory of the British troops' victory in the Holy Land". Pressed flowers from Jericho inside card, with new year's greetings in English. Jerusalem: L. Leib Kahane.
12X8 cm.
Condition varies.
Provenance: The Dr. Haim Grossman collection.

Dr. Chaim Grossman's Israeliana collection is exceptional in size, quality and variety. Grossman, an educator, historian and folklorist, was a methodical, knowledgeable and meticulous collector, and his deep understanding of Palestinian-Yishuv and Israeli material culture set the ground for a one-of-a-kind collection of mundane and less than mundane objects – from the ephemeral, the negligible, the widely available to the rare and singular.
The "shana tovah" collection left by Grossman – a considerable part of which is offered in the present auction – comprises thousands of postcards, cards, letters and other paper items made and sent year after year in, by and for Jewish communities: in Eastern and Western Europe, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, North Africa, North and South America, as part of the tradition of sending hand-written, hand-drawn or printed new year’s greetings, which originated in German Jewry but with the rise of postcards spread to most communities. The earliest items in the collection date to the 1860s; the latest were made in the late 20th century. It includes both beautifully designed, rare, early and singular postcards and cards, and mass-made, highly popular items sold in large quantities, in varying production quality and in dozens of repeating versions, each according to the technical abilities achieved by the local publication industry.
The collector's devotion to his collection is evident in the sheer number of items, in the wealth of techniques, visuals and themes, and in the thorough, intersectional categorization by period, origin, motif, technique and material. Glitter and relief embossing, scraps, lace and golden ink, lithography and celluloid transparencies, plastic, textile and metal decorations; Yiddish, Hebrew, English, Russian, French, Polish, German greetings; children, angels, families, pets, immigrants, travelers, professionals; portraits and tinted reproductions; Judaism, Zionism, the state, the army; the ritual and the mundane; any new year's greeting, in any form whatsoever, had a place in Grossman's collection and was honored as a historical testimony, as a timeless, invaluable treasure.