Showing Results 1 - 10 of 15
This terra-cotta model of a shrine from Tirzah stands 8 inches (21 cm) tall. The façade has an entrance with a grooved threshold flanked by fluted pilasters, with inward-curling volute capitals topped…
The Rema Synagogue, named after the famous rabbi and scholar Moses Isserles (known by the Hebrew acronym “Rema”), was built in 1553 in the city of Kazimierz (today a district of Kraków). It was…
This wooden Torah ark and its two cathedrae (chairs), from the Scuola Grande Synagogue in Mantua, Italy, date from 1543. Decorated with gilt carvings and architectural elements, they were meant to…
The use of wall niches for Torah scrolls was a feature of some of the earliest synagogues and continues today in Mizrahi communities. This striking faience-tile mosaic structure would have decorated a…
This Torah ark, installed in a synagogue in the Italian town of Urbino, is a fine example of Renaissance Judaica. Carved from walnut in the early sixteenth century, the ark belonged to the Sephardic…
Home to a Jewish community from at least the thirteenth century, Pesaro later became the refuge of Portuguese and Spanish Jews in the sixteenth century. In 1642, a few years after the town’s Jews were…
For German Jews, it was traditional in the wedding ceremony for the groom to perform the ritual of breaking a glass in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple by hurling it or banging it against…
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…
The Rema Synagogue, named after the famous rabbi and scholar Moses Isserles (known by the Hebrew acronym “Rema”), was built in 1553 in the city of Kazimierz (today a district of Kraków). It was…
Shown here are two slightly different reconstructions of the Tabernacle based on the Bible’s descriptions; many details derive from educated guesses. The first shows the sanctuary compound with its…
