Showing Results 1 - 10 of 13
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.
The wealthy Sephardic family of Curiel d’Acosta is believed to have commissioned the artist Romeyn de Hooghe to make this large pen-and-ink drawing to commemorate the circumcision, in Amsterdam, of a…
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…
This silk cushion cover, embroidered with metallic thread and metallic braid, is thought to have been made in Istanbul. Divided into two horizontal planes, with a narrow border running on three of its…
This silver circumcision set was crafted in Salonika in the Ottoman Empire. The cylindrical silver casket holds a circumcision knife; its handle is made from agate. A similarly shaped powder box and…
In Ashkenazic communities, circumcision benches with two seats were sometimes used from the nineteenth century on, one for the sandek, the godfather on whose lap the baby boy is circumcised, and one…
Circumcision in an Egyptian relief, Sakkara, Egypt, Sixth Dynasty (ca. 2350–2170 BCE). Priests perform circumcision on boys. The hieroglyphic legend reads “circumcision.” The hands of the boy on the…
This decorated manuscript of the prayers for a circumcision ceremony was owned by one Joseph ben Samuel. On its title page (not shown) is an unidentified coat of arms decorated with the Order of the…
This silver plate from Padua, Italy, was made for use in the brit milah, the circumcision ritual celebrated when a baby boy is eight days old. In this detailed depiction of the ritual, the baby seems…
This is the frontispiece of a 1661 edition of Synagoga Judaica, a study of the customs and culture of German Jewry by Christian Hebraist, and polemical critic of Judaism, Johannes Buxtorf the Elder…
