Isaac M. Wise John Aubery (Kassel, Germany 1810-1893 Cincinnati, OH) Cincinnati, OH, 1879 Oil on canvas on panel, h. 99 x w. 66 in. Signature: Lower left recto “J Aubery Cincinnati 1879” Cincinnati Skirball Museum, 41.251 When this life-size portrait was painted, Isaac Mayer Wise (1819—1900) was sixty years old. Twenty-five years prior, he had [...]
Marcus Fechheimer John Aubery (Kassel, Germany 1810-1893 Cincinnati, OH) Cincinnati, OH, 1881 Oil on canvas, h. 48 x w. 38 in. Cincinnati Skirball Museum purchase, Lucas Museum Fund, 2015, 2015.23 A noted Cincinnati industrialist and philanthropist, Marcus Fechheimer (1818-1881) was born in Bavaria and came to America in 1837, where he worked as a peddler [...]
Judah Magnes (1877–1948) Victor Ries (Germany 1907-2013 California) USA, 1969 Bronze, h. 1 ¾ x w. 1 ¾ in. Cincinnati Skirball Museum, Jewish-American Hall of Fame Collection, gift of Mel and Esther Wacks, Debra Wacks, and Shari Wacks, 2019.7.1 Born in San Francisco, Magnes grew up in Oakland and was the first native Californian [...]
Manischewitz Matzo Box Cincinnati, Ohio, 1904 Wood Cincinnati Skirball Museum For most of Jewish history, matzo, the unleavened bread that is eaten during the festival of Passover, was round, made by hand, and produced locally, often in the synagogue or in a communal oven set aside for this purpose. This was also true in American during the [...]
Cincinnati Jewish Hospital Nurse’s Pin Moses Jacob Ezekiel (Richmond, VA 1844-1917 Rome, Italy) Cincinnati, 1912 Gold, h. 2 in. x w. 1 in. Inscriptions: obverse: Vita Meo Vobis Parta Cruore Manet; reverse: H.R.N. 1928 Cincinnati Skirball Museum, gift of Joellen and Morton Spitz in memory of Hilda Rosenthal Nathan, class of 1928, 70.234 In 1893, [...]
Tas (Torah Breastplate) Tas (Torah Breastplate) Andrew Messmer Cincinnati, 1899 Silver and semiprecious stones, h. 10 ½ x w. 6 ¼ in. Cincinnati Skirball Museum, gift of the Society of Talmud, 7.4 The use of a tas, or breastplate, began in the sixteenth century when many synagogues had more than one Torah scroll, and an [...]
Israel Moses Jacob Ezekiel (Richmond, VA 1844-1917 Rome, Italy) Rome, 1904 Bronze relief, h. 44 x w. 56 in. Cincinnati Skirball Museum, 67.62 Ezekiel, who fought as a Confederate cadet and graduated from Virginia Military Institute, entered the Medical College of Virginia in 1867 to study anatomy. After just one year of medical school, his [...]
Rimmonim (Torah Finials) Andrew Messmer Cincinnati, 1899 Silver and semiprecious stones, h. (each 13 in. Cincinnati Skirball Museum, gift in honor of the eightieth birthday of Isaac Mayer Wise from his students, 47.10a/b The rollers of the Torah staves are decorated with finials called rimmonim, meaning pomegranates, a symbol of fertility. The idea of the [...]
