Opening Wednesday, September 17th

“Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The JTS Library”

A new exhibition at the Grolier Club of NYC by the Jewish Theological Seminary

Jewish Worlds Illuminated features over 100 manuscripts and books offering a world tour of Jewish literary creativity across many centuries and thousands of miles.

The exhibition explores the diversity of cultures in the lands in which Jews resided, including Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, Yemen, Iraq and Iran, Italy, France, Spain, and Germany.

Curated by Professor David Kraemer, Sharon Liberman-Mintz, and Dr. Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, and drawn from the important rare book collection of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, exhibition highlights include a fund-raising letter signed by the great rabbi and philosopher, Moses Maimonides; a richly illustrated Passover Haggadah from Renaissance Italy by the master scribe-artist Joel Ben Simeon; and a 1875 Haggadah from Baghdad, written in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic.

A monumental decorated prayer book for the Jewish High Holidays, created in Germany in 1290, opens an elaborate Gothic portal inviting the reader to enter and engage in the prayers.

Made possible by support from the David Berg Foundation and the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation.