Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The JTS Library
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
Press
“Illuminating Residency,” Rabbi Adler’s Study
“Exhibition | Jewish Worlds Illuminated: Hebrew Manuscripts,” Enfilade
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
