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Born to converso parents and baptized as Manoel Dias Soeiro, Menasseh Ben Israel moved as a boy with his family to Amsterdam, where they reverted openly to Judaism. In 1626, he established the first…
This was the first printed map of the land of Israel in Hebrew. It was based on an earlier map by a Christian, Kruik van Adrichem, but Jacob Tsaddik removed the illustrations of the life of Jesus that…
The frontispiece of this book of penitential prayers published in Amsterdam, Tikun li-kro’ laylah va-yom (A Tikkun to Read Day and Night) has a three-tiered illustration. The top level depicts Moses…
The Book of Esther (also known as the Scroll [megillah] of Esther) is read out loud on the holiday of Purim. This example of an illustrated scroll from the Netherlands (shown here with a page of…
This is a technical diagram from Joseph Delmedigo’s Sefer Elim (Book of Elim), a scientific and philosophical work published by Menasseh Ben Israel.
The press of Solomon Proops was one of the most prolific and well-known Hebrew presses in eighteenth-century Europe. The printer’s mark used by Proops (which does not appear on all his works) depicts…
This decorated psalter was made for Aaron de Joseph de Pinto, a member of the prominent Portuguese Jewish family in Amsterdam. It is a manuscript, copied from a print edition done by David de Castro…
It is known that one who lacks books lacks knowledge, for a man’s knowledge is limited in its reach by the reach of his books; and there is no artist without tools. Many new books came…
Following his retirement, Hijman Binger created a daily prayer book, drawing its texts from well-known sources and illustrating the manuscript with the help of his children. Completed in 1820, the…
The frontispiece of this book of penitential prayers, printed in Amsterdam by David de Castro Tartas, proclaims the pro-Sabbatean beliefs that were then widespread in the Amsterdam Jewish community…
