Showing Results 31 - 40 of 166
This Torah shield was cast in silver in Hamburg, Germany. Partly gilt and adorned with precious stones, four crowns sit at its center, framed by symmetrical columns on either side that are encircled…
These gilt-silver finials—which bear the Hebrew calendar year of 5502 (1742)—are considered the earliest dated finials from Iraq. On top of each finial is a miniature ḥamsa, a charm in the shape of a…
The back of this brass Hanukkah lamp from Morocco is adorned with birds and a row of keyhole-shaped windows. The ring at top is designed to allow the lamp to be hung outside on a doorpost, a custom…
This photo shows a reconstruction of the cella, or inner sanctum, of the Arad sanctuary as it is thought to have appeared in its last phase. At the rear stands a 35-inch-tall (90 cm) pillar of…
Though he later turned to a more abstract style, Elbert Weinberg was still making figurative sculptures in the early 1950s, when a trend toward pure abstraction was already dominant. But Ritual Figure…
Simeon Solomon’s Carrying the Scrolls of Law, like other pre-Raphaelite paintings, explores the themes of spirituality and religious devotion. Solomon also explores the beauty of the young man…
This basin from Kuntillet Ajrud is much too large to have been used for a practical purpose—it weighs more than 300 pounds (136 kg) and is large enough for two adults to sit in. The inscription…
In Ashkenazic communities, circumcision benches with two seats were sometimes used from the nineteenth century on, one for the sandek, the godfather on whose lap the baby boy is circumcised, and one…
This ewer and basin from Turkey were used to wash hands ritually during the Passover seder. Owned by the Benguiat family, a large and prominent Sephardic family in the Ottoman Empire, the objects…
In the new religious revival, the theologians and philosophers have it easy; they can battle about the nature of revelation endlessly in the pages of Commentary. Parents and householders, on the other…
