Charity Box with Multiple Keys (R. Meir Baal HaNess) from Eastern Europe

This domestic money box was intended to collect alms for the poor of the Holy Land, collected in the name of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess ("the miracle worker"), a Talmudic figure whose tomb, near Tiberias, is a place of pilgrimage and whose name was associated with charity and the granting of wishes. These boxes, distributed by emissaries (shelichim) who collected funds for the communities of the Holy Land, were present in many households of Eastern Europe. In tin plate, they bear the inscription of the saint and the cause. This object illustrates the bonds of financial solidarity between the diaspora and the old Yishuv.