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Goatskin scroll
November 2002 newsletter
Goatskin scroll
This month, I had my
first opportunity to identify an item of Judaica. I received a call from the
Shorter/MacPherson family who have in their possession an old scroll with
Hebrew calligraphy on vellum (goat or sheep skin). The great-granddaughter
of the original owner brought it in to my office. The provenance of the
object is undocumented and uncertain, but goes back at least 90 years to a
wealthy man who travelled widely, fought in the Boer War, and collected
unusual objects. Rolled-up and stored in a cupboard in Wales for decades, it
escaped numerous garage sales, and was finally handed down to the grandson
as a family heirloom.
Not having a clue as to
what it is or why it was kept, the family is now trying to determine its
value. What interests them more than financial value is its possible
cultural or historic value. I put on my white gloves to handle the object,
as a trained museum worker should do. I've never before seen goatskin, but
that's what it looked and felt like. The authenticity of the material was
fairly convincing. Without a magnifying glass, it was difficult for me to
tell whether the black Hebrew lettering had been hand-written or machine
printed, but there seemed to be signs and sufficient wear and tear to
suggest that it had been written by a scribe. The edges of the scroll had
been pierced with tiny holes where once upon a time it would have been
stitched to other portions of text.
We took the item to Rabbi
Engel for further identification. He recognized immediately that it was a
portion of the Torah from Exodus, concerning the Ten Plagues. He did
something that I would not have dared to do - he handled the object roughly,
pushing and pulling it, and then, he tore a tiny piece at the edge. Rabbi
Engel had correctly identified the material as paper - parchment made in
imitation of animal skin, but not necessarily made to deceive. Suddenly my
ambitions of being an astute evaluator of Judaica floated and popped in my
face.
Thereafter, we had an
interesting debate as to whether the object was a forgery or an original,
whether it was made for religious or commercial use. Whether it was a part
of a greater whole, and what may have happened to the rest of the Torah.
Whether it is or is not of cultural significance to the Jewish community, is
still to be determined. Whatever it turns out to be, and my fascination with
this object will ensure further investigation, it points to the fact that
objects have the potential to tell the most intriguing stories. An expert
will have to identify the age of the paper, decode the object, verify its
authenticity, and attempt to piece together its history. The inherited owner
who may have held the key to some of the questions about this mysterious
object lives in Wales, has had a stroke, and can no longer communicate. The
object, having survived at least 90 years, regardless of the circumstances
of its creation, is now an antique.
I would love a second
chance to test my evaluation skills and I'm hoping that someone out there
with another interesting item of Judaica will have faith in me to give it a
go.
I have had many emails
from people out of state wanting to visit our Museum in Adelaide. Without
wanting to misrepresent the situation, because the very word "museum"
suggests a building with artefacts inside it, I commissioned the only
cartoon artist that I know, my ex-secretary at the Standard Bank Gallery in
Johannesburg. Completely untrained as an artist, Sue Isaac has a natural
gift - she is able to capture a scene by means of a few quick lines. Here,
she tells it like it is: The Adelaide Jewish Museum does not exist in
physical form. It is a virtual museum on a website. The Museum building
exists as a dream image in the mind of the Curator. Anyone who has visited
the website can be sure that they have already visited the Museum. Keep
looking however, because it is constantly being updated.
Roslyn
Sugarman, Curator Adelaide Jewish Museum
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