Library Exhibits
Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The JTS Library
September 17–December 27, 2025
Grolier Club
47 E 60th St.
New York, NY 10022
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 monumental decorated prayer book for the Jewish High Holidays, created in Germany in 1290, which opens with an elaborate Gothic portal inviting the reader to enter and engage in the prayers; 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. Made possible by support from the David Berg Foundation and the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation.
Read more about the exhibition and see many of the items on display at The Grolier Club. Click here.
Watch a Virtual Tour
Attend a Lecture
The Decoration of Hebrew Manuscripts After the Invention of Printing with Sharon Liberman-Mintz and Emile Schrijver
Monday, October 20, 2025 at 6:00 p.m.
Jews as Citizens of the World with Dr. David Kraemer
Wednesday, November 19, 2025 at 6:00 p.m.
Visit the Exhibition
Monday-Saturday 10:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m.
Sunday Openings
October 19, November 2, November 16, and December 14 at 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Tour the Exhibition
Monday, September 29, 2025 at 12:00 p.m.–SOLD OUT
Monday, November 3, 2025 at 3:30 p.m. — SOLD OUT
Sunday, November 16, 2025 at 1:00 p.m.
Monday, December 1, 2025 at 12:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 14, 2025 at 1:00 p.m.
Press
Free Highlights: Things to Do in NYC, December 2025, The Blankman List
“People of the Book,” Making Book
“Centuries of Jewish Literary Creativity Celebrated at the Grolier,” FineBooks & Collections
“The Critic’s Notebook” The New Criterion
“Take a World Tour of Jewish Literary Creativity this Fall at the Grolier Club” artdaily
“The Daily Heller: Jewish Books Lettered, Typeset and Illuminated,” PRINT
“At a Book-Lovers’ Mecca, a Celebration of the Jewish Diaspora”, Jewish Telegraphic Agency
“Treasures of the Diaspora,” Jewish Book Council
Previous Exhibits
Sacred Words: Revealing the Earliest Hebrew Book
Sacred Words: Revealing the Earliest Hebrew Book
Learn More
Illuminating Sacred Text: Contemporary Jewish Book Artists and Their Work
Illuminating Sacred Text: Contemporary Jewish Book Artists and Their Work
Learn More
Seeing the Unseeable
Kabbalistic Imagery from The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary
Learn More
A Sacred Space
Synagogue Architecture and Identity
Learn More
Living Yiddish in New York
NYC as a center of Yiddish culture
Learn More
The Work of Her Hands
The Art of Lynne Avadenka and the Craft of Jewish Women Printers
Learn More
The Jews of Corfu
Between the Adriatic and the Ionian
Learn More
