The challah cover was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010 by Louise Lawrence-Israels.
Square, pink silk challah cover with short, pink chainette edge fringe stitched to an off white linen backing. There are four lines of Hebrew text satin-stitched in brown metallic thread in the upper center. Below is a satin-and-stem-stitched embroidered design of a serving pitcher atop a circular platter in off white, brown, light green, and brown metallic thread and brown metallic ribbon. Below the pitcher is an embroidered triangular leaf in the center of a garland in green, white, and black thread and brown metallic ribbon. The cloth is stained blue around the garland.
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overall: Height: 20.875 inches (53.023 cm) | Width: 21.375 inches (54.293 cm)
Fringed, pink, challah cover that belonged to Louise Lawrence-Israel's family and was buried for safekeeping before they left Haarlem, Netherlands, and went into hiding in Amsterdam in January 1943. The cover, a special cloth used to cover the two braided loaves of challah bread at Sabbath dinner, was embroidered with a Hebrew passage,"Eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a good heart" from Ecclesiastes 9 : 7. Germany occupied the Netherlands on May 10, 1940. In January 1943, the family went into hiding. In late 1943, it became too dangerous to house the family together. With assistance from the Dutch underground, part of the family moved to a different hiding place. Amsterdam was liberated by the Canadian Army on May 5, 1945. Some family members returned to Haarlem, and recovered the cover after the war ended. Other family members had gone to Sweden, and the relatives did not learn that they were all alive until 1948. Many other family members were killed during the Holocaust.
Embroidered pink silk challah cover buried for safekeeping while the owner was in hiding