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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…
Kehunat Avraham (The Priesthood of Abraham), published in Venice in 1719, is an interpretation and retelling of sections from the book of Psalms in verse. This portrait of its author, Abraham ben…
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 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…
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…
In this seventeenth-century map, Jerusalem is depicted as a fairly dense city within a wall, with only a few structures outside. Men in Arab dress stand in small groups conversing with one another in…
Simcha (Gimar) Belmonte (born Vaz; 1582–1643) was the wife of Jakob Israel Belmonte (a poet, writer, and trader). She and her husband were among the founders of the Jewish community in Amsterdam after…
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…
