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Like Torah scrolls, the scroll of the biblical book of Esther, read ritually in the synagogue on the holiday of Purim, must be completely unadorned. However, in the sixteenth century, for reasons…
This ketubah (marriage contract), was signed in Bayonne, France, whose Jewish community originated with New Christians from Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century. It marks the wedding of Isaac…
According to the colophon, the scribe in Prague who produced the Klausen Book of Psalms, Shabbetai Sheftel ben Zalman Auerbach (d. 1738), was descended from a family expelled from Vienna in 1669/70…
This elaborately decorated title page is from a book of Psalms created by the scribe Nathan ben Samson in Gross Meseritsch, Moravia (today Velké Meziříčí, Czech Republic). On the left is Aaron in his…
This page from a Haggadah produced in Amsterdam is an example of the work of Joseph Ben David, a prominent eighteenth-century scribe and artist known particularly for his illustrated Haggadahs. This…
This magnificent maḥzor (holiday prayer book) was copied—and most likely decorated—by the scribe Isaac bar Mordechai ha-Kohen (Isaac Lankosh of Kraków). (In several places, the name “Isaac” has…
The book of Esther is chanted aloud from a scroll (megillah) on the holiday of Purim. This example from the Netherlands is lavishly decorated, with the Hebrew text framed by arcades between which are…
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…
Hebrew manuscript illustration underwent a revival in eighteenth-century Germany and Central Europe. As wealthy Jews began to commission such manuscripts, a school of scribes and artists emerged. This…
