Purim Page (Mi-she-nikhnas adar)

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…

By the early twentieth century, many Jewish women in Algeria dressed in European clothing for daily activities. Yet many also continued to dress in their traditional garb for ceremonial and…

This is an example of the sort of necklaces worn by Jewish girls and women in Sana‘ (Yemen) on festive occasions, to display their dowries and represent the wealth of their families. Its two…

Jewish brides in Sana‘ (Yemen) traditionally wore a large necklace composed of dugag, large silver filigree beads, as part of their wedding ensemble. The dugag are hollow spheres that ring against…

The machine-woven rugs produced by the Torah u-mel’aḥah trade school in Jerusalem for export to France were typically red and rectangular (similar to Turkish prayer carpets), and they featured the…

Flags like this, made of paper, decorated, and attached to a stick—sometimes with an apple and a small lit candle atop it—were commonly carried by children during Simḥat Torah celebrations. The…