This year the displays of Passover settings in the department stores seemed unusually large, with lavish numbers of Seder plates, candleholders, wine cups, and other objects. Ruth Glazer shopped the stores and here discusses the kind and quality of Jewish ritual objects to be found around New York, and offers some reflections on their origins and future.

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In the new religious revival, the theologians and philosophers have it easy; they can battle about the nature of revelation endlessly in the pages of COMMENTARY. Parents and householders, on the other hand, caught up in the new urge toward Jewish observance, find themselves with problems needing immediate, practical answers. Once they have decided that from this Friday night forward the Sabbath will be observed in their house, or that this Chanukah will be marked by the lighting of a menorah, or that they will have a Seder—there is the question of providing the proper ceremonial objects. And, having established what is needed, the next problem is—what will they find when they actually go out to purchase the candlesticks, or the menorah, or a cover for the challah, or wine cups, or any of the other objects which can beautify the special usages of the occasion?

The plastic arts, it has been frequently observed, are not among the strong points of Jewish genius, and even the most untutored survey of ritual objects, past and present, will testify to the truth of this feeling. The exhibits at the Jewish Museum in New York City, while rich in historicity, hardly provide a pleasurable aesthetic experience. The overwhelming eclectic ugliness of its Sabbath room, for example, makes one reflect how great must have been the transcendent spirit among the truly pious Jews to have made them so oblivious to the vessels used in their observances. By that same token, the shaken and timorous Jews of today, tentatively feeling their way back to a half-remembered religion, will hardly find aesthetic quality as unimportant as their forebears, especially in a community where so much care is given to the decoration of the home.

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On window-shopping tours of New York City, undertaken at various times during the past year, I tried to discover what the householder returning to the fold might find in his ritual quest. Of course, this does not tell me what a Jew setting forth on a similar errand would find in Indianapolis or Houston or Los Angeles, but it is a safe guess that it would not be too different.

The obvious place to begin in New York is the Lower East Side. Although with luck a few stores selling candlesticks and menorahs can be found scattered in other neighborhoods, the East Side is the place to which Jews must still turn for menorahs, for tombstones, for culture. Stuck away in its dirty, ugly streets are stores which specialize in the selling of prayer books, talleisim, tefillim, and also “ritual objects.” The clutter of sacred and secular objects in the typical window display mirrors vividly the tastes and interests of the clientele. For the learned and pious there are the sets of prayer books, Bibles, and commentaries. For the Zionists there are bronze busts and small plaques of Weizmann and Herzl, plastic tablecloths printed with the map of Israel, bits of silver filigree jewelry from Israel. Completing the window display are rows of key chains and lockets with mezuzot and Stars of David, various models of electric memorial lights executed in clear plastic, boxes of shaving powder, a variety of New Year’s greeting cards, and several examples of chromium nut dishes and three-tiered sandwich plates. Amid this chaotic miscellany are the ritual objects for which we have come—Sabbath candlesticks, Chanukah menorahs, challah knives, spice boxes for havdalah, challah covers, kiddush cups and decanters, various items for Passover.

Characteristic of them all is the cheap materials in which they are executed. Challah covers are of the sleaziest white satin, sometimes crudely printed in blue ink, sometimes machine-embroidered. Challah knives are simple replicas of kitchen bread knives with imitation bone handles; I did not see the slightest attempt to invest them with any grace or beauty in view of their special festive function. Almost the only metal used is chromium. Brass candlesticks, it is true, can still be found in great number under the secular auspices of the brass shops clustered on Allen Street. Infrequently it is possible to find silver, generally plate. The silver, probably to save on expense, is most often worked in slender, anemic shapes echoing the Tiffany style of the 1920’s. It is also clear from their anonymity of feature that they were not designed for Sabbath candles but were simply part of the regular complement of any jeweler’s stock of dinner candlesticks. The sellers of brass have either been more fortunate or more intelligent in relying almost entirely on old and aesthetically sound designs, although here and there, unfortunately, a few have been tempted into experimentation.

As for the chromium “art objects,” I must confess to a bias against the material. Its harsh and tinny texture seems to invest any object, no matter how carefully worked, with a shoddy quality. But it is precisely in the workmanship that one feels the greatest hopelessness. I cannot believe, in the first place, that these candlesticks were ever designed in any artistic or architectural sense. Rather they seem the product of a typical process in small manufacturing where the owner-designer-workman-salesman decides to add this new “feature” or that new “model” because his competitor has already emerged on the market with it, or because he aims to beat his competitor to it The emergence this past Chanukah of a chromium candelabrum that plays “Rock of Ages” is an unhappy case in point.

