This is a ketubah from a wedding that took place in San Francisco, California on Sunday April 4, 1878, 4 Nissan 5638. The groom’s name was Harris Rubin and the bride was Minnie Garren, their wedding was witnessed by Joseph Bremer and Adolph Samuels, and the ketubah was signed by the officiating rabbi, Aaron Messing, who is referred to as the “Minister.” The ketubah is not written in Hebrew, but instead it is written in English on the left-hand side and German on the right-hand side. The German text reflects the fact that at the end of the nineteenth century, most of the Jewish community in the United States were immigrants from Germany. Hebrew phrases are interspersed throughout the ketubah. All of the signatures are written in English. The text of the ketubah is not a translation of the traditional Aramaic text. Instead, it is more similar to the statements that would be said at an American wedding ceremony. There are significant differences in the wording of the vows made by the bride and groom. For example, the text of the bridegroom’s vow says that he will “in general faithfully fulfill” the duties of a good and dutiful husband, while the text for the bride says that she will “be a faithful wife and loving companion.” The bride’s text also differs with the promise that she will act “in accordance with the laws of morality, and of religion – of my God – and of my conscience.” This is a non-traditional marriage contract which might reflect the type of Judaism that was being practiced in the United States at that time.
Rabbi Aaron Messing, whose signature is on the ketubah, was the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in San Francisco from 1878–1890. Messing was born in Austria and studied divinity at the University of Graz. He was an Orthodox rabbi and came to San Francisco to be the rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue. The congregation had many German-Jewish members, and Rabbi Messing therefore gave his sermons in German.
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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.
Jewish Community of San Francisco – The history of Jews in San Francisco, California begins with the discovery of gold in Northern California in 1848. This began the California Gold Rush of 2.5 million people, among them thousands of Jews, who travelled across the United States or by sea on a four to five month journey to San Francisco. The Jewish community was mostly made up of German speakers from Bavaria and the Prussian province of Posen. When they arrived, there was no Jewish infrastructure, so the founders of the Jewish community were free to create their own community. The Jews in San Francisco experienced less anti-Semitism than in other areas of the United States and were very successful in all aspects of society, becoming successful business people, political leaders, and philanthropists. The most famous San Franciscan Jew was Levi Strauss whose jeans became an iconic American symbol around the world. Religious expression in the early years of San Francisco was very liberal, with the first two synagogues affiliated to the Reform movement. Yiddish-speaking immigrants began to arrive in San Francisco at the beginning of the 1900s but, unlike in other American cities, they remained the minority for a long time. In the 1960s, San Francisco became the centre of counterculture, and this movement also was adopted by many in the Jewish community. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach founded the House of Love and Prayer and the Jewish Renewal Movement of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi had many followers. The Jewish community was also involved with the gay rights movement in San Francisco, and in 1977 one of the first synagogue serving the gay community was opened. Its proximity to Silicon Valley has led to a large influx of Russian and Israeli Jews and Jews who are involved in high tech.
Jewish Community of the United States – At the time of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, between 1,500 and 2,500 Jews were living in the United States, most of them Sephardi. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a wave of German Jews, largely secular and educated, arrived in the United States. Another wave of immigration arrived from Eastern Europe, a result of pogroms and the difficult economic situation in these countries . Most of these new immigrants were Ashkenazi and spoke mainly Yiddish. They arrived, believing that the United States was a “goldene medina,” a country of gold, but the reality was hard. Many of the newcomers worked as manual labourers in difficult conditions, such as in the sweatshops in New York’s Lower East Side. By the beginning of the twentieth century, more than a million Jews lived in the United States, most of them in New York City. Despite immigration quotas, by 1940 the American Jewish population numbered more the 4.5 million. While the first generation of immigrants lived in close-knit Yiddish-speaking communities, the next generation integrated quickly and, in many cases, assimilated into American society and became prominent in many areas of American life. Today American Jews are extremely influential in American politics, business, academia, and culture. Over the last few decades Jews from many countries, such as Russia, Iran, and Israel, have arrived in the United States. The American Jewish community is the second largest Jewish community in the world, numbering between 5.5 and 7 million people. More than 2 million Jews live in New York, making it the city with the largest Jewish population in the world. Half of American Jews consider themselves religious, and there are many Jewish organisations and institutions in the country.
