Omer Board

Artist Unknown

1730

Framed piece of paper with three columns of text: single letters in left column, numbers in middle column, and Hebrew text in right column.
Shearith Israel was the first Jewish congregation established in North America, and the only Jewish congregation in New York City from 1654 until 1825. Between 1654 and 1730, it met in rented quarters, consecrating its first building in 1730 on Mill Street. This omer board is believed to date from this period of Shearith Israel’s history. It is used to keep count in the ritual of counting the forty-nine days from the first day on which the omer (a unit of measurement) of barley was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem (now the first night of Passover) until the day before the holiday of Shavuot, when an offering of wheat was made.

Credits

Congregation Shearith Israel, New York, photo by DLW Photography. © 2021 by the Posen Foundation.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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