Elijah Menaḥem ben Abba Mari Ḥalfan was a kabbalist and humanist who lived in Venice. He worked as a physician and was educated in both philosophy and rabbinic literature. He was an associate of the Portuguese Jewish messianic pretender Solomon Molkho and is known for his openness to interacting with—and even teaching Hebrew to—Christian scholars.
Moses ben Abraham Pescarol’s illuminated scroll of Esther, completed in Ferrara, constitutes one of the oldest and most unusual examples of illustrated manuscripts of this biblical book, which is…
Jacob’s Ladder, painted by Grobman after immigrating to Israel, continues the artistic approach he formulated in the 1960s in the Soviet Union—i.e., “magical symbolism,” which used mystical imagery…