Cohen, David. Sephirath Ha’Omer [Chart for Counting of the Omer]

A Most Suprising Discovery: An Illuminated Micrographic Sephirath Ha’Omer Chart from 19th-century Oregon. Though the express purpose of this Chart is the traditional counting of the forty-nine days between Passover and Pentecost (each day represented in a separate orb), it is likely this design would have been hung on the Eastern Wall of the synagogue, thus doubling as a "Mizrach." In N.L. Kleeblatt and G.C. Wertkin, The Jewish Heritage in American Folk Art (1984), we find Mizrachim (or Decorations for the Eastern Wall) roughly from this era which share some of the iconography and intricate detail of our Sephirath Ha’Omer chart. Two in particular stand out in terms of their remarkable architectonic design. Both were executed by one Zelig Abe Goldsmith, the first in Denison, Texas in 1896, the second in Troy, New York before 1909. Preliminary curatorial reserach at the Oregon Jewish Museum has indicated that one David Cohen was involved with newspaper publishing in Portland toward the close of the 19th-century, however at this stage a David Cohen in association with Jewish arts is not as yet known. Jews first settled in Portland, Oregon in 1844. Portland's first synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel was established in 1858; a permanent structure was erected the following year. See S. Lowenstein, The Jews of Oregon (1988)