Yiddish Book of Customs

Carrying books and knowledge, itinerant rabbis and scholars traveled between communities, facilitating cultural exchange. 

Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Marranos encountered each other in Italian cities, developing community structures that later influenced Jewish communal organization throughout the western world.

Early modern Jews both preserved tradition and innovated, Documents and legal texts reveal rich details about synagogue life, marriage, family relations, and death rituals.