A Lithographed Cotton Banner Commemorating the Yom Kippur Service during the Siege of Metz in 1870

A Lithographed Cotton Banner Commemorating the Yom Kippur Service during the Siege of Metz in 1870

In July 1869, a group of German states known as the North German Confederation emancipated its Jewish population. The following summer, when hostilities broke out between the confederation and the Second French Empire, about 4,700 Jews were mobilized to fight in what came to be known as the Franco-Prussian War. Because the conflict continued through much of January 1871, these Jewish soldiers found themselves on the battlefield, specifically in a siege before the fortresses of Metz, around Yom Kippur 1870. In order to provide for their religious needs, a young rabbi named Dr. Isaac Blumenstein (1843-1903) secured permission from the military to hold Yom Kippur prayers on October 4-5, 1870.

Two accounts of these services, one written by an anonymous soldier before the holiday and the second by Rabbi Blumenstein following it, were published in the press. The anonymous soldier’s report of what was planned for the day apparently inspired [Dr. Gustav] Philippson to compose a poem entitled “Jom Kipur, vor Metz 1870” shortly thereafter. It was this poem that served as the basis for the present lot, a red and black banner produced by lithography on cotton (the sources are split on the identity of the lithographer) and captioned in Hebrew and German “Service on the Day of Atonement in the Camp before Metz, 1870.” The image at center depicts a large crowd assembled in an open field around a bimah placed before a Torah Ark and ner tamid (eternal lamp), with the prayer leader and several other soldiers donning tallitot (prayer shawls). On a hill far off in the distance at right are Christian soldiers standing guard to protect their comrades-in-arms, with the city of Metz situated in the background. Above, a banner inscribed in Hebrew and German with the words “Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us?” (Mal. 2:10) is held by two putti, and in the four corners, running clockwise from upper-left, are the stanzas of Philippson’s poem.

In reality, only about sixty or seventy soldiers came to Blumenstein’s services, which were held indoors, not in an open field, and in the village of St. Barbe, which was located several miles from the battlefield. Nevertheless, this “pious, patriotic fiction,” and many like it produced by other artists and printers, struck pride in the hearts of contemporary German Jews, who saw it as an expression of Jewish citizens’ willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice for king and country while maintaining their devotion to their faith.

Physical Description

Banner (24 1/2 x 26 7/8 in.; 620 x 684 mm) lithographed on cotton. Slight scattered staining; one small hole near head of image at center; minor wear to lower edge. Glazed and framed; frame with some small nicks; not examined outside of the frame.

Literature

Szabó Géza, “Jómkipur a Csatatéren,” in József Patai (ed.), Mult és Jovo (Budapest, 1914), 461-462.

Holger Hübner, “Der Feldgottesdienst zu Jom Kippur vor Metz 1870,” Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 63,2 (April 2011): 105-121.

Daniel Lipson, “A Kol Nidre Prayer on the German Warfront in 1870,” The Librarians (September 21, 2022), available at: https://blog.nli.org.il/en/lbh_kol_nidre_german_1870/.

[Gustav] Philippson, “Jom Kipur, vor Metz 1870,” in Ernst Wachsmann (ed.), Sammlung der deutschen Kriegs- und Volkslieder des Jahres 1870, pt. 4 (Berlin: Liebheit & Thiesen, 1870), 470-471.

Rita Wagner, “Vision der Emanzipation,” Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, available at: https://www.koelnisches-stadtmuseum.de/en/sammlung/religioeses/vision-der-emanzipation/.

Jutta Zander-Seidel, “Politik als Dekor: Zeitgeschichtliche Motive auf Stoffdrucken des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts,” Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums (1989): 309-340, at pp. 334-335 (no. 17).

https://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/digitallibrary/pages/viewer.aspx?presentorid=EDU_XML_ENG&docid=EDU_XML_ENG700398534