A Rare American Illustrated Mizrah, Joseph Abrahams, Philadelphia, 1876

A mizrah (Hebrew for “east”) is a decorative plaque placed on the eastern wall of a home or synagogue to orient the direction of one’s prayer toward the city of Jerusalem. This exceedingly-rare mizrah was created by Joseph Abrahams of Philadelphia. It is one of the very few decorative Judaica wall plaques printed in America in the nineteenth century. Abrahams included several biblical texts on this mizrah, which are not typic🍨ally found on other examples of this genre. At top, around the inside of the multi-foil arches, are the v🐻erses of the first chapter of the book of Psalms. A pair of lions support a Torah scroll open to the passage of the Binding of Isaac, and at bottom, two angels gesture to the text of the Song of the Sea, which is written out in the same manner as is found in a Torah scroll. Only one other copy of this print, located in the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York, is known.

Physical Description

Ink on paper (28 x 22 in.; 710 x 560 mm).

Literature

Norman Kleeblatt, The Jewish Heritage in American Folk Art (New York: Universe Books, 1984), 60.