Maps of the Holy Land
The Library has a rare copy of an engraving
of Rabbi Enoch Zundel, the first published American engraving of a
contemporary Jew. Rarer still is a map of the Holy Land published in New
York seven years later, in 1840, by another Jerusalem emissary, Jachiel
Bar-Joseph, Map of the Journey of the Children of Israel from Egypt
Through the Desert to the Holy Land and the Dividing of the Same into
Twelve Tribes, by their Lawgiver, Moses.
Lithographed by G. Endicott, 152 Fulton Street, New
York, the map is all in Hebrew and shows the Holy Land dotted with cities,
towns, and tiny historical vignettes. At the banks of the Jordan are the
twelve stones placed there by the Children of Israel; above it is the altar
erected by Joshua; and the tomb of Rachel is marked by a black monument.
Cities are symbolized by buildings which identify them as royal, large,
small, or city of refuge. The cartouche in the upper left-hand corner
depicts a turbaned Rabbi Bar-Joseph, a tallit draped around his shoulder, holding a copy of Hok L'Yisrael, a
biblical commentary beloved by the Sefardi Jews. At the lower right-hand side, Moses stands, rays of light shining from his head, his staff lifted toward the
wanderers in the desert, with the biblical verse, "Turn ye
northward" (Deuteronomy, 2:3).
This exceedingly rare map of
the Holy Land (the Library's may be a unique copy) bears the description:
Map of the journey of the Children of Israel from Egypt through the Desert
to the Holy Land and the Dividing of the Same into Twelve Tribes, by their
Lawgiver Moses, according to scriptures with a portrait of the author.
Rabbi Jachiel Bar-Joseph, from Jerusalem.
The map, lithographed by G. Endicott, 152 Fulton Street, New York, may
well have come to the Library as a copyright deposit, entered by the
"author," an emissary from the Holy Land at the clerk's office
of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of
New York.
Jachiel Bar-Joseph, Map of the Journey of the Children of Israel. .
., New York, 1840. Geography and Map Division.
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The illustrations below the map give it special
importance and impact. Beginning on the left, the seal of the Ashkenazi community of Jerusalem depicts
the Wailing Wall and the mosques
of Omar and Al-Aqsa,
with the biblical verses, "Zion shall be redeemed through justice and
those that return by righteousness" (Isaiah,
1:27) and "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem" (Psalm
137:8). An English description reads: "This seal is the impression
of the German Sinagogue [sic] in Jerusalem." To the right, in Sefardi
Hebrew script, is a receipt for payment of a debt, written in Alexandria,
Egypt, in 1831, and signed in the customary florid style by three Sefardi
rabbis, and Bar-Joseph's printed description reads: "Rabbi Jonoth
Neron and his two associates recommendations." It is of course no such
thing. BarJoseph had the document with him and used it for his own
purposes, certain that no one would ever examine its contents. Further to
the right is a document in Arabic dated 1833, extending protection to three
Austrian Jewish pilgrims, and described as "Certificate from the
Basham of Jerusalem." At furthest right are displayed two sides of a
shekel coin, on one side imprinted "shekel of Israel," on the
other "Of the holy Jerusalem," and to its right, "Impression
of the Seal from the Portuguese Sinagogue [sic] in Jerusalem," a Star
of David with the quotation from Isaiah, 1:27 repeated.
We may surmise that Bar-Joseph was not one of those many
pious and selfless emissaries who travelled the world to seek aid for their
impoverished Holy Land communities. Very likely, he represented only
himself, and his reputation may have preceded him, for the Shearith Israel
Congregation of New York refused him help on November 3, 1839, but on July
23, 1840, allotted him twenty dollars to assure his departure to Europe.
The poor of Jerusalem may not have benefitted from
Bar-Joseph's stay in New York, but the Library of Congress did. It now
holds one of the rarest items of Holy Land cartography, perhaps a unique
copy, which came to it, as the map indicates, as a copyright deposit.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1840 by
Rabbi Jachiel Bar-Joseph in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the
United States for the Southern District of New York.
Jacob Schumacher,
"citizen of the U.S. of N.A." (as he describes himself) and a
Christian religious enthusiast, settled in the Holy Land, and produced
this Plan of the German American Colony near Haifa, for the
Templers, an adventist religious group which established four settlements
of adherents in the Holy Land to await the imminent second coming of the
Messiah. Note the ships Uncle Sam and New York flying the American flag.
Jacob Schumacher, Plan of the German American Colony near Haifa,
1873. Geography and Map Division.
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In the vault of the Library's Geography and Map Division
is a unique map of a section of the Holy Land, an illuminated manuscript
map, Plan of the German American Colony near Haifa, "surveyed
and drawn by Jacob Schumacher citizen of the U.S. of N.A." In ink and
watercolor, the map measures 74 by 105 cm. and is inscribed to the
"Hon. Sh. Schurz, Senator." The reference is to Carl Schurz,
Senator from Missouri, the first German American to enter the U.S. Senate.
Jacob Schumacher, a resident of Zanesville, Ohio, was the first American
"Tempelgesellschaft" (The Temple Society) adherent to settle in
Palestine, arriving there in 1869, for the founding of its colony in Haifa.
The Templers, a Lutheran pietistic, evangelical adventist group
anticipating the imminent second coming of Jesus, established four colonies
in the Holy Land during the nineteenth century to await his arrival.
Schumacher, serving as the architect of the Haifa settlement, was elected
its head. The group had difficulty in getting residence rights from the
Turkish government, and we may surmise that the Plan for a German American
colony was sent to Senator Schurz, to solicit political support. To
underscore the American nature of the enterprise, Schumacher drew two ships
flying American flags off the Palestine coast, the Uncle Sam and the New
York. He may well have been helped in the preparation of the plan and the
drawing of the map by his sixteen-year-old son, Gottlieb, who later became
a leading explorer, cartographer, architect, and archaeologist of the Holy
Land.
Sources:Abraham J. Karp, From
the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress,
(DC: Library of Congress,
1991).
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