Reply To: Traditional Spelling of Cambridge (MA) for ketubah?

I could have put anything I wanted. I was typesetting it myself.

we thought of putting in the rivers, etc., but I (and the Mesader) were satisfied that the chief judge of the Bet Din would know the correct spelling of the second largest city in his district. The spelling of Massachusetts I took right off the Bet Din’s letterhead. If anyone’s interested or has googled this to find the spelling, it’s ???????? ???????????. If your computer is not set up for hebrew, that’s Mem-Alef-Samech-Alef-Tet-Shin-Vav-Samech-Ayin-Tet-Samech.

The name of Cambridge and Massachusetts also appears in English in the Brit Ketubah to the right of the Hebrew, so there is no doubt about the locale. How about the latitude and longitude? Has anyone tried that?

If this ketubah is not kosher, it is not due to misidentifying the location.

To end the story: We got the ketubah back from the printers, and it came out looking just stunningly lovely.

I knew what every word meant, and what I was agreeing to, since I had been over them so many times, and had improved the English translation. My bride appreciated the great effort I put into making the ketubah, since I forced her to see every draft, every day for ten days. My wife loves her ketubah.

I’m not even sure I want to have an artist adorn it now, since the text and typography itself is a work of art.