Category Archives: Exhibitions

Exhibition: Materialisierte Heiligkeit. Jüdische Buchkunst im rituellen Kontext

19 October 2025 – 25 January 2026, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 8

The Stabi Kulturwerk is presenting selected Hebrew manuscripts from the important Hebraica collection of the Berlin State Library in a new special exhibition. The exhibition offers fascinating insights into the world of Jewish book art and impressively showcases not only masterful design and artistic craftsmanship, but also the cultural and ritual diversity of the contexts in which they were created.

Outstanding pieces come from the famous Erfurt Collection, including artistic micrographs, traces of Christian Hebraism and evidence of ritual Torah production. Among other things, visitors can see the largest Hebrew Bible of the Middle Ages, two exceptionally well-preserved Ashkenazi Torah scrolls and a large-format prayer book from the 14th century.

Exhibition: Jiddisch/ייִדיש – Von den Anfängen bis zum Buchdruck. 55 Jahre Forschung zum Jiddischen in Trier

September 1 – October 31 2025, Tier University, Library

Yiddish is primarily a language spoken and written by Jews in German-speaking regions. In its earliest stages, the language developed from various German dialects, which were enriched with Hebrew-Aramaic and Romance elements, and later, at the end of the Middle Ages in the East, with Slavic elements as well. These languages had a major influence on the vocabulary and structure of Yiddish, which is why Yiddish is also referred to as a component language. From the outset, Yiddish was written using Hebrew letters. Modern Yiddish works are mostly written in Eastern Yiddish, while the examples presented here mainly document (early) Western Yiddish. The exhibition aims to show the diversity of early Yiddish from its beginnings to the advent of printing. To this end, various forms of writing in the Yiddish language are presented. Our evidence ranges from glosses and single-word examples, legal texts, short texts, letters and narrative texts to scientific treatises. The different genres impressively demonstrate the diverse use of the early Yiddish language.

The exhibition was conceived in Trier by the Department of Yiddish Studies and the Junior Professorship for Medieval History with a focus on Jewish history and uses parts of the exhibition ‘Vom kalten Keller und falschen Versprechen. Neue jiddische Funde aus dem Mittelalter’, which was shown in Erfurt in 2023.

Sotheby’s Judaica Sale

Sotheby’s has its catalogue out for the upcoming Judaica sale on 18 December 2024. According to their announcement, “the sale is comprised almost exclusively of manuscripts from the Sassoon (lots 1-29) and Montefiore (32-121) collections, separated by two special additions from private sources (30-31). […] There will be an exhibition for several days (December 11-17) prior to the live sale itself (December 18). The exhibition is free and open to the public, and its hours are 10am-5pm each day, except Friday (10am-4pm), Shabbat (closed), and Sunday (1-5pm).”

Exhibition and Catalogue The Lost Mirror. Jews and Conversos in Medieval Spain

Every image we create is a mirror that reflects a way of seeing. We look at the world and at others in relation to ourselves, through our own mentality and attitude. Using a broad selection of works, this exhibition recreates a medieval mirror that shows how Jews and conversos (converts to Christianity) were portrayed by Christians in Spain from 1285 to 1492.

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