Showing Results 1 - 10 of 32
Born to converso parents and baptized as Manoel Dias Soeiro, Menasseh Ben Israel moved as a boy with his family to Amsterdam, where they reverted openly to Judaism. In 1626, he established the first…
This belled gilt-silver Torah finial topped with a crown was made in Amsterdam and has been attributed to master silversmith Pieter van Hoven, who lived near the Jewish quarter and is best known for…
This was the first printed map of the land of Israel in Hebrew. It was based on an earlier map by a Christian, Kruik van Adrichem, but Jacob Tsaddik removed the illustrations of the life of Jesus that…
The frontispiece of this book of penitential prayers published in Amsterdam, Tikun li-kro’ laylah va-yom (A Tikkun to Read Day and Night) has a three-tiered illustration. The top level depicts Moses…
This kiddush cup and wine carafe by the master glass engraver Daniel Henriques de Castro displays his delicate technique, known as stippling. Though it is most common for kiddush cups, used for the…
This printed amulet to protect a woman in childbirth features a central scene depicting Adam and Eve and several animals in the Garden of Eden, with a snake coiled around the forbidden “tree of…
The Book of Esther (also known as the Scroll [megillah] of Esther) is read out loud on the holiday of Purim. This example of an illustrated scroll from the Netherlands (shown here with a page of…
This letter hailing Shabbetai Tzvi as the Messiah was signed by twenty-four prominent members of the Amsterdam Jewish community who had founded a learned society, Yeshuot Meshiho, in his honor. It was…
This is a technical diagram from Joseph Delmedigo’s Sefer Elim (Book of Elim), a scientific and philosophical work published by Menasseh Ben Israel.
The press of Solomon Proops was one of the most prolific and well-known Hebrew presses in eighteenth-century Europe. The printer’s mark used by Proops (which does not appear on all his works) depicts…
