Marilyn Monroe's 1922 Jewish prayer book up for sale
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Marilyn Monroe's Jewish prayer book is now up sale. (Private collection of Charles Casillo)
Bidders may not have a prayer of snagging Marilyn Monroe’s 1956 Ford Thunderbird in an LA auction next month – but they might be able to own her siddur on Long Island.
The cream-colored Jewish prayer book from 1922 — whose starting bid is $4,600 — is being sold at an auction by J. Greenstein & Co. on Nov. 12 in Cedarhurst, the Times of Israel reported.
The Thunderbird is expected to fetch up to $500,000 five days later.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The prayer book is being sold on behalf of its current owner, an American living in Israel who bought it from Monroe’s estate in 1999, according to The Jewish Chronicle.
The “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” star converted to Judaism in 1956 when she married playwright Arthur Miller, who was of Polish-Jewish descent.
The book – which bears the imprint of Miller’s synagogue, the Avenue N Jewish Center in Brooklyn — was previously put up for auction in 2017 and went unsold.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Rabbi Robert Goldburg of Congregation Mishkan Israel in New Haven, Conn., oversaw Monroe’s conversion and officiated at the couple’s Jewish wedding a few days after the civil ceremony in White Plains, NY.
Though the couple divorced five years later, the rabbi said Monroe had told him that she was still committed to being Jewish.
“Marilyn was not an intellectual person, but she was sincere in her desire to learn,” Goldburg wrote in a letter after her death in 1962, the Chronicle reported.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“She indicated that she was impressed with the rationalism of Judaism, its ethical and prophetic ideals and its concept of close family life,” he said.
Monroe apparently put the prayer book to good use. Its description says it features notes that are “apparently in her hand” and that the spine is nearly detached.
“Omit,” reads an annotation next to some prayers, according to The Washington Post.“Skip.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Auction house owner Jonathan Greenstein said that “deep inside, she has a Jewish soul.”
“She took it very seriously, even after she left Arthur Miller. She considered herself Jewish,” he told The Washington Post.
The siddur “has had a lifetime of wear in the very short period from the time she was married to Miller to her death. She probably was very attached to it,” Greenstein added.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Despite using her siddur, playing the Israeli national anthem occasionally and keeping a mezuza (a box containing Hebrew scripture that’s meant to protect the home) on her door frame, Monroe did not get a Jewish burial, the Chronicle reported.