Content area
Full Text
Sometime after 1862, the first lithograph ever printed in the Holy Land rolled off the press at a small workshop in Jerusalem. It was designed as a sort of snowflake children might make from paper to be unfolded and reveal a larger pattern. This style, called a "shoshanta," looked like a beautiful red flower when folded up. When unfolded it showed scenes of the Old City, including its numerous gates, and the Western Wall.
The shoshanta is only one of the many items on display at an exhibition entitled "Inspiration and Implementation: the Story of the Salomon Family," currently showing at the Isaac Kaplan Old Yishuv Court Museum in the Old City. Curator Ora Pikel Tzabari takes great pride in the fact that the museum was able to bring together such a diverse collection.
"It took us 10 months to locate all the artifacts," she says. "We received things from the Salomon family, from the Jerusalem City Archives, the Israel Museum and archives and museums as far away as Kfar Saba and Petah Tikva."
The project was inspired by the 200th anniversary of the immigration of the Salomon family to the Land of Israel. Sometime in the autumn of 1811, Rabbi Avraham Shlomo Zalman Zoref, his wife Hasia and their three sons disembarked at Acre. Zoref, who was a follower of the Vilna Gaon, joined a small group of 500 of the famous Lithuanian rabbi's followers, setting off for the Holy Land shortly after his death and arriving between 1808 and 1813. Much of this story is told in Arie Morgenstern's well-received 2006 book, Hastening Redemption: Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel.
The first three generations of the Salomon family in the Holy Land, which are profiled in the exhibition, were involved in many of the most important and influential Jewish events of their day. They established an Ashkenazi foothold in a city that was dominated by Sephardim. Shlomo Zalman Zoref, the patriarch of the family, obtained permission from the Turkish sultan to build the Hurva Synagogue. Zoref's son, Mordechai, negotiated with Sir Moses Montefiore and the Turkish authorities not only on behalf of the Jewish community but also to buy land for Jews. Mordechai's son, Yoel Moshe, was particularly ambitious.
He...