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While ketubot (marriage contracts) are usually written in Aramaic, Karaite ketubot are written in Hebrew. They are often pentagonal in shape, most often with a pointed bottom. This example has a…
In 1583, Mattetiah ben David Spagnolo completed this illuminated Haggadah for Leon ben Judah Bili. Greek (Romaniote/Byzantine) Jews had lived on the island of Crete since the Second Temple period…
The book of Esther is chanted aloud from a scroll (megillah) on the holiday of Purim. This example from the Netherlands is lavishly decorated, with the Hebrew text framed by arcades between which are…
This dedication page made by Meshulam Zimmel for Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (1711–1740) and his wife, Elizabeth Christina (1691–1750), whose portraits appear on the page, presents three versions of…
This decorated manuscript of the prayers for a circumcision ceremony was owned by one Joseph ben Samuel. On its title page (not shown) is an unidentified coat of arms decorated with the Order of the…
This foldout calendar is a beautifully illuminated feature that appears in a sefer ‘evronot. Works of this genre were Jewish calendar handbooks for calculating the dates of religious holidays and…
This magnificent maḥzor (holiday prayer book) was copied—and most likely decorated—by the scribe Isaac bar Mordechai ha-Kohen (Isaac Lankosh of Kraków). (In several places, the name “Isaac” has…
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…
This page from a birkon (Grace after Meals) is an example of the work of Aaron Wolf Herlingen (Aaron Schreiber), a prominent eighteenth-century scribe and artist known for his illustrated Grace after…
The frontispiece of this Haggadah shows the biblical Aaron on the left, carrying the Temple incense, and Moses on the right, holding the tablets of the Law. The scene at the bottom of the page shows a…
