These silver Torah finials are from Corfu and were made between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by an artist whose initials were A.Z. They were used in the Scuola Greca synagogue, which served Corfu’s Romaniote Jewish community. Raised vines, chased (delicately hammered from the front of the metal to refine the design), run the length of these opulently decorated finials.
In the 1730s, the German Jewish Franks-Levy family commissioned an artist to create portraits of three generations of the family. These paintings are all attributed to Gerardus Duykinck, a member of a…
Assurbanipal Feasting in Palace Garden, relief from the palace of Assurbanipal (reigned 669–627 BCE) in Nineveh. The king and his queen are surrounded by ornamental and fruit trees, palms, and vines…
The Kadavumbagam Synagogue received its name (which means “by the side of the landing place”) from its peripheral location at the border of the Cochin Jewish neighborhood, where it served the Malabari…