A Rare Plaque for the Sukkah, Jerusalem, Israel Bak: Between 1872-1874

 On the festival of Sukkot, Jews erect a temporary structure known as a sukkah (booth) in which all meals are eaten. In many communities, it is customary to decorate the booth with a variety of ornamentation. This extremely rare print is a remarkable example of a print intended to be hung on the sukkah wall. Very few examples of this genre are extant, since their exposure to the elements over the week-long holiday usually resulted in their destruction.

The central panel features the names of the seven ushpizin:Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and King David, who are invited into the sukkah as “honored guests" on successive evenings of the holiday. Also included are prayers to be recited upon entering the sukkah, the blessings for food eaten in the sukkah, and the blessings upon taking the Four Species. A charming woodcut of an interior of a sukkah as well as five detailed images of the holy places in Israel, including the Temple Mount, the Tombs of the Kings of the House of David, the synagogue Tiferet Israel, Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of Machpelah (Tomb of the Patriarchs) further decorate the plaque.

This plaque was published by Israel Bak (1797-1874), a Jewish printer from Ukraine who was responsible for the re-establishment of Hebrew printing in the Holy Land, first in Safed in 1831 and in Jerusalem in 1841. The print provides two temporal indications from which we may infer the date of its production. The caption on the lower border of the print indicates that it was produced in Bak’s lifetime, i.e. before his demise in 1874. Further, as the Tiferet Israel synagogue, shown here, was only completed in 1872 we may ascertain that this outstanding Sukkah decoration was produced within the two-year window between 1872-1874.