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Kibbutz Netzer Sereni was established by Holocaust survivors from the Buchenwald concentration camp. In fact, its original name was Kibbutz Buchenwald. It is now named for Enzo Sereni, an Italian…
Paper cuts have been a tradition of Jewish folk art, with the earliest record of one dating to the fourteenth century. Given the widespread availability of paper in Europe by the mid-nineteenth…
Amulets often took the form of Bes, a minor Egyptian deity, who was understood to guard mothers in childbirth and their babies. Bes is often shown with a feathered headdress and a grotesque face, a…
The Hebrew word Shaddai—another name for God—is etched in the center of this ornate silver amulet from Italy.
This Torah binder, made for boys at birth and later brought by young men as a symbol of participation in the synagogue, illustrates the fixed nature of traditional gender expectations.
This printed amulet to protect a woman in childbirth features a central scene depicting Adam and Eve and several animals in the Garden of Eden, with a snake coiled around the forbidden “tree of…
Printed amulet for an infant girl from Germany. It was (presumably) printed alongside its companion amulet for a male child (see “Amulet for a Newborn Boy”). However, the pair were separated. A woman…
Silver amulet typical of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Italian Jewish homes. This example from Venice is unusual in that it contains an unidentified family coat of arms whose main feature is a…
Printed birth amulet. The decorative borders are composed of printers’ devices and decorations that were used by printers in Fürth (Bavaria), so it is assumed that this amulet was printed in that city…
This German amulet is printed with unique designs. The names of the three angels, Sanoi, Sansanoi, and Smangalaf, indicate the use of this amulet as birth protection for mother and child, as…
