This is a ketubah for a wedding that took place in Izmir, Turkey in 1886. The groom was called Chaim Eliyahu ben Avraham Yitzchak Rabi and the bride Rosha bat Ben Zion.
The outlines of the illustrations and decorations were printed on the ketubah and then coloured by hand. The main illustration is of an arch that is decorated with flowers and vines. Two kiddush cups sit on the two posts of the arch. Above the arch is a verse which is also written in a semicircle: in the middle is a red circle with a Star of David in the centre of which are two shaking hands with the Hebrew quote, “the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the sound of the groom and the sound of the bride” surrounding the star. The text of the ketubah is handwritten below the arch. The ketubah is signed by the two witnesses and the groom, whose signature is in the middle. The signatures of the witnesses are decorated.
Would You Like to Know More?
Jews of Izmir – Izmir, the ancient city of Smyrna, is located in western Turkey, on the shores of the Aegean Sea. Jews have lived in Izmir since the second or third century CE. Larger numbers of Jews began to arrive in Izmir at the end of the sixteenth century when Izmir became an important Ottoman seaport. Many of the new residents of Izmir were descendants of Jews who had left Spain in 1492 and made their way east to the Ottoman Empire. The seventeenth century was a period of growth for the Jews of Izmir, and they began to establish new institutions such as synagogues and a chief rabbinate. In 1626, Shabbetai Zvi, later known as the false messiah, was born in Izmir. Many Jews in Izmir, including one chief rabbi, believed in Shabbetai Zvi, and during 1665, when Shabbetai Zvi resided in Izmir, the city became swept up in messianic enthusiasm. His conversion to Islam around 1666 shook the community, and the ensuing divisions took many years to resolve. Many Jews were involved in the commercial life of Izmir, which flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This period, however, was marked by natural disasters such as earthquakes and fires which destroyed synagogues and other buildings. New synagogues were later built, and the community began to recover. The twentieth century saw the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Greco-Turkish War, and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, all of which made life more difficult for the Jewish community. As large numbers of Jewish community left Izmir, Jewish institutions began to close. Currently there are fewer than 2000 Jews living in Izmir.
Ketubah – The ketubah is the Jewish wedding contract that is signed as a central part of the wedding ceremony. Written in Aramaic, the text of the ketubah was codified in the first century CE. An entire tractate of the Talmud called Ketubot is devoted to discussing the purpose and requirements of wedding contracts. The ketubah outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom toward his bride: the amount of money he must pay, the contents of her dowry, and the settlement in case of divorce. While the text has been very consistent throughout history, ketubah designs are very varied and many have calligraphic text and are illuminated. The National Library of Israel features over 4,200 ketubot on its collections, spanning the entire Jewish world over hundreds of years.
