Ketubah recording the marriage of the groom David son of Baruch Litshinsky with the bride Leah Freida daughter of R. Yaakov Zelitonovitz. Shanghai, Sivan 1909.
Printed frame crowned with a Star of David, with various decorations in dark purple ink.
The text of the ketubah and the opening blessings are handwritten.
The Jewish community in Shanghai was established at the end of the 19th century when Iraqi Jewish merchants and manufacturers traveled from India to the Far East with the expanding British Empire following the First Opium War. After the Bolshevik (Russian) Revolution in 1917 Russian Jewish refugees escaped to Shanghai as well. During WWII, Shanghai became the destination of many European refugees and yeshiva students.
This ketubah, which was written at the turn of the 20th century, contains Ashkenazic names (the bride, groom as well as witnesses: "Yitzchak son of Moshe Avraham Schissel" and "Chaim Braunstein"), but the opening verses - "In the name of the most merciful, may He be blessed" - are in accordance with the Indian rite of the Jews of Cochin.
37X32 cm. Fair-good condition. Dampstains. Stains, folding marks and creases to margins.
There are no ketubot from Shanghai in the collection of ketubot of the NLI.