Items that Alan Dershowitz acquired over many years will go on the block March 1
ENLARGEWhen Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer and constitutional scholar, retired from Harvard Law School in 2013 and returned to his hometown of New York City—though based on how often I’ve seen him on TV lately he’s leading a fairly busy retirement—he was forced to downsize.
“It marks the end of one part of my life,” Mr. Dershowitz said over the phone from Miami Beach where he has a second home.
He was referring not just to leaving Harvard but also his large house in Cambridge, Mass. There was enough room that he was able to indulge his passion for collecting Judaica.
“I gave students a one-hour Jewish-history lesson using the Judaica,” he recalled. And if he’s like any other self-respecting collector, each artifact came with a breathless story of how he acquired it.
ENLARGE“I’m in Miami Beach walking down the flea markets on Lincoln Road,” he said of a recent prize, “and I found a stamp used to identify Jews during the Holocaust—$75.”
“She doesn’t know,” he added, referring to his wife, Carolyn Cohen, a psychologist. “The deal is I can put anything in my office.”
Twenty-eight items from Mr. Dershowitz’s collection of Judaica are going on the auction block March 1. They include a 1935 painting of a yeshiva student by Emmanuel Mane-Katz, who was affiliated with the art movement known as the Jewish School of Paris. It carries an auction estimate of $25,000 to $35,000.
“I was a yeshiva student at that age,” explained Mr. Dershowitz, who attended Yeshiva University High School in Brooklyn. “It had significance. You have to make choices.”
ENLARGEThere is also an important Megillah, the scroll from the Book of Esther read on the Jewish holiday of Purim. “It has the names of all the towns and places it went through,” Mr. Dershowitz said. The Megillah, made in Jerusalem in the early 20th century, had a silver bell-shaped period casing. It carries an auction estimate of $6,000 to $8,000.
An uncle of the attorney’s found it while traveling through Poland shortly after World War II. “At the end of the Holocaust there were much more Judaica than Jews,” he said, adding that the Book of Esther has special resonance for him. “It’s the only book [of the Hebrew Bible] that doesn’t mention God.”
He’s a strong believer that Jews shouldn’t count on the Almighty. “God has not done well by us during the Holocaust and at other times,” Mr. Dershowitz said
MORE URBAN GARDNER COLUMNS
- Learning by Doing at the Children’s Museum Feb. 23, 2016
- A Sweet Homage to an Old Upper West Side Bakery Feb. 21, 2016
- A Gallery Visit Is All Over the MapsFeb. 17, 2016
- More Women Build Careers in Construction Feb. 16, 2016
- Museum of Sex Demotes the X Feb. 15, 2016
Jonathan Greenstein, whose company J. Greenstein & Co. is hosting the auction in Cedarhurst, L.I., described Mr. Dershowitz’s collection as “eclectic.” It includes Kiddush cups, menorahs and a large brass charity box from Israel.
Mr. Dershowitz isn’t selling everything. Among the pieces he’s keeping are a Star of David Torah piece that he found in China, with Chinese characters. “I found it at a store that sold old carpets,” he remembered. “I had to argue with the customs authorities to let me take it out.”
There’s also a watch made before the Holocaust with a picture of Moses and the Ten Commandments. He found it on a 1990 visit to Munich.
When he asked the merchant whether he had other similar things, “He thought I meant Nazi stuff.”
He showed Mr. Dershowitz an Adolf Hitler doll that gave the Nazi salute. The lawyer also purchased that, though not for his personal collection. “I took it to the prosecutor and turned the guy in. I think it’s the last time he sold to anybody.”
“I bought lots of items in Germany,” he added. “I think it’s important to rescue items from Germany.”
In “Finding, Framing, and Hanging Jefferson,” a 2007 book he wrote about a Thomas Jefferson letter he found, he cites our third president on the eternal remorse of letting a coveted item slip through your fingers. “Their eyes are forever turned back to the object they have lost and its recollection poisons the residue of their lives,” Mr. Jefferson wrote.
“So I’m going to keep collecting,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “Even as I sell my stuff.”
—ralph.gardner@wsj.com