Posts in : November, 2013 - Orthodox Ketubot
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Nov27
19th Century Ketubah Artist
by Esti Horwitzposted in BlogComments Off on 19th Century Ketubah Artist
There’s a wonderful article in Tablet about Julius Bien, a 19th century New York Jewish artist, who got his start… creating Ketubot. As the article says:
Today, artwork bearing Bien’s name can be found at institutions like the Brooklyn Museum, New York Public Library, Butler Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Smithsonian American Art Museum. The ketubot Bien produced early in his career—including the one for Roos and Elsasser, currently housed at New York’s Jewish Museum—did not propel him to mainstream national fame. Instead, he received recognition for making high-quality maps of the expanding country for the government, prints depicting technological advancements like the railroad and reproducing, in lithographed form, Audubon’s Birds of America. As a lithographer, Bien was celebrated for advancing and making accessible 19th-century American knowledge production. Initially, Bien’s success at illustrating American intellectual progress makes his ketubah, a document mired in tradition, seem anomalous. But on close inspection, Bien’s concern for associating progress and American identity manifests in the ketubah. The marriage contract established as progressively American both the immigrants it served and the brand name “Julius Bien.”
It’s interesting: we often think about Ketubah art as a late 20th century innovation, but examples like Julius Bien show us that there is ample precedent.
Bien created Ketubot for a reform shul — but in that era, the reform shuls still used the same traditional Aramaic text! It was only in the mid-20th century, when the reform movement began using different text for their ketubot.
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Nov22
The $20,000 Ketubah
by Esti Horwitzposted in BlogComments Off on The $20,000 Ketubah
This Ketubah story almost sounds like it’s from a TV show: Jewish girl, 10, suing her mother’s former boyfriend to return her dog and her mother’s ketubah. To quote:
A 10-year-old girl is upset that her mother’s former boyfriend kept her dog and won’t return it. A lawsuit was filed on behalf of the child of Detroit, Michigan, in an attempt to get her Poodle back from her mother’s former boyfriend…
“The plaintiff gave the dog to the defendant to take care of it. She took another dog with her the day she left,” Rechter wrote in court documents. Besides the dog, Lenhoff said that Rechter kept thousands of dollars worth of items including rings, golf equipment, boots and her ketubah, which is a Jewish wedding license from her first marriage that she said is worth $20,000.
A $20,000 Ketubah? Is that USD, not Zimbabwean dollars? We’ve known about commissioned Ketubot that cost a few thousand dollars to create. But we’ve never heard of anything more than about $3,000 for the most top of the line Ketubah imaginable.
Maybe we should start selling $20,000 Ketubot ;)
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Nov19
Oldest Siddur Ever Found!
by Esti Horwitzposted in BlogComments Off on Oldest Siddur Ever Found!
Nothing to do with ketubot today, but an exciting discovery was made: World’s Oldest Siddur Slated For Future D.C. Bible Museum.
The siddur found dates from the year 840 (CE)!!!
As the article says,
The discovery of the oldest Jewish siddur (prayer book) ever found has set off a flurry of attention on ancient religious texts. Dating back to 840 CE, the siddur sheds new light on medieval Judaism and the continuity of Jewish traditions over time.
Currently part of Hobby Lobby President Steven Green’s “Green Collection,” the largest private collection of biblical texts and artifacts in the world, the siddur and the rest of the collection will be donated to the as yet unnamed international Bible museum in Washington, D.C., slated to open in 2017.
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by Esti Horwitzposted in BlogComments Off on Haredi Rabbi Finds $98,000 — And Returns It To Its Owner!
A beautiful story: a Charedi Rabbi bought a desk, with $98,000 in the drawer — and promptly returned the money to its owner.
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by Esti Horwitzposted in BlogComments Off on Great Parsha Analysis about Davening Early Maariv for Shabbos
Here at Orthodox Ketubot, we’re great fans of Parshablog — they consistently have insightful commentary into this week’s parsha.
However, we happen to particularly enjoy this week’s analysis, about davening maariv early on erev Shabbat.
Read, enjoy, learn! (And thank you, Parshablog, for being a great resource!)
