How old is that cup?
The Toledo Museum of Art — that’s Toledo, Ohio — just acquired a 12th-century Afghan kiddush cup for a cool $4 million, a record for a ceremonial object of Judaica. (The previous high was $1.6 million, for a Rothschild Torah Ark.)
It’s one of the oldest of the 25 medieval pieces of Judaica that are known to exist, and it calls attention to the Jewish community that once had lived in modern-day Afghanistan, and to the Silk Road that went through the region, uniting Jews and Muslims.
The kiddush cup’s elegant Arabic and Hebrew motifs illustrate this nicely. Alongside the Hebrew name of the object’s owner — Simcha, or in English, joy — are a series of Arabic dedicatory phrases that also appear on other relics from the period, Sharon Liberman Mintz told Noah Hirsch-Rechter for a story in the Forward. (Ms. Mintz is an international senior specialist in Judaica at Sotheby’s New York.) The word surur, “joy” in Arabic, is written twice, which likely is a reference to Simcha’s name, and is why Sotheby’s called the artifact the “Cup of Joy,” Ms. Mintz said.
“To be in the presence of something so old, that had such meaning, and that was so often used — it’s electrifying,” she said. “When people look at it, they’re just mesmerized.”
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