Showing Results 201 - 210 of 251
Torah finials are a pair of ornaments used to decorate the upper ends of the rollers on which the Torah scroll is wound. The Hebrew term rimonim, which means “pomegranates,” references the…
This Torah ark curtain from Gördes, Turkey, features an archway flanked on either side with double columns and a hanging lamp, a motif common to both Islamic prayer rugs and mats and Ottoman Torah ark…
This Torah curtain was made in Ankara, Turkey. The motifs of a central menorah and hands making the priestly blessing were common in other Ottoman Jewish ritual folk art. Embroidered verses from the…
This silver alms plate was likely used to collect donations in a synagogue. In the center is a boat, meant to represent Noah’s ark, a common image on Jewish alms containers. The Hebrew word for…
The Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, is home to the second-oldest congregation in the United States. As Sephardic Jews began emigrating from the Caribbean to colonial America in the…
The latest attempt to salvage poor shipwrecked Judaism in America is on. The Menorah Journal summoned the doughtiest intellectuals to this heroic task. These came highly equipped with trenchant pen…
The Photo League, a socially conscious photographers’ collective that Walter Rosenblum joined in 1937, favored documenting everyday life over newsworthy events. The Lower East Side, with its crowded…
Nathan, the shoemaker from Porisov, a small Jewish village in Poland, came home one evening shortly before his departure for Colombia with a Torah scroll under his arm. With a slight shiver, he lay…
According to the rabbinic view, as soon as a boy has completed his thirteenth year he is required to fulfill all the ceremonial laws, although previously he was excused from some, was not permitted to…
Charles-Valentin Alkan was the first composer to incorporate Jewish melodies in art music. His “Ancienne melodie de la synagogue,” a prelude for solo piano or organ, was published in 1847, along with…
