Calendar Manual

Sifre ‘evronot—manuals for calculating the Jewish calendar, including leap years and holidays—were a popular genre of Ashkenazic illustrated manuscripts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, although we have evidence for them from the sixteenth century. This manuscript, produced in Halberstadt, Saxony, contains drawings in watercolor and gouache. The illustrations include biblical scenes and themes from Jewish tradition. Among them is an image found in many Sifre ‘evronot: the biblical figure of Issachar on a ladder (in this case, holding it), trying to reach the secrets of the calendar, inspired by a verse according to which the tribe of Issachar “had understanding of the times” (1 Chronicles 12:32). Some figures in this manuscript are wearing typical eighteenth-century dress (both nobles and peasants). Other illustrations are of town landscapes, and one shows a nobleman on a boar hunt.