(AMERICAN JUDAICA)
AUCTION 49 |
Wednesday, October 27th,
2010 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters and Graphic Art
Lot 21
(AMERICAN JUDAICA)
Peoria (Illinois): 29th Tammuz, 5621 / 7th July 1861
Est: $12,000 - $18,000
PRICE REALIZED $12,000
A Very Finely Written American Kethubah of the mid 19th-Century. Likely the Earliest Kethubah from the State of Illinois.
The marriage ceremony was performed by Rabbi Moshe Springer, Minister of Congregation Ohef Scholom, of the City of Peoria, Illinois. The evident ease and fluency by which the Kethubah is written, as well as the Hebrew signatures of almost all the participants, indicates a high level of Hebrew literacy and Jewish participatory knowledge, most uncommon in mid-19th-century America - and all the more so in this outpost far in the Mid-West.
In regard to locating the happy couple: The 1860 Federal Census of Peoria, Illinois, locates not one, but two gentleman named David Schwarzmann, both from Prussia, one aged 30, the other aged 24. Also recorded is Paulina Schatz of Bavaria, Germany, aged 25.
Jews first settled in Peoria in 1847. Reform congregation Anshai Emeth organized there in 1859 and not until 1873 did Jews from Eastern Europe form an Orthodox presence in the shape of Congregation Beth Israel.
To date, the present Marriage documents appear to be the only historical record of an earlier Congregation Ohef Scholom. See JE, Vol. VI, pp. 560-1; EJ, Vol. VIII, col. 1255.