Esther Scroll

Ze’ev Raban (Poland 1890–1970 Israel)
Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, Jerusalem, 1927
Case: cast silver with applied silver balls and filigree, l. 4 1/8 x w. 15/16 x d. 7/8 in.
Scroll: watercolor, pen and ink on parchment
Inscriptions: Exterior: Hebrew and English above and below center decorative element: “Membership in Bezalel 1927”; stamped on scroll leader: “Made in Jerusalem” 
Gift of Joseph B. and Olyn Horwitz
B’nai B’rith Kluznick National Jewish Museum Collection, 2015.17.366

Purim is a festive Jewish holiday that celebrates the deliverance of the Jews from imminent doom at the hands of their enemies, as told in the biblical megillah or scroll of Esther. Holiday practices include exchanging gifts of food and drink, feasting, holding beauty pageants and watching plays in which costumed children act out the story of brace and beautiful Queen Esther, who saved the Jewish people. 

The silver case of this scroll is decorated with spiral designs of applied silver wire and depictions from the story of Esther. Ze’ev Raban was one of the major artists at the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, founded in 1906 to promote an art form suitable to the new Jewish nation being established in Palestine. Raban enlivened this scroll’s columns of text with scenes illustrating five episodes from the Book of Esther. 

This Esther scroll and case was manufactured in large quantities to be given as gifts to Bezalel members, as indicated by the Hebrew and English inscriptions on the silver case. 

Publications:
In the Spirit of Tradition: The B’nai B’rith Klutznick Museum, ed. Linda Altshuler, 1988, p. 81, no. 105, ill. p. 48-49.