Anyway, the question never seems to be what is appropriate or beautiful, but what is Acme Chromium doing, and, above all, what does “the public” want: it is in the name of this hapless group that the greatest sins are committed. Not that the public is ever asked what it wants, or that there would be any use in asking; the public is simply permitted to choose from what is produced. The fact that chromium candlesticks are bought or that Model A is preferred over Model B does not mean that both chromium Model A and Model B might not be dropped altogether if there were any other choice.

At a time when there is hardly a rabbi or community thinker throughout the country who does not have in his pocket (if not already in print) a program for the beautification and revivification of the Jewish tradition, and when new synagogues, often based on the most modern—sometimes, perhaps, too modern—principles of design, are going up in innumerable cities, it is astonishing that no one has apparently sought to attract the attention of serious artists to the problem of creating Jewish ritual objects for our times and taste worthy of the tradition they represent. I do not say that the results of such an effort would necessarily be good, but they could hardly fail to be better than what we have now.

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Shortly before Passover of 1950 I witnessed a painful enactment of the process of choice under duress that awaits the shopper who goes out to find ritual art objects for his home. In honor of the season, and also, presumably, to help sell Passover goods, Macy’s had arranged an elaborate display of a model Passover table. Carefully lit, and placed on a fine Persian rug, the table was set for twelve and decorated with a variety of “art objects.” These included silver goblets, two large silver candelabra rising to a height of two feet and each holding some half dozen candles, and, at the head of the table, a large gold cylinder with three slots to hold the three ritual matzos. On the flat top of the cylinder were arrayed the lamb bone in a hollowed-out golden lamb, the egg in an egg cup, and the charoseth in a little wheelbarrow (the other herbs necessary for the service reposed in less literary vessels). As for the huge, gleaming candelabra, they were engraved with every conceivable symbol. Without even straining, I was able to make out a profile of Herd, ã ship, presumably arriving in Israel, with immigrants descending a rope ladder, a menorah, a Star of David, a waving flag, and grapes, all rendered with stupendous realism—some of the grapes even looked a little mashed. In what space remained was a lengthy Hebrew text; not an inch of the two-foot enormity remained uncovered. In a dreadful way, it was impressive.

Pressing against the plush ropes marking off the table were crowds of admiring Jews. Was it the silver candelabra and the gold matzah holder they were admiring? I think not It was the gaudy elegance of the “Regency” table, the striped satin seats of the chairs whose color scheme extended to the pillows on which the head of the house would recline, and finally the glistening array of china, silver, linens, and crystal. Most of all, perhaps, what attracted the crowd was the flattering suggestion that this gorgeous panoply was possible in every Jewish home. But what happens when the admirers attempt to imitate?

In the adjoining area customers could buy not only groceries, but also “ritual objects”—matzah covers, candlesticks, platters for the bitter herbs, charoseth, etc. Buyers of these platters were faced with three choices: a ceramic platter carelessly glazed in harsh colórs, a chromium platter chased with Hebrew letters and stamped with cuplike indentations; the chromium design executed in copper. The perplexity and disappointment of the buyers was expressed in one constantly repeated question: “Don’t you have anything else?”

One more painful example: the matzah covers. These were of the tawdriest white rayon satin, bordered in carelessly sewed gold-colored fringe already puckered around the edges, and machine-embroidered in a leaf design with varicolored thread. In the center the word matzah in Hebrew characters was stitched in more gold. The distaste and resignation with which I saw at least a dozen of these bought was sad to witness.

And yet it is not impossible for a matzah cover to be beautiful. I have seen one of Yemenite workmanship that was brought from Israel by a young soldier. It was not the sort of thing, for some reason, which anyone takes the trouble to export, yet in its gentleness and fineness of execution it breathed all that tenderness which the anxious crowd in Macy’s Passover room was seeking. This cover was a rectangle of fine, creamy silk, almost transparent. It was embroidered in the same places as its American counterpart and with essentially the same design. In the center was the word matzah in Hebrew script, and below it on either side sprays of flowers and leaves carefully and delicately embroidered in lovely shades of green, lavender, and brown. The border was a leaf and vine design worked in the same colors. It did not shriek in bold letters that it was indeed from the land of Israel; the piece of earth from which it originated was irrelevant. It had simply been made of fine materials by a skillful workman, and it was the integrity and honesty of this workmanship which was so touching. It had been made, not for some anonymous “market,” but for itself.

This year, the huge candelabra were missing from Macy’s Passover display; otherwise, matters were much the same as in 1950, down to the mingled eagerness and frustration of the customers. Elsewhere in New York, the introduction of occasionally more expensive items marked no real rise in quality.

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One new element, however, has been the increase over the past year in the number and variety of objects imported, from Israel. These require some special discussion.

