Auction 87 - Jewish and Israeli Art, History and Culture
Including: sketches by Ze'ev Raban and Bezalel items, hildren's books, avant-garde books, rare ladino periodicals, and more
Collection of Photographs from the Estate of Gerson Margolies, Chief Cantor of the Tempelgasse Synagogue in Vienna – First Half of the 20th Century – Autographs of Prominent Cantors
29 photographs from the estate of Gerson Margolies, cantor of the Tempelgasse Synagogue in Vienna. Most photographs are printed on postcards. Vienna, London, Manchester, Leeds, Budapest, and other places. Ca. first half of the 20th century.
The collection is comprised of various portrait and group photographs (most of them printed on postcards), given to the cantor Gerson Margolies by his colleagues – cantors from Austria, England, Hungary, and elsewhere; among them are Don Fuchs (Vienna), Israel Tkatch (Budapest), Harris Newmann (Manchester), and others. Some bear autograph dedications by the cantors photographed. Pen inscriptions on most photographs.
Some photographs were taken at the funeral of rabbi Zwi Perez Chajes (1876-1927.)
Enclosed: printed greeting card, with portrait of cantor Yitzhak Zvi Hirsch Heilpern (autogrp dedication in Heilpern's hand on verso;) paper card with a portrait of Gerson Margolies.
Gerson Herz Margolies was born ca. 1885 in Kalvarija, Lithuania. Served as chief cantor in the liberal Tempelgasse Synagogue (Leopoldstädter Tempel), in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna. Margolies was a well-known cantor in his day – a tenor who toured extensively, and performed for Jewish communities around the world.
Margolies was a devoted Zionist activist. According to newspaper reports from the period, he immigrated to Palestine in 1935, but apparently did not settle there. Other sources, including an identification card, issued in his name by the Jewish community of Vienna (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien; see next lot), indicate that Margolies served as the Tempelgasse synagogue cantor at least until June 1938; the synagogue was burnt to the ground during the Kristallnacht pogrom, several months later. Margolies managed to escape to England, and from there he continued on to the USA; he died in New York in 1953, and, in accordance with his last will and testament, was buried in Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem. Recordings of his performances, which were never published, are found in the archives of " ANU – Museum of the Jewish People, " in Tel Aviv.
31 photographs. Size and condition vary. Good overall condition. Stains and minor blemishes.