AN ILLUSTRATED MARRIAGE CONTRACT, JERUSALEM: 1864

A Local Wedding: Ketubbot from Eretz Israel 1800-1960, Eretz Israel Musem, Tel Aviv: 2005; Jonathan Benjamin, "Ketubah Ornamentation in Nineteenth Century Eretz-Israel" in The Israel Museum News vol. 12, 1977 pp. 129-137.

Recording the marriage of Jacob Abood to Esther on Friday 12 Adar I, 5624 [February 19, 1864].

Ketubbot produced in the Land of Israel in the nineteenth century often share a unique artistic program replete with symbolic imagery including cypress and palm trees. Cypress trees were among the primary building materials used by Solomon in the construction of the Temple and according to rabbinic tradition the "honey" enumerated among the seven species with which Israel is blessed (Deuteronomy 8:8) is the honey of the date-palm. The palm tree is also used to describe the righteous, who are compared to its straight trunk and evergreen foliage (Psalms 92:13). The artist of this ketubbah has purposely drawn on these elements, evocative as they are of both the Land of Israel and the Temple, its most important religious icon, to summon in the viewer's imagination an idealized Jerusalem in accordance with the biblical mandate to "exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy" (Psalms 137:6). The ketubbah also features a vase overflowing with brightly colored flowers and a floral border. This floral imagery as well as the use of the cypress and palm motifs are characteristic of the first period of decorated ketubbot from the Holy Land which lasted from the 1830s to the 1860s. The Ketubbah is signed by the groom (at center) and two witnesses. The signature at right is a typically elaborate Sephardic rabbinic signature.