Remember the past

New Year’s greetings, from then to now

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The month of Elul is here, the time for reflection, penitence, and asking forgiveness of those we may have wronged. We greet people we meet with wishes for a good year. To family and friends near and far, we send greetings.

 

Elul is also the month when shofars and doves, apples and honey, dancing candles and round challot begin to pour into our email inboxes. Many websites offer us free e-cards to help us keep in touch! But there are always some people who eschew e-cards in favor of a personal  message – usually written in an email. Whether a card or personal message, using the internet is so much easier than taking pen in hand, and less expensive than buying postage stamps to send Rosh Hashanah messages via “snail mail.”

But, to be honest, I miss the greeting cards that once filled our mailbox. We would keep the cards on a sideboard, and later they became part of the decorations in our sukkah. Of course, it always rains during Sukkot, so we were unable to save the cards for posterity – or for the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association’s archives.

Exchanging written shanah tovah greetings is a centuries-old tradition. The 14th-century spiritual leader of German Jews, Rabbi Jacob ben Moses Moellin (Maharil), in his “Book of Customs,” advocated sending shanah tovah greetings in all written correspondence during Elul. Four centuries later, Eastern European Jews began to embrace this practice.

The Industrial Revolution made printing a less laborious, less expensive process. Along with the advances in printing, the introduction of the postage stamp in 1840 and the subsequent lowering of postage rates, made sending greeting cards available to more people.

Another development, in the U.S., was an act of Congress allowing privately printed cards to be sent through the mail at lower postage rates. Farsighted Jewish businessmen saw the possibilities in these developments and began printing and selling cards with shanah tovah greetings, as well as cards with Jewish symbols or themes.

One entrepreneur, Hymen Lipman, purchased the rights to the first copyrighted postcard. Lipman’s Postal Cards had decorated borders with space for a message on one side and the address on the reverse side.

Other Jewish printers also began producing commercial cards specifically for Rosh Hashanah.

Later changes by the U.S. Postal Service made it possible for cards printed by private companies to be mailed to foreign countries. Another change produced the picture postcard, with a divided space on the reverse side, half for a message, half for the address. In the introductory text to the catalog of the Jewish Theological Seminary exhibition of early postcards, curated by Sharon Lieberman-Mintz and Erika Deitsch, Shalom Sabar wrote:

“The popularity of these picture postcards increased steadily from 1898 to 1918, a period known as  ‘The Golden Age of the Postcard.’ ... European and American Jews participated fully in The Postcard Craze. The earliest and largest number of Jewish postcards were created for Rosh Hashanah greetings.”

Many of the early postcards also featured photos of synagogues from around the world. Sabar stated, “As many of the European synagogues were destroyed during the Holocaust, postcards are often the only known visual record of these majestic buildings.”

The invention of the Kodak postcard camera gave further impetus to The Postcard Craze. The cards could now feature photos of family members and messages for relatives in the U.S. or foreign countries. 

The photo cards continued to be a popular means of communication until the Holocaust and war decimated European Jewish communities.

Another product of the Industrial Revolution and the advent of inexpensive color printing was the “scrap,” according to Bonni-Dara Michaels, curator of Acquisitions at Yeshiva University’s museum. The technique, developed in 1837, she explained in an email, “involved surface printing and embossing to create a sculptured image, and a form to cut away excess paper. This left each relief attached to the others by thin tabs.” They were used to decorate albums, furniture, and stories for children. Others were assembled to make greeting cards.

“The earliest extant Jewish themed scraps,” Michaels stated, “date to 1903-1912. They were published by Hebrew Publishing Co. of New York, founded by Joseph Werblowsky in 1883. Most of the actual printing was done in Germany.”

Jewish scraps included symbols for holidays and Zionist motifs, which could be assembled to create greeting cards. Others illustrated Bible stories for children, at a time when children’s books were few and generally without color pictures.

During this time, the first decade of the 20th century, Werblowsky also imported unusual holiday cards from Germany. They were three-dimensional pop-up cards, and were meant to be displayed. The motifs, Michaels wrote, included weddings, New Year’s cards, and greetings for other Jewish holidays. Many of these cards will be displayed at the Yeshiva University Museum, in New York City, Sept. 19 to Oct. 4.

Folded New Year’s cards were also popular for Jewish greetings late in the 19th century and into the 20th. Hallmark introduced its first Rosh Hashanah cards in 1924. Rhode Island’s own Paramount Card Co., owned by the Markoff family, produced a full line of Jewish holiday cards, according to Gloria Markoff Winston.

After World War II, the popularity of sending shanah tovah cards grew. Selling boxes of cards, 10 to a box, became a favored fund-raising tool for many organizations – and it still is.

Now the internet provides another way of sending written greetings. 

Though the RIJHA archives have many hidden treasures, Rosh Hashanah cards are not among them.

We are indebted to Bonni-Dara Michaels, at the Yeshiva University Library, and Sharon Lieberman-Mintz, at the Jewish Theological Seminary Library, for their invaluable assistance with this article and the accompanying artwork.

A happy and healthy New Year to all. May it be a year that brings us peace.

GERALDINE S. FOSTER is a past president of the R.I. Jewish Historical Association. To comment about this or any RIJHA article, contact the RIJHA office at info@rijha.org or 401-331-1360.