Mappah of Raphael Blumenfeld @museum.de

M: (als Zitat gelesen:)

“Refael, son of Eliezer, may he live a long, good life, Amen.”

(ausfaden, darüber:)

Raphael Blumenfeld was born in Creglingen in 1769. You’ll find his name on the ancestral chart at the very top, in the seventh generation. This richly decorated length of cloth, called a mappah or Torah wimpel, stayed with him all his life. It consists of the fabric used for the diaper worn by Raphael at his circumcision. Sewn together to form a long strip, and inscribed with the added blessing, the mappah adorned the Torah scroll at Raphael’s bar mitzvah and at his wedding.

The bar mitzvah marks the moment when an adolescent male is solemnly received into the community. At the age of 13, he’s allowed to read from the Torah during the service in the synagogue for the first time.

Auf dem Bildschirm: [02_02_016_© Jüdisches Museum Creglingen, Fotograf Oleg Kuchar]

Since the priceless Torah scroll has to be handled with the greatest care, and the sacred text must not be rendered unclean, an elaborately decorated rod called a yad is used to assist with reading. With this Torah pointer, you trace the text letter by letter as you read. The Torah pointer on the left of the display case was once owned by Aron Sinsheimer, the great-grandfather of Arthur Obermayer, the man who was the initiator of the Jewish Museum Creglingen.

Both items – the mappah and the Torah pointer – made their way from Creglingen to the United States in the late 19th century. As a donation from the Obermayer family, they have now returned to their original home.

Our next object never left Creglingen in the first place. It’s a musical instrument that once belonged to an important Jewish figure: Principal Josef Pressburger.