Library Exhibits
The Library of JTS is filled with treasures representing Jewish life and creativity from ancient times to the present. We invite you to visit our ongoing series of public exhibitions or view highlights here on our website.
Individuals wishing to view library exhibitions may come to JTS during Library hours, with proof of vaccination. Scheduled tours will be included in our event listings.
Current Exhibit
The Work of Her Hands: The Art of Lynne Avadenka and the Craft of Jewish Women Printers
December 1 – March 16, 2023
This new exhibit features a selection of rare books printed by Jewish women from the earliest days of Hebrew publishing alongside new artwork created by American artist/printmaker Lynne Avadenka.
Read an article about the exhibit in the Forward.
Read an interview with Lynne Avadenka in PRINT Magazine.
To view the exhibit, you can come to JTS during Library hours, with proof of vaccination.
Lynne Avadenka is known for her works that explore text and image, the physical and philosophical idea of the book, and the mystery and beauty of visual language. In August 2021, she was artist-in-residence at the Cary Graphic Arts Collection of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Avadenka received the 2021 Isaac Anolic Artist Book Award, along with artist collaborators Andi Arnovitz and Mirta Kupferminc, and in 2019, she was given a Research Award from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute. Other awards include a 2009 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellowship and individual artist grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Michigan Arts and Culture Council. She received her MFA from Wayne State University.
Previous Exhibits
The Jews of Corfu: Between the Adriatic and the Ionian
This unprecedented exhibition offered a window into the rich history and culture of the little-known Jewish communities of Corfu. Columbia University and JTS, two of the world’s largest repositories of rare materials from Corfu, displayed a selection of illustrated prayer books, historical documents, celebratory poems, and elaborately decorated ketubbot telling the story of the island’s vibrant, distinct, and sometimes contentious Jewish communities. Situated on a major trade route, these communities thrived under Venetian and then Greek rule from the Middle Ages until 1944, when the Jews of Corfu were almost entirely annihilated by the Nazis. Space is limited.
To Build a New Home: Celebrating the Jewish Wedding
“To Build a New Home: Celebrating the Jewish Wedding” featured a collection of rare materials illustrating the creative, often surprising, evolution of Jewish marriage practices over centuries.
The many treasures on view included lavishly decorated ketubbot, marriage contracts, from 17th and 18th century Italy; a 13th-century French religious compendium outlining marriage rituals and including a bawdy wedding poem; a fragment from a 12th-century prenuptial agreement; and from the modern era, a ketubbah making it possible for Jewish women to initiate a religious divorce.
“To Build a New Home” showed the remarkable development of Jewish marriage from Talmudic times to the present—and the rich streams of tradition and innovation in Jewish life throughout history.
Watch Videos From “To Build a New Home”
Dr. David Kraemer examines a beatiful 1769 ketubbah from a Karaite community in Ukraine and discusses the Karaites’ particular Jewish beliefs and history.
