Bar Mitzvah Tallis, New York, circa 1940

This picture was just too irresistible.

Boy in Tallis

This photo of an intrepid bar mitzvah boy wrapped in his bar mitzvah tallis is from the Matson Collection. He is wearing his bar mitzvah tallis according to the German (and Yemenite) custom.

Notice the sign in the background with its anglicized Yiddish. The Hebrew letters read:

FERLANKT EKSPERIENSD
DRESS MEKERINS
TZU DRESSIS
OIF A GUTTE
SKVIRT MEKERIN

Presumably the photo was taken in New York on the Lower East Side, circa 1940.