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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 alms container from Charleston, South Carolina, is made of cast and engraved silver. The cartouche on the front features two rampant lions flanking a menorah. The Hebrew inscriptions read:…
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…
This tombstone of a Torah scholar from Sieniawa, Poland includes motifs and symbols often found on Jewish tombstones in Poland, such as a crown and palm trees. Other common symbols on Jewish…
Following his retirement, Hijman Binger created a daily prayer book, drawing its texts from well-known sources and illustrating the manuscript with the help of his children. Completed in 1820, the…
This Biedermeier-style sofa from Danzig, with birch veneer over pine, may have been commissioned on the occasion of a marriage. The oval on the seat back contains an image of clasped hands, and the…
Paper cuts have been a tradition of Jewish folk art, with the earliest record of one dating to the fourteenth century. Given the widespread availability of paper in Europe by the mid-nineteenth…
This wedding riddle from Italy is written in Hebrew and Judeo-Italian. Wedding songs, sometimes performed by professional jesters, were traditional at Jewish weddings. Some had lyrics in the form of…
This cup and saucer set features a portrait of Jewish German banker Isaac Daniel Itzig and a picture of one of his homes in Berlin, the Bartholdy Meierei (Bartholdi dairy) on Köpenickerstrasse…
The process of ritual purification of a dead body, known as taharah, involves careful cleaning of the corpse. Prior to being dressed in a white cotton shroud, the body of the deceased is washed, the…
