Linen with pictures of flowers, a fish, snakes, birds, a lizard, a Rabbi holding a Torah scroll in his hands and a Chuppah. Some of the pictures stem from the letters themselves: [Baby’s name]: “Yosef son of Avraham Bikard from the congregation of Harburg, born on 3 Tammuz 5660, may God bring him up to Torah, Chuppah and good deeds, Amen”.

The wimpel is signed at the end by ‘Julien Bicart’, his mother.

Harburg is a small village in the state of Bavaria. Before the First World War there were several hundred Jewish families in the village. The Jewish cemetery still exists in the village.

A “Torah binder” is a Jewish ceremonial textile used to keep a Torah (Hebrew Bible) scroll closed tightly when it is not being used for synagogue reading. In some Jewish communities in Germany and Eastern Europe, Torah binders were made from the linen or cotton cloth used to cover new-born males during the Circumcision ceremony (brit milah). This kind of Torah binder, also known as wimpel, is generally sewn by the mother of the child, and would be used to bind a Torah scroll once the child became bar mitzvah, and later again on the occasion of his wedding

The wimpel, a ritual object that physically represents the ties between personal and family rituals on the one hand (the Life Cycle, beginning with the Circumcision), and synagogue and communal life on the other (Torah reading), is today a source of often unique biographical (and genealogical) information about the development of Jewish communities that have long disappeared.

Written on the three sections of the binding is the three periods of time that the binding signified:

First section: "Yosef the son of Avraham Bicart from the holy congregation of ‘Harburg’ who was born in a good sign on the 23rd day of Tamuz 1900

Second section: "God should guide and raise him in the path of Torah and in the proper time for the Chuppah" (first part of the marriage ceremony)

Third section: "To accompany him to do good deeds in his lifetime".

Length: 310 cm. Width: 17 cm.

Aging stains, and remnants of moisture from the circumcision [?]. A piece of cloth was sewn onto the rear side to reinforce the original cloth at a later date. Fine condition.

Lot #217

A Magnificent illustrated Wimpel for a Torah Scroll, Harburg 1900.

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A Magnificent illustrated Wimpel for a Torah Scroll, Harburg 1900.

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