More in ‘illuminated manuscripts’

Sundown: Happy Purim!

Plus carping over gefilte fish, and more bad puns
By Marc Tracy | 5:09 PM Feb 26, 2010

• A look at Purim as the holiday that “includes all others” and distills the fundamental choice all Jews face: whether to wait for God to act or to take matters into your own hands. [BeliefNet]
• Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a favorite of centrists on the Israeli side, vows that Palestinians will not be ...

Visual Art & Design

Bound for Glory

The Israel Museum unveils a restored mahzor from 1331
By Jeannie Rosenfeld | 7:00 AM Sep 17, 2009

Central to the Days of Awe in modern times is the experience of walking into the synagogue to find tall stacks of High Holiday prayer books, or mahzorim.
Things were not always thus. For centuries, Jewish prayer was an oral tradition, said from memory. Even as authoritative liturgies were codified, most didn’t have access to texts. ...