Welcoming Visuality: New Studies in Jewish Art and Material Culture

Essays in Honor of Professor Shalom Sabar

Series: 

This volume presents a rich and multifaceted picture of Jewish material culture(s) from the Late Antiquity to our days, in Europe, America, the Land of Israel and the Middle East. It focuses on Medieval and Early Modern illustrated manuscripts, books, architecture and the decoration of synagogues, amulets, paintings, and objects of ceremonial art and material culture. The book highlights the complex interplay between high art and folk art and the cultural interrelationships between Jews and their host societies.
Copyright Year:
2026
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ISBN:
978-90-04-76510-8
Publication:
27 Aug 2026
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ISBN:
978-90-04-54720-9
Publication:
17 Sep 2026
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Vladimir Levin, Ph.D. (2007), Director of the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published books and articles on Jewish politics in the Russian Empire, as well as on Jewish material culture, especially synagogue architecture.

Sharon Liberman Mintz is the Curator of Jewish Art at the Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary and specializes in the fields of Illuminated Hebrew manuscripts and rare printed books. She has curated more than 50 exhibitions and authored 15 exhibition catalogues. She also serves as the Senior Consultant for Judaica at Sotheby’s since 1995.

Rina Talgam, Ph.D (1996), is the Alice and Edward Winant Family Professor of Art History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests include the art of the Middle East from the Hellenistic period to the Umayyad period, specialization in mosaic pavements, and the mutual influences between polytheism, Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity and Islam, and ancient synagogues.
List of Illustrations
 Introduction
 Vladimir Levin, Sharon Liberman Mintz and Rina Talgam

Part 1 Word and Image in Jewish Book Culture

1 “Cent fois sur le métier tu remettras ton ouvrage”: Deciphering Pictorial Allusions in a Jewish Medieval Manuscript
 Elisheva Revel-Neher

2 A Key Element: Micrography and Material Culture in the Pentateuch Manuscripts of Elijah b. Berekhiah
 Sarit Shalev-Eini

3 Dressing the Role Models of Aragonese Jewish Society in the Sarajevo Haggadah
 Katrin Kogman-Appel
 4 Art of the Colophon: Colophons of Sephardi Incunabula as the Last Hebrew ‘Arūḍ in the Pyrenees
 Shimon M. Iakerson

5 The Gutwirth-Zucker Prague Haggadah
 Evelyn M. Cohen

6 The Illustrated Esther Scroll of Yeḥiel Menaḥem Urbino, 1776
 Falk Wiesemann

7 “Peregrinando Quaerimus” [We Seek by Traveling]: Salom Italia’s Portrait of Menasseh ben Israel (1642)
 Shelley Perlove

Part 2 Beauty in Holiness: Ornamenting the Sacred

8 When Steel and Brass Meet Silver: a Torah Shield from Ichenhausen
 Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig

9 Torah Shields as Votive Donations in Eastern Europe in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
 Vladimir Levin

Part 3 Visual Dimensions of Kabbala and Mysticism

10 Domed Synagogues in Ruthenia, Podolia, and Volhynia: Space, Decoration, Meaning
 Sergey R. Kravtsov

11 Mystical and Esoteric Motifs in Evronot Manuscripts
 Batsheva Goldman-Ida

12 Publishing Protection: the Printed Amulets of Israel Bak, the First Hebrew Printer in Jerusalem
 William Gross

13 Jewish Amulets Portraying Moses
 Ira Rezak

14 The Menorah Plaque in Iraq and R. Yosef Hayyim
 Esther Juhasz

Part 4 Jews Through Christian Eyes

15 Moses and the Invisible God at Sinai
 Larry Silver

16 Rembrandt’s Enigmatic Purim Painting in the Hermitage
 Gary Schwartz

Part 5 Soundscapes of Jewish Ritual
 17 Scores Are Not Only Music: Melodies in Passover Haggadot  Edwin Seroussi

18 Wake Up and Stay Silent: Visualizing Jewish Aural Practices
 Ilia M. Rodov

Part 6 Visual Responses to Modernity

19 The Visual World of an Orthodox Schoolteacher in Germany: Israel Wiesen (1835–1900)
 Richard I. Cohen

20 The Orientalization of the Eastern European Jewish “Artist of the Ghetto”: the Case of Lazar Krestin (1868–1938)
 Mirjam Rajner

Part 7 Transfers of Visual Culture between Israel and America

21 What’s in a Hue? Patinated Metalware and the Postwar American Jewish Home
 Jenna Weissman Joselit
 22 We Hate the Holidays: Garbage Pail Kids and Ḥavurat HaZevel as a Vehicle for Cultural Exchange
 Ido Noy

Part 8 Past Research through Contemporary Eyes

23 “A Mysterious Object That Cannot be Identified”: Incense Shovels in Late Antique Palestinian Synagogues
 Steven Fine
 24 The Medieval Judensau and Its Modern Interpreters
 Katherine Aron-Beller

25 Mordechai Narkiss: an Innovative Approach to the Material Culture of the Jews from Islamic Countries in Israel
 Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper

Part 9 Professor Shalom Sabar and His Oeuvre

26 Shalom Sabar: a Personal Memoir
 Benjamin Zucker

27 “My Professor”: Shalom Sabar: Teacher—Scholar—Mentsch
 Orly Tzion

28 Interview with Shalom Sabar on 1 August 2023 on Jewish Historical Seminars (JHS)
 Katherine Aron-Beller

29 Bibliography of the Writings of Shalom Sabar
University libraries, academic researchers of Jewish art and material culture, students of Jewish art and culture, collectors of Judaica and the wide public interested in Jewish matters.
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