CitizenWald, 9 months ago

#Ephemera: When unfolded, this album commemorating the First #Zionist Congress (August 29-31, 1897), depicts the delegates.

Here, 162 of them. Figures vary, but 200-250 persons took part, including 17 #women—though they became voting members only in 1898

Interesting that this evidently American document featured portraits of not only the movement’s leaders—but also #Washington and Columbus. Trying to suggest an equivalence of nation-building—or just patriotic filler?

#Mazeldon 2/n

curved rows of portraits of delegates in wreaths with Herzl in center at each corner of the page: six-pointed stars (condition: stains from old tape at folds)
detail of delegate portrait in preceding photo: six women in the lower row
left: portrait of Washington, facing right, after Gilbert Stuart right: imagined portrait of Columbus, facing left

CitizenWald, 9 months ago

To wrap up this mini🧵 on the First #Zionist Congress in Basel (29-31 August 19897)

The subsequent Congresses (annual, then biennial, up to 1948, with wartime interruptions) issued postcards and sometimes secured special local postmarks.

1-2) The 1897 #postcard, which, like the souvenir folder in the previous post, served as a Rosh Hashanah greeting

3. 1901 card by E. M. Lilien, which @mmargolis will appreciate @bookhistodons : follow her!

https://www.jewishpress.com/sections/features/features-on-jewish-world/official-postcards-of-the-first-zionist-congresses/2022/06/08/

#philately
#Mazeldon 3/n

same image as preceding but with sender's message in German script
a design typical of E. M. Lilien's art nouveau approach to the subject (on his career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Moses_Lilien) at left, an angel whose huge left wing occupies the upper diagonal of the rectangle, and whose left wing curves down into the frame of the image, comforts an old seated bearded man leaning on cane, wearing a skull cap, head bowed down. Lopps of barbed wire in the foreground Right: sheaves of grain in lower right corner farmer ploughing field and advancing to a rising sun in upper right corner

mmargolis, 9 months ago

@CitizenWald @bookhistodons Most definitely. It's gorgeous!!