The Stern Collection

In 1994, the Jewish Museum Vienna acquired the extensive collection of Eli Stern, which comprises, among others, books, ritual objects, textiles and documents, as well as a particularly captivating assortment of some 2,300 postcards dating from 1900 to 1950. Rich in variety and of wildly differing origins, the postcards mirror the many perspectives of the time on the ‘Holy Land’, with idealized German-language cards aimed at Catholic pilgrims side by side with pictorials showing the modern urban planning and Bauhaus architecture of Tel Aviv by pioneers of the Zionist movement, as well as a few isolated postcards from neighboring Arab lands. A further theme covered in the collection is East European Jewry, with Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Polish postcards depicting everyday life and customs as well as portraits of local luminaries.