Plaquette of Prefect Mendel

This medal with the portrait of the Jewish prefect Mendel was made at the special request of the Jewish Museum in 1935 to commemorate the Jewish National Convention that year. Jacob Mendel was the Jewish prefect between 1493 and 1522; he was practically the leader of the Hungarian Jewish community. In the 1930s the Jewish Museum acquired a copy of a charter in the archives of Kassa (Košice) that contained Mendel’s original seal. The front of the medal contains the Hebrew characters of the monogram of Jacob Mendel together with his coat of arms and a Hungarian inscription. The back of the medal shows Mendel’s portrait based on his original seal with a Hebrew inscription of his title. The inscription in Hungarian says: “to commemorate the Jewish National Convention, Hungarian Jewish Museum, 1935.”