Objects

The enamelled four-sided tin box with a small oblong opening at the top and a keyed flap at the bottom. The tin was painted in two colours (divided in half along the middle of the wider walls). The left half of the box is white, the right half is blue. On the wider walls there are illustrations and inscriptions. The illustrations and inscriptions placed on the white part of the background are blue and on the blue part white. The front wall has a central Hebrew monogram and a six-pointed star (the Star of David). In the lower left corner there is a blue inscription in Hebrew in verse "Keren Kajemet LeIsrael". On the opposite wall, there is a map (in blue on white) and a six-pointed star (the Star of David) (in white on blue), and above it an inscription (also in white on blue) in Hebrew קרן קיימת לישראל. The inscription קרן קיימת לישראל (Hebrew: Keren Kajemet LeIsrael; English: Jewish National Fund) is an organisation supporting Jewish settlement in Palestine. The monogram on the front wall is the first letters of the organisation's name in Hebrew. Keren Kajemet LeIsrael was founded in 1901 during the Zionist Congress in Basel. Shortly after its creation, a Jewish official from Galicia, Chaim Kleinman, placed a tin in his office, encouraging people to collect money for the Fund's purchase of land in Palestine. It was the beginning of the story of the blue box, known in Yiddish as "the can", produced and distributed by the Fund for decades. In Zionist homes and schools, the cans stood on display and it was a weekly ritual to drop a coin into them before Shabbat. The tin was donated to the Museum by Wiesław Uchański. According to the donor, the tin was found in Grodzisk Mazowiecki at Bałtycka Street, behind a beam in the attic of a former Jewish house which was being demolished. The object was given to the donor by workers for his private collection of historical memorabilia.

Marta Frączkiewicz