The descendant of Portuguese Jews who emigrated from Holland to the Caribbean in the seventeenth century, Jacob Abraham Jesurun was a merchant in Curaçao, where his company owned several ships as well as a wharf, dockyard, and coal depot.
During the nineteenth century the lives of Jews in Russia underwent enormous changes. In pre-reform times most Jews lived in villages and small towns. Most were engaged in trade and…
Moses ben Abraham Pescarol’s illuminated scroll of Esther, completed in Ferrara, constitutes one of the oldest examples of an illustrated manuscript of this biblical book, which is chanted on the…
Born near Mumpf, Switzerland, Rachel (born Elisa-Rachel) Félix (1821–1858) was a prominent French actress. Her parents worked as peddlers, and, as a child, she performed music alongside her sister…