Showing Results 151 - 160 of 1954
In the back of a manuscript collection of astronomical texts, which includes one of Abraham Ibn Ezra’s works on the use of the astrolabe (a tool for astronomical calculations), is a set of crude but…
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…
O God of hosts, restore us;
show Your favor that we may be delivered.
You plucked up a vine from Egypt;
You expelled nations and planted it.
You cleared a place for it;
it took deep root and…
The use of wall niches for Torah scrolls was a feature of some of the earliest synagogues and continues today in Mizrahi communities. This striking faience-tile mosaic structure would have decorated a…
This Torah ark, installed in a synagogue in the Italian town of Urbino, is a fine example of Renaissance Judaica. Carved from walnut in the early sixteenth century, the ark belonged to the Sephardic…
It was the year that the Tartan came to Ashdod— being sent by King Sargon of Assyria—and attacked Ashdod and took it. Previously, the Lord had spoken to Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go, untie the…
The Bah (Bayit Hadash) was asked concerning the practice in synagogues of using music which is sung in the houses of worship (of non-Jews). It is only forbidden regarding…
This setting for Psalm 92 is one example of the innovative music composed by Louis Lewandowski, Samuel Naumbourg, and Salomon Sulzer (1804–1890) for the synagogues of the new Reform movement. Their…
Thus said my Lord God of Hosts: Go in to see that steward, that Shebna, in charge of the palace:
What have you here, and whom have you here,
That you have hewn out a tomb for yourself here?—
O…
On this illustrated page from a prayer book, written in an Ashkenazic hand, the scribe Simeon ben Naphtali has added, to the prayers said at a wedding, an image of the prophet Elijah (on the left)…
