Birth Amulet (Tunis)

This impressive cut-paper birth amulet is in the form of the double eagle, the symbol of the Habsburg Monarchy (and pre-partition Poland) and thus a popular motif in Galician Jewish folk art. It is…

Shmuel Schulman’s micrograph is a tribute to Ḥoveve Zion, members of a nineteenth-century Zionist movement that sent pioneers to Palestine to develop settlements funded by Baron Edmond James de…

This linen coat with silk-thread embroidery was worn by a Jewish boy in Bukhara (today in Uzbekistan) on the occasion of his bar mitzvah celebration. Jewish economic life in Bukhara was closely tied…

Baghdad-born Suleiman (Saliman) Menaḥem Mani (1850–1924) held many important posts in Ottoman Palestine, including chief rabbi of Hebron. He was also a Hebrew poet and fiction writer and the author of…

This sumptuous velvet and gilt-metal-thread embroidered Torah ark curtain most likely began its life as the wedding gown of a well-to-do Jewish woman of the Ottoman Empire. It was unstitched and…

This lithograph of a micrographic drawing, believed to be from Poland, reproduces the text of the scroll of Esther in its entirety, as well as prayers and poems for the holiday of Purim. In the center…