(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

29th Tammuz, 5621 / 7th July

Peoria (Illinois)

1861

(Kethubah) Marriage Contract in Hebrew, written in a fine cursive Achkenazic hand on heavy card-stock. Uniting David Schwarzmann and Pauline Schatz. Closing with the three principles signing their names in Hebrew (the rabbi, the groom and the witness); the second witness signs in English. The amount of money in the Kethubah is expressed in American Dollars as well as the traditional currency of "zuz." At top of Kethubah, the Hebrew words neatly penned in a circle "Harei at Mekudesheth li BeTaba'ath zo KeDath Moshe VeYisrael" ("Behold thou art consecrated to me according to the religion of Moses and Israel") with the English date "July 7th 1861" written in the center. * ACCOMPANIED BY: Marriage Contract in English. An abstract of the above Kethubah, written by the Ministering Rabbi in a fluid hand on faint blue-lined paper with emblematic watermark of American eagle.

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.