A Fragile Beauty
Catch a glimpse of a hidden gem of the Rylands Hebrew Manuscripts Collection.
Author: Zsofia Buda
If you wanted to know…: number-letter divination in a Jewish miscellany
Learn about a curious prognostic technique called onomancy.
Rylands Karaite manuscripts: Jewish presence of the Ukrainian past
Among the many manuscripts bought from the famous rabbi and scholar Moses Gaster (1856-1939), the John Rylands Library holds a curious copy of a Karaite work.
And the Scroll of Esther unrolls…
To mark the festival of Purim, Zsofia Buda discusses our recently digitised collection of Esther scrolls.
Calling all Occitanists: a unique copy of La reine Esther in Judeo-Provençal?
A Judeo-Occitan (Judeo-Provençal) manuscript in the Hebrew manuscript collection of the John Rylands Library, may turn out to be theContinue Reading
Speaking to angels: Charaktêres in Jewish magical manuscripts – Part II
In the first part of this blog, I introduced the magical signs called charaktêres that you can encounter in Jewish magical manuscripts. OriginallyContinue Reading
Speaking to angels: Charaktêres in Jewish magical manuscripts – Part I
“[To gain] favour and grace, write on your right hand these seals [ḥotamot], then wipe them with olive oil, andContinue Reading
From Calcutta to Tarcento: Jewish marriage contracts from the collections
Jewish women, in Israel and throughout the Diaspora, have always treasured an important document: their ketubah.
The human body and how to use it: a Jewish copy of a Christian medical work
A hundred more manuscripts from the John Rylands Library’s Hebrew Collection have just been published on the Manchester Digital Collections website.