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Although few examples of the work of embroiderer Jacob Koppel Gans remain, he is best known for this Torah ark curtain and valance, dating to 1772 or 1773, made of velvet and embroidered with metallic…
The purpose of the Torah crown is visually to augment the status of the Torah scroll, emphasizing its importance and centrality to Jewish life. These magnificent silver ornaments are placed over the…
This glimpse into an eighteenth-century German Jewish marriage ceremony offers an opportunity to consider how gender roles have changed for this vital ritual.
The Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest is the largest synagogue in Europe, and the second largest in the world, capable of accommodating three thousand people. The Moorish- and Byzantine-inspired…
Congregation Shearith Israel was the first Jewish congregation established in North America, and the only Jewish congregation in New York City from 1654 until 1825. Between 1654 and 1730, it used…
Designed in the German neoclassical style, the Wörlitz synagogue was modeled on Rome’s Temple of Vesta, featuring a circular building with a conical roof. It was commissioned by Prince Leopold…
Janów, Poland, was home to a unique wooden synagogue. The town was settled by Jews toward the end of the seventeenth century, and, by 1739, the Jewish population formed the majority of the town’s…
The Grand Synagogue of Lyon was built shortly after the establishment of a regional consistory by Emperor Napoleon III and the appointment of a regional chief rabbi. In 1858, a new synagogue for the…
The kapporet is a short valance hung over the curtain of the Torah ark that first began to appear in Eastern Europe in the late seventeenth century. The griffins and crowns that appear on this kappore…
The women’s prayer section depicted in this painting gives a rare glimpse into the ways that women have asserted their agency and voices even in gender-segregated spaces.
