A Torah Curtain and Its Original Owner

The Hebrew Dedication

The Hebrew inscrip­tion on the Torah curtain itself tells us important informa­tion about the object’s history. Here is an English translation:

“Donated on behalf of G-d, presented as a gift to the eldest of the chavurah, our teacher and rabbi Rav Elchanan Gumpertz, may the Lord protect him and grant him long life, for his seven­tieth birthday; in gratitude for his great commit­ment, which he has shown for many years at the rabbinical seminary. From the board of the rabbinical seminary, 9th of Elul 5681 [12 September 1921].”

Thanks to this inscription, we know that the original owner of the Torah curtain was named Elchanan Gumpertz, that he was a scholar, turned 70 in 1921, and was deeply involved with a rabbinical seminary. On the basis of this very detailed informa­tion, the person in question could be iden­tified unequi­vocally as Hermann Elchanan Gumpertz of Hamburg (1851–1938).

The Torah Curtain’s Original Owner

Rabbi Hermann Elchanan Gumpertz was born in Frank­furt am Main. In 1879, he married Therese Treindel May in Hamburg, where he quickly made a name for himself. At age thirty-two, he was appointed to the board of the Asso­ciation of Syna­gogues and was soon named its chair. He held many more offices and honorary roles: among others, he joined the Chief Rabbinate as an honorary dayan (rabbinic judge or rabbinical assistant) and later as a rabbinical adminis­trative deputy (Rabbinats­verweser). He founded the Schass-Chewro (Talmud Society) and the Hamburg Associa­tion for Jewish History and Literature and co-founded the Jewish Literary Society. He was also a board member of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (literally the Universal Isrealite Alliance) and president of the Steinthal Lodge.

Hermann Gumpertz was also involved at the national level and for many years was the chairman of the board of trustees of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary. The “Rabbi­nical Seminary for Orthodox Judaism” was founded in October 1873 by Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer in Berlin. The curriculum of this institution for training rabbis combined academic studies with the study of the Torah and Jewish sources. Its synagogue and class­rooms were initially located at Gipsstraße 12a before being relocated to Artilleriestrasse 31–32 (on what is now Tucholsky­strasse). The Rabbinical Seminary itself was housed on the ground floor of the building’s left wing; the seminarians prayed in the synagogue room known as the “Bachurim Shul,” located directly above it up one flight of stairs.

Hermann Gumpertz’s son Fritz Schalom Gumpertz, born in 1888, studied at the Berlin Rabbi­nical Seminary from 1910 to 1912 in addition to attending medical school in Heidelberg.

Does a Gift Reflect the Recipient’s Personality?

Character­izations of Hermann Elchanan Gumpertz, both in articles from the period and descriptions by people who knew him, repeatedly emphasize his erudition and his humility.

“Hermann Gumpertz was well-versed in all areas of the Torah and secular education, belonging to an increasingly rare group of learned baalebatim [middle class people], who by serving as an example and role model inspired and encouraged people far and wide to embrace traditional, authentic observant Judaism, Torah teachings and their fulfillment and affirmation in life. And he did so with a self-assurance and straightforwardness that everyone admired in him.” 
—P. [Anonymous]: “ Zum Heimgange Hermann Gumpertz” (On Hermann Gumpert’s Passing), in: Der Israelit 79 (1938) 33, p. 11. Translated to English for this website from the German.

Legend has it that Gumpertz was still teaching Talmud students from his deathbed just three days before his passing. At the end of the lesson, Gumpertz drifted out of consciousness, but he briefly revived two more times. The first time, he wanted to say kiddush, the blessing over wine on Shabbat. The second time, he asked for his tallit (prayer shawl) and his tefillin (prayer straps or phylacteries), which he put on, then died shortly thereafter.

Compared to other Torah curtains from the same period, which are sometimes richly decorated with multi-colored ornamen­tation or imagery, the matter-of-fact design and straight lines of Gumpertz’s Torah curtain stand out. This is probably an aesthetic reflection of its previous owner’s scholarly character.

Who was Hermann Gumpertz and What Became of Him?

Provenance researchers often delves deeply into the life stories of objects’ former owners. With that in mind, who was the man to whom this Torah curtain once belonged?

Hermann Elchanan Gumpertz was born on 6 September 1851 in Frankfurt am Main, where he attended the Hirsch Real­schule (secondary school) and received a neo-Orthodox Jewish education in the tradition of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. His teachers included Rabbi Moshe Main and Rabbi Zalmen Posen in Frankfurt am Main as well as Rabbi Josef Dov HaLevi Bam­berger in Würzburg.

In May 1879, Hermann Gumpertz married Therese Treindel May in Hamburg. She was the daughter of Simon May, who came from a prominent and prosperous family of business­people in Hamburg. He was a cousin of Samson Raphael Hirsch and parness (community leader) of the Jewish Community in Hamburg.

The family has held onto a personal poem that was presumably written for Hermann and Therese Gumpertz’s wedding. The poem repeatedly invokes the word May, which was both the bride’s maiden name and the month of their wedding:

“What began today and tomorrow will be, 
May it bask in happiness, and blessed may it be, 
Long live this moment, in the future to stay, 
For Therese and Hermann, an eternal May.”