A culture of holiday greetings
developed in Germany between 1890 and 1910. Hundreds of paintings and illustrations of Jewish life were reproduced as postcards which were then traded, collected and sent off to family and friends. Holiday cards are often sentimental, then and now. The historical motifs show scenes of family harmony, and they bestow a certain lightness on the Jewish holidays. The cards are characterized by memories of bygone times and images of Eastern European Jewish customs. They evoke religious traditions as they wane and change. But as collectibles, the cards also represent commitments to Jewish culture in the years of emancipation and assimilation before World War I.
On Rosh ha-Shanah, ten days of repentance, contemplation and reflection begin. The time is spent assessing one’s actions and reconciling with those we have offended, which the two men shaking hands evidently want to demonstrate. 
Men and women gather at a lake, river or sea for "tashlikh," a Jewish New Year’s custom, and recite passages from the book of the prophet Micah. Just before sunset, they throw bread crumbs into the water, symbolically casting away their sins and wrongdoings of the past year.
At the beginning of the 20th century, when this photo was taken, some eastern Europeans still carried out a contested tradition called "kapores shlogen," which enacted a transfer of personal sins onto an animal, in this case, a hen. It was not practiced in western Europe.
This New Year’s greeting casts the old, Jewish tradition in a contemporary, expressionist design. "MOPP," as the Austrian painter Max Oppenheimer (1885–1954) was nicknamed, belonged to Europe’s artistic avant-garde, together with his friends Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka.
"May you be inscribed" is a common good wish on this "day of judgment." It derives from the desire to receive a positive evaluation from God and be inscribed in his book of life for a happy and successful year to come.
The knotted fringes on the corners of the tallit, or prayer shawl, are material references to a Biblical passage from the Book of Deutoronomy, where they serve as reminders to comply to God’s commandments.
The fur-covered hats worn here locate the picture in Eastern Europe, where Hasidisim, an orthodox branch of Judaism, was widespread.
While the men wear traditional caftans, the women are dressed according to the popular fin-de-siècle silhouette, though without jewels and ornaments, as a sign of humility.
"You will cast all our sins into the depths of the water" reads the last verse of the book of Micah, after which bread crumbs are thrown into the waves.
The caption reads "This is my substitute." The Yiddish term "kapores" found its way into the German language in the 19th century, and is a possible root of the German word "kaputt" (broken).
Kapores shlogen was gender-specific: women sacrificed a hen, men a cock. The meat of the animal, or alternatively, its monetary equivalent, was donated to the needy, to feed them before and after the Yom Kippur fast.
Biblical passages from the Psalms and the Book of Job were repeated three times during the ritual.
The shofar, a curved horn of a ram, is an ancient instrument from Biblical times. It is blown during prayer services on Rosh ha-Shanah, and also on Yom Kippur, where it sounds the end of the dietary fast.
MOPP painted portraits of many contemporary artists, among them the writers Thomas and Heinrich Mann, the painter Egon Schiele, the actress Tilla Durieux as well as the composers Richard Strauss and Arnold Schönberg. Though his Jewish parents had him bapitzed, Judaism was a frequent theme in his art.
