Shanah Tova Cards

By Ian Fine

As an avid collector and formerly having a business dealing with stamps, coins, banknotes and other Ephemera such as postcards etc. my interest includes Old Shana Tova Cards, which I thought that I might expound upon a little here.

Shana Tova’s as we used to call them were customarily posted to friends and family, a tradition going back certainly to the turn of the late 20th Century and particularly at that time in Europe. The custom is first mentioned way back in the 14th Century but obviously they were not actually “posted” as no formal postal service existed back then. The idea of sending Shana Tova’s may have come from the Talmud where, in Gemara Rosh Hashana 16b, it mentions that the three Heavenly Books are opened on Rosh Hashana and one’s fate is settled. Wicked people are instantly sealed and their fate settled in the book of death, whilst medium level people have their fate delayed before judgement on Yom Kippur. The Rabbis teach that the Shofar causes HaShem to turn with mercy delaying punishment in order to afford us time to repent. Based upon this the Maharil Rabbi Jacob Halevi Moelin (5120-5187, 1360-1427) recommended that letters sent during the month of Elul should include the phrase “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year”, thereby causing people to deliberately send letters that eventually developed centuries later into Shana Tova cards. The custom became very popular following the invention of the postcard and the introduction of postal systems in the mid- 19th Century, especially during The Postal Card craze from about 1898. Major producers/publishers of cards were situated in Germany, Poland and the US. German cards often illustrated biblical themes, whilst, the Polish produced cards favoured nostalgically, Jewish Religious life in Eastern Europe.

The illustrations were usually studio staged, using actors and the wording was more often than not in Yiddish. In recent years with the widespread use of social media, the custom of actually mailing a physical card has declined greatly, however some people do send modern Shana Tova’s, purchased with a donation to various charities. I have included here some copies of cards in my possession, many being reprints from fifty or more years ago.

Wishing you Shana Tova v’Metuka. A