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These depictions of Jewish women from Adrianople (present day Edirne, Turkey) is from a travelogue by French geographer Nicolas Nicolay, who is believed to have done his own illustrations. Considered…
This silver kiddush cup is believed to have belonged to Judah Loew. Known as the Maharal of Prague, Judah Loew ben Bezalel spent twenty years as rabbi in Moravia, moving in 1573 to the Bohemian…
The book of Esther (also known as the Scroll [megillah] of Esther) is read out loud on the holiday of Purim. This example of a scroll from Venice has Hebrew text framed by arcades and borders…
Because observant Jews do not light fires or cook on the Sabbath, they prepare hot meals before the beginning of the Sabbath. In some communities, families brought their Sabbath stew (known as cholent…
Johann Christoph Georg Bodenschatz’s Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden, sonderlich derer in Deutschland (Religious Constitution of Today’s Jews, Especially Those in Germany), published in…
An eruv (or eruv ḥatserot, merger of domains) is a symbolic expansion of an area outside a single home into a larger private domain. Within that eruv, certain activities prohibited in the public…
Born in London, as a young girl Abigaill Levy immigrated with her parents to New York City. In 1712, she married Jacob Franks, with whom she would have nine children. Despite his Ashkenazic family…
Sefer Raziel (also known as The Book of Raziel the Angel) is a book of practical kabbalah that may have been composed in the thirteenth century, though scholars believe parts of it date from earlier…
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…
Between 1723 and 1737, illustrator Bernard Picart partnered with the Dutch bookseller, editor, and publisher Jean-Frédéric Bernard on Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (R…