The bare simplicity that we have come to associate with “modern” design, the emphasis on form and texture rather than decoration, seems to have conquered in Israel. The filigree work so characteristic of the Middle East, which was once important in Palestinian silver work, is now seen only rarely. Most of the pieces displayed are done in oxidized copper—a greenish metal. Some few items are in silver plate, a goodly collection in ceramics, and a very few in sterling silver. Happily, the days of the olivewood letter opener stamped “Jerusalem” seem to be at an end.

Most characteristic of Israeli design is the use of Hebrew characters for decoration. In some pieces there is an attempt at archaism with the use of letters and figures reproduced from what one is led to conclude are old inscriptions. But on the whole the modern block letters are most favored.

Surprisingly enough, only a comparatively small proportion of the objects seem to be designed for ritual purposes. What we may call the “secular” collection consists of a wide assortment of plates and bowls of oxidized copper which are used in America as ash trays, candy dishes, and fruit bowls, or sometimes simply displayed for decoration. The designs are unpretentious and follow a formula of conventional shapes decorated with raised Hebrew lettering, either in the same metal or in polished copper, around the rim or in the center. Occasional human figures or reproductions of fruit, generally bunches of grapes, are added. The work in ceramics seemed to me to be the poorest, in both design and execution. Available in this medium are “souvenir” plates, and a candelabrum offered in a number of rather inappropriate shades such as dusty pink and lime green.

In the religious objects the greatest ingenuity seems to have gone into the Chanukah menorahs. Many of them, particularly among those in oxidized copper, are constructed to burn not the little Chanukah candles, but little pools of oil which recall vividly the original miracle of Chanukah. A number of fine, carefully worked, and expensive menorahs are displayed in sterling silver. These rely heavily on the use of lettering as an element of design.

The objects for Passover have received more casual treatment at the hands of the designers. If anything, they seem to be Israeli reproductions of East European plates and goblets. Apart from two or three massive bronze matzah holders obviously meant for institutional use, the platters, done in silver plate, repeat in no very inspired form the old pattern of lettering in the stations for the egg, the bone, the charoseth, and the bitter herbs. In this case, however, the lettering is utilitarian rather than decorative. The goblets, too, are no more than weakened copies of massive European chalices.

In general, even the better pieces of work, such as those in sterling silver, are characterized at most by a certain sturdy utilitarianism, with none of the freedom that distinguishes the inspired from the pedestrian. As yet one does not feel the sure hand of a living style with its own inner forces for growth. But some of these earnest and honest efforts do offer hope that a style of real merit may yet evolve from these many hesitant beginnings. Nothing created in America for Jewish ritual purposes shows even that much character.

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It is hard to say how much of the work displayed at the various importing houses is characteristically Israeli. To the American purchaser, this is not altogether an irrelevant question. If he is buying a pair of candlesticks because he happens to need a pair of candlesticks, it may be unimportant to him whether they come from France or Java or the United States. But if he buys a dish only because he wants to have some object near him which comes from the land of Israel, then he is likely to hope that it will in some way represent the spirit of the country. From this point of view, one wonders what is peculiarly Israeli in a ceramic plate decorated with the smiling face of a young woman labeled “Halutza” or a row of houses tagged “Scene in Tel Aviv.” An inscription albeit in Hebrew does not make a style.

Israeli manufacturers perhaps do not realize the feeling with which their products are received by American Jews. The ritual objects, on the one hand, are endowed with a special authenticity, while the bowls, the ash trays, and the candy dishes create in the purchaser a glow of group feeling and identification. The young couple whom I observed buying three plates decorated with the words “Souvenir of Israel” (whose meaning they had to ask) to hang up in the dining room of their new house illustrate the feeling of many American Jews. Unless what they are offered is ugly beyond redémption, they are willing to suspend the aesthetic judgment they would ordinarily bring to bear on their purchases. What is important to them is that by hanging up these plates they are affirming that theirs is a Jewish home in which Jewish values, however dimly apprehended, are treasured.

It would seem, then, that the Jews of America will not be able to depend on the ravishment of their senses to enjoy their new-found Judaism. Like their materially less” fortunate ancestors, it is the word and the tradition which will have to be their support and guide. And this in itself may be more traditional than we think. Perhaps it was not indifference, but a clear notion of what was important, that enabled our ancestors to be happy surrounded by the nondescript, dowdy Jewish objects we may see in our grandparents’ homes: perhaps, beyond indifference, there was an active will to keep the sacred and profane in a proper perspective to one another. Today, too, it will have to be the spirit of the candle-lighting and of the home in which the candles are kindled, rather than the material form of the candlestick, that captures the heart of the Jewish child. But perhaps in America we may find the way to be observant and beautiful too.

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