An Early Decorated American Ketubbah, Scribe:[Zemach Davidson], Utica: 1857

Ink and gouache on paper. (9 ½ x 7 ½; 240 x 190 mm). Losses along bottom edge, affecting a few words of original text; witnesses' signatures perished. Glazed and framed. Not examined out of frame.

Celebrating the wedding of Yekutiel, the son of David, to Liba, daughter of Lieber, on Thursday, 1 Nissan, 5557 (=March 26, 1857)

Ari Kinsberg, "A Descriptive Overview of a Distinguished Collection of American Judaica," ca. 2000. Private Press; Precious Possessions - Treasures From the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, NY: JTS, 2001; Solomon Joshua Kohn, The Jewish community of Utica, New York, 1847-1948. NY: American Jewish Historical Society, 1959.

Although no information has survived regarding the couple whose marriage was recorded in the present ketubbah, we are fortunate to know a good deal more about the scribe/artist who created the document itself. Zemach Davidson (1840-1901) was born in Eastern Europe and emigrated to the United States as a young man, shortly after his own marriage at the age of 15. Zemach apparently made his living as an itinerant religious functionary, variously serving as shohet (ritual slaughterer), hazzan (cantor), and sofer (scribe) in several American Jewish communities, in New York and Pennsylvania before eventually settling in Chicago. The identification of Zemach Davidson as the scribe of this ketubbah is based upon its close affinity to a signed and dated ketubbah written for a wedding in New York City in 1863 (KET 105 in the JTS Library). Furthermore, that ketubbah specifically lists Utica as the domicile of Zemach Davidson, the same upstate NY community in which the wedding being recorded in the present ketubbah took place in 1857. In addition to the identical handwriting, both ketubbot share several distinctive characteristics within their respective decorative programs. Each features a pair of clasped hands and a crown drawn above the text, which is framed by two columns, each column surmounted by a clock, and the columns joined by a connecting arch.