Photograph: Mogilev citizen Gershen Faktor (half-face).

European Jews

Mogilev Guberniya, city Mogilev

1866

Museum of the Peoples of the USSR

Salt paper print

14,4 x 11; 21 x 15,8

РЭМ 8764-21528

The surname Faktor originates from the Polish “factor,” which means an agent or broker. On the man’s head and shoulders, over a long coat, is a “talith,” a praying shawl with tassels (“tzitzit”) on its corners. The talith and the tzitzit tassels are important elements of a Jew’s praying attire. The Torah requires that the Jews make tzitzit (tassels) on edges of their garments, in order to glance at them and remember all the mandatory commandments of the Almighty. The photograph was displayed at the Russian Ethnographic Exhibition of 1867 in Moscow.