Enfilade

Now on view at The Grolier Club:

Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of

Hebrew Manuscripts from the Jewish Theological Seminary Library

The Grolier Club, New York, 17 September — 27 December 2025

Grace after Meals, Daily Blessings with Shema and Prayers for Bedtime; scribe: Aaron Wolff Herlingen of Gewitsch, Vienna, 1724 (New York: JTS MS 8232).

Since the time of the Babylonian Exile in the early sixth century BCE, the vast majority of the world’s Jews have lived in diasporas—scattered across many lands, cultures, and languages. In these communities, Jewish wisdom and creativity often found their fullest expression in the creation of books. Manuscripts became vessels of memory, imagination, and identity, preserving the richness of Jewish life from Antiquity into modern times. Within their pages are the voices of scholars and poets, scribes, and artists, which afford us a window into the everyday experiences of Jews across the globe. The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, established in New York in 1886, houses one of the world’s largest and most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts and printed books.

With items dating as far back as the ninth century and originating from lands as varied as Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, and Yemen, the collection represents more than ten centuries of Jewish scholarship, spanning the spectrum of Bible, liturgy, rabbinics, kabbalah, science, literature, and philosophy. Jewish Worlds Illuminated is the most extensive display ever of the JTS Library’s Hebrew manuscript treasures and is the first exhibition at the Grolier Club devoted exclusively to Jewish books. Each case presents scribal and artistic masterpieces from a particular region or period, inviting you to enter a historical Jewish setting and consider it alongside others. The works displayed stand as enduring testimony to Jewish intellectual, cultural, and artistic life across centuries and continents.

Visit the exhibition online»