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Amulets often took the form of Bes, a minor Egyptian deity, who was understood to guard mothers in childbirth and their babies. Bes is often shown with a feathered headdress and a grotesque face, a…
This page from a kabbalistic manuscript depicts the inner processes of the divine (the sefirot). Visualization plays an important part in kabbalah, and these diagrams provided a divine cartography…
This faience amulet from Lachish depicts the Egyptian goddess Isis sitting on a throne and holding her son, the god Horus, on her lap, a common artistic motif in Egyptian amulets. The legs are broken…
These pages come from the same manuscript of a midrashic commentary. The first image depicts the inner processes of the divine emanations (the sefirot). Visualization plays an important part in…
According to the colophon, Natan Hammerschlag’s Ilan de-adam kadmon (Sefirotic Diagram of the First Man) was copied from the writings of Ḥayim Vital, the most prominent disciple of Isaac Luria…
The art of chiromancy (palmistry), which divines a person’s nature and often his or her future by examining the palm and fingers (and sometimes forehead), dates back to the ancient Near East and…
Kabbalists prayed using the basic Jewish prayers, but added certain elements according to their own tradition. The prayers are often presented with kavanot (special devotional forms, meanings, and…
This astrological calendar contains a zodiac rota, divided into twelve astrological signs. The rota was one of the authoritative schemata that kabbalists used to map the structure of the sefirot, the…
This impressive cut-paper birth amulet is in the form of the double eagle, the symbol of the Habsburg Monarchy (and pre-partition Poland) and thus a popular motif in Galician Jewish folk art. It is…
The Mesopotamian demon Pazuzu, depicted here in a combination of human and animal features, was invoked to prevent the malicious actions of the demon Lamashtu, who was believed to endanger newborn…
