Collection of postcards and greeting cards sent by Jewish soldiers, mostly with new year's greetings. Italy and elsewhere (some without exact location, the address generally described as "Europe", "far away", "The Persia and Iraq Command"), early-mid 1940s.
The collection comprises some 150 cards, mostly featuring unit emblems and their Hebrew names – The Jewish Brigade; 1st Palestinian Light Anti-Aircraft Battery; The Palestine Regiment (1st, 2nd and 3rd battalions); and numerous others.
Several greetings mention the historical significance of the upcoming year – "on the eve of victory and redemption"; "may it be a year of endurance and revival of the people and the land"; "good wishes to my country from among the ruins of Europe"; and more.
In addition to the official unit "shana tovah" cards, the collection includes rare cards, some printed in color or in limited numbers: • Illustrated "shana tovah" greeting to the children of Rome, with the original envelope. • Card reading "If you will it, it is no dream" (Hebrew), illustrated with an airplane carrying released soldiers to Jerusalem. • Hand-made folding greeting card, presented by the Jewish Transport Company in honor of Passover 1944. • Additional rare cards.
Several cards with original envelopes, stamped with military postmarks and censor marks.
Some 150 greeting cards. Size and condition vary.
Enclosed: "With the Brigade on Its Journeys" – a hand-made folding leaflet showing the brigade's imaginary route across Europe, a map of Palestine and a memorial tablet. Inscription to back: "Kibbutz Dorot 1951".
Provenance: The Dr. Haim Grossman collection.

Dr. Chaim Grossman's Israeliana collection is exceptional in size, quality and variety. Grossman, an educator, historian and folklorist, was a methodical, knowledgeable and meticulous collector, and his deep understanding of Palestinian-Yishuv and Israeli material culture set the ground for a one-of-a-kind collection of mundane and less than mundane objects – from the ephemeral, the negligible, the widely available to the rare and singular.
The "shana tovah" collection left by Grossman – a considerable part of which is offered in the present auction – comprises thousands of postcards, cards, letters and other paper items made and sent year after year in, by and for Jewish communities: in Eastern and Western Europe, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, North Africa, North and South America, as part of the tradition of sending hand-written, hand-drawn or printed new year’s greetings, which originated in German Jewry but with the rise of postcards spread to most communities. The earliest items in the collection date to the 1860s; the latest were made in the late 20th century. It includes both beautifully designed, rare, early and singular postcards and cards, and mass-made, highly popular items sold in large quantities, in varying production quality and in dozens of repeating versions, each according to the technical abilities achieved by the local publication industry.
The collector's devotion to his collection is evident in the sheer number of items, in the wealth of techniques, visuals and themes, and in the thorough, intersectional categorization by period, origin, motif, technique and material. Glitter and relief embossing, scraps, lace and golden ink, lithography and celluloid transparencies, plastic, textile and metal decorations; Yiddish, Hebrew, English, Russian, French, Polish, German greetings; children, angels, families, pets, immigrants, travelers, professionals; portraits and tinted reproductions; Judaism, Zionism, the state, the army; the ritual and the mundane; any new year's greeting, in any form whatsoever, had a place in Grossman's collection and was honored as a historical testimony, as a timeless, invaluable treasure.