Rare Palestine Antique Hebrew Judaica Yahrzeit Synagogue Sign Memorial Plaque, c. 1890-1920

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Circa 1890-1920. This Neoclassical, Judaic, Egyptian revival, Orientalist Mizrach sign, was produced in British Mandate Palestine by the chromolithograph process … Read more Circa 1890-1920. This Neoclassical, Judaic, Egyptian revival, Orientalist Mizrach sign, was produced in British Mandate Palestine by the chromolithograph process at the beginning of the 20th century. It pictures vignettes of holy places. with a hand written memorial. It was for the Tzedakah charity fund for the century-old institutions in Jerusalem: The great "Torah Center Etz Chaim"; a Free Kitchen for poor children and orphans; the famous Bikur Cholim Hospital with its dispensaries and clinics and the only Home for Incurable Invalids in Eretz Israel. They also worked with Arthur Szyk and Alfred Salzmann.. The A.L. Monsohn Lithographic Press (Monzon Press, Monson Press, דפוס אבן א"ל מאנזאהן, דפוס מונזון) was established in Jerusalem in 1892 by Abraham-Leib (or Avrom-Leyb) Monsohn II (Jerusalem, c.1871-1930) and his brother Moshe-Mordechai (Meyshe-Mordkhe). Sponsored by members of the Hamburger family, the brothers had been sent to Frankfurt, Germany in 1890 to study lithography. Upon returning to Jerusalem in 1892 with a hand press, they established the A.L. Monsohn Lithographic Press in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the Information Center for Israeli Art A.L. Monsohn "created complex decorations for documents and oriental calendars that combined the tradition of Jewish art with modern printing techniques such as photographic lithography, raised printing and gilding."
The founders of the Monsohn press produced Jewish-themed color postcards, greeting cards, Jewish National Fund stamps, and maps documenting the evolution of the Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel in the nineteenth-twentieth centuries; religious material such as decorative plaques for synagogues, portraits of Old Yishuv rabbis such as Shmuel Salant, Mizrah posters indicating the direction of prayer for synagogues, memorial posters, and posters for Sukkot booths; color frontispieces for books such as Pentateuch volumes and the early song collections of Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (e.g., Shire Zion, Jerusalem 1908); artistic wedding invitations; and labels, packaging and advertisements for the pioneering entrepreneurs of Eretz Israel. The texts appearing in the Monsohn products were in several languages: Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, English, German (e.g., a c1920 trilingual Hebrew-English-Arabic "Malaria Danger" broadside warning the public of mosquitoes spreading malaria). Many of the brilliantly colored postcards and maps can be seen online as can the artistic invitations to his children's weddings which Monsohn published in the Jerusalem Hebrew press.
For years, the Monsohn (later, Monson/Monzon) Press was considered the best and most innovative in the country—pioneering in such techniques as gold-embossing and offset printing, among others. Early items for tourists included collections of Flowers of the Holy Land (c. 1910–1918)—pressed local flowers accompanied by scenes from the Eretz Israel countryside and relevant verses from the Bible, edited by Jsac Chagise (or Itzhak Haggis), an immigrant from Vitebsk, and bound in carved olive wood boards. Shortly after World War I Monsohn (now spelled מונזון) used zincography to produce the prints included in the Hebrew Gannenu educational booklets for young children illustrated by Ze'ev Raban of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and printed in Jerusalem by Hayim Refael Hakohen (vol. 1, 1919; vols. 2–3, 1920). In 1934 Monsohn moved into the new, western part of Jerusalem, in a shop with four presses and 30 workers, including Abraham-Leib's sons, David, Yosef, Moshe and Shimon, and his daughter Raytse's husband, Abraham Barmacz. The concern did business with all sectors of the city's population, including Arabs, for whom they printed in Arabic. Among their clients were members of the Ginio, Havilio, and Elite families, and Shemen, Dubek, and other renowned national brands, manufacturing products such as wine, candies, oil, and cigarettes. They also printed movie and travel posters, and government posters, postcards and documents, hotel luggage labels, receipts for Bikur Cholim Hospital and other local institutions, metal charity boxes, Melnik, Rosin & Co. (Jerusalem) embroidery designs (c.1900), and Sabbath and Jewish holiday cloth covers for hallot. During the Tzena austerity period Monsohn was the exclusive printer of government coupon booklets.
Moshe Monzon (b. 1958), grandson of Abraham-Leib's son Moshe, produces artistic tapestries. The prints produced by the A.L. Monsohn Lithography and S. Monzon Press are today sought by collectors the world over.
This probably predates the Israeli Bezalel school and is from the era of the early Yishuv. See less