A culture of holiday greetings developed in Germany between 1890 and 1910. Hundreds of paintings and illustrations of Jewish life were reproduced as postcards which were then traded, collected and sent off to family and friends. Holiday cards are often sentimental, then and now. The historical motifs show scenes of family harmony, and they bestow a certain lightness on the Jewish holidays. The cards are characterized by memories of bygone times and images of Eastern European Jewish customs. They evoke religious traditions as they wane and change. But as collectibles, the cards also represent commitments to Jewish culture in the years of emancipation and assimilation before World War I.
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| Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-1882), who was part of the late Jewish Enlightenment, from the years around 1875. It offers the viewers a glimpse into the living room of a German-Jewish family which has melded religious tradition with a bourgeois lifestyle. |
