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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…
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 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…
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…
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…
