Showing Results 1 - 10 of 38
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 siddur from Greece contains the prayers of the Romaniote (Greek-speaking Jewish) community of the eastern Mediterranean. It is open at a piyyut (liturgical poem) called “God’s Beloved Daughter,”…
This is the title page of Me‘on ha-sho’alim (L’abitacolo degli oranti; Abode of the Supplicants), by the poet and translator Devorà Ascarelli, a member of the Catalan community in Rome. Me‘on ha-sho…
This flyer calls for the Jewish community to pay a ransom to rescue Jewish captives from the 1686 siege of Buda, which resulted in the capture of the Hungarian city from the Ottoman Empire by armies…
This illustration from a book of prayers for the Jewish Gravediggers Society depicts the cycle of life. Figures of men and women in pairs ascend and descend the staircase, progressing from youth to…
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 physician and surgeon Issachar Baer Teller received his medical training by studying and practicing with other physicians in Prague. He completed his studies under the guidance of Joseph Solomon…
Isaac Luria , known as “the holy ARI” (an acronym of his name, meaning “lion”), was one of the most significant figures in Jewish mysticism, famed for pioneering a new conception of theoretical…
Built by the non-Jewish architect Michael Kemmeter, the Alte Synagoge (Synagogue) was the first edifice in Berlin built specifically to serve this function. Originally known as the Heidereutergasse…
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…
