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In 1670, Amsterdam’s Portuguese Jewish community commissioned a new synagogue, which, when finished, was the largest in the world. The master mason Elias Bouman, a non-Jew who had helped design the…
This depiction of a Polish Jew first appeared in a book, Neu-eröffnete Welt-Galleria (New Gallery of the World), published in Nuremberg in 1703. Its 101 plates by Caspar Luyken included portraits of…
This Purim charity plate was made in Dordrecht in the Netherlands between 1590 and 1611. It was used by Jews living in The Hague.
The rhymed Hebrew inscription below the picture of Yeḥiel Mikhel ben Nathan of Lublin notes that he had formerly been a cantor in Lublin and is presently serving in that role in Amsterdam, in 1699…
This engraving from a Dutch translation of Leone Modena’s Historia de’ riti Ebraici (History of the Jewish Rites) pictures a Jewish divorce ceremony in Amsterdam, in which the wife is presented with a…
When I was born, I was given the name Manuel, after my grandfather, Manuel Alvares Pinto, as was said earlier. For this reason and because I was my father’s eldest son, my grandfather always had me…
They distort the words of the living God. It is a clear Torah lesson, as the sages have taught: “Whosoever speculates on four things, a pity for him! He is as though he had not come into the world.”
T…
No matter what the body of the Nation, be it in the form of a kingdom or a republic, it comprises various classes of people; as for the nobles, who make the state blossom through commerce, increased…
God, blessed be He, knew very well that the people of Israel would be scattered among the nations and that most of them would not be able to understand the holy tongue [Hebrew]. Therefore our sages…
Should we not cry and weep that until now our scholars have not concerned themselves to provide us with a 24 [i.e., Bible] in Yiddish, arranged according to the simple meaning of the text, word for…