More than 10,000 stunning postcards offer a unique and diverse mosaic of Jewish life and culture from the late 19th through the mid-20th century. The collection displays various production formats and techniques, including photographic printing, lithographic, hand-drawn, and mechanical. There are hundreds of credited artists, editors, publishers, and printers, but many contributors are unlisted and remain unknown. The picture, photo, and text postcards capture Jewish people and places in Western and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Soviet Union, Palestine and Israel, North Africa, and the United States, preserving communities and environments that vanished long ago. Synagogues, schools, stores, and marketplaces filled with men, women, and children come to life on the face side of these postcards. Personal messages on the reverse side of the cards reveal daily communications and mirror contemporary attitudes of and toward the Jewish population around the world. 


GEOGRAPHY 

The cards were produced in a wide variety of locations, including Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Palestine and Israel, Belarus, England, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. A limited number come from Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Czech Republic, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.