37 Shanah Tovah cards and postcards issued by various organization: boys' schools and yeshivot, hospitals, soup kitchens, youth movements, charity organizations, and more. Palestine, Europe, United States and Canada. [Late 19th century?] and first half of 20th century. Hebrew, Yiddish, English, German, and other languages.
The lot comprises:
• Two undivided-back "shanah tovah" postcards, with color illustrations of the Jewish children's sanatorium in Bad Königsdorff-Jastrzemb (present day: Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Poland). [Late 19th or early 20th century].
• "Shanah tovah" postcard with an illustration of the Israelitische Gewerbe-Schule (Jewish Trade School) building in Strasbourg, Alsace. [Early 20th century].
• Folding "shanah tovah" card, bilingual (Hebrew and English). Sent from the Shaar Zion hospital in Jaffa to donors in Palestine and abroad. [Early 20th century?].
• "Shanah tovah" card from the directors of a Jerusalem orphanage, 1905.
• "Shanah tovah" postcard for 5683 (1922-3), from the Bikur Cholim society in Vilkaviškis, Lithuania.
• Postcard with a picture of Jewish school students. [Warsaw?].
• Receipt for a donation to the Beit Lechem soup kitchen in Warsaw. With a greeting for Rosh Hashanah 5684 (1923-4).
• "Shanah tovah" card issued in honor of the inauguration ceremony of the new building of the Bikur Cholim hospital in Jerusalem. [1925]. On verso, blessings of the chief rabbi, R. Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook.
• Bilingual "shanah tovah" card (Hebrew and German) with an illustration of the Torat Chaim yeshiva in Jerusalem. Sent from Lublin to the chief rabbi, R. Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook. Jerusalem, 1934 (original envelope enclosed).
• "Shanah tovah" card issued by the Independent Order Free Sons of Israel. New York, 1925.
• "Shanah tovah" card issued by the gabba'im of the Eshel Torah yeshiva in Lviv. Trilingual card (Hebrew, Yiddish and Polish), distributed in order to raise funds to cover the yeshiva's debts, expand the yeshiva building, and purchase winter clothing. Lviv, [1930].
• "Shanah tovah" card for the year 5696 (1935-6), issued by the Minneapolis boys' school.
• And more.
37 items. Size and condition vary.
Provenance: Collection of Dr. Chaim Grossman.

Dr. Chaim Grossman's Israeliana collection is exceptional in size, quality and variety. Grossman, an educator, historian and folklorist, was a methodical, knowledgeable and meticulous collector, and his deep understanding of Palestinian-Yishuv and Israeli material culture set the ground for a one-of-a-kind collection of mundane and less than mundane objects – from the ephemeral, the negligible, the widely available to the rare and singular.
The "shana tovah" collection left by Grossman – a considerable part of which is offered in the present auction – comprises thousands of postcards, cards, letters and other paper items made and sent year after year in, by and for Jewish communities: in Eastern and Western Europe, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, North Africa, North and South America, as part of the tradition of sending hand-written, hand-drawn or printed new year’s greetings, which originated in German Jewry but with the rise of postcards spread to most communities. The earliest items in the collection date to the 1860s; the latest were made in the late 20th century. It includes both beautifully designed, rare, early and singular postcards and cards, and mass-made, highly popular items sold in large quantities, in varying production quality and in dozens of repeating versions, each according to the technical abilities achieved by the local publication industry.
The collector's devotion to his collection is evident in the sheer number of items, in the wealth of techniques, visuals and themes, and in the thorough, intersectional categorization by period, origin, motif, technique and material. Glitter and relief embossing, scraps, lace and golden ink, lithography and celluloid transparencies, plastic, textile and metal decorations; Yiddish, Hebrew, English, Russian, French, Polish, German greetings; children, angels, families, pets, immigrants, travelers, professionals; portraits and tinted reproductions; Judaism, Zionism, the state, the army; the ritual and the mundane; any new year's greeting, in any form whatsoever, had a place in Grossman's collection and was honored as a historical testimony, as a timeless, invaluable treasure.