Jewish Art in the Muslim Realm: The Efflorescence of Ketubah Illustration in Iran and Afghanistan as Mirror to Jewish-Muslim Socio-Cultural Relationships
Image: Benjamin Zucker Family Ketubah Collection, 1838
Virtual or in person (with reception to follow)
Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, 6th floor, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, 3420 Walnut Street
In this lecture, Shalom Sabar examines the historical contexts, decorative elements, and family relationships of representative examples of Middle Eastern Jewish marriage contracts from the Benjamin Zucker Family Ketubah Collection. The recently digitized Zucker Collection is now freely available online to view and download via the Penn Libraries’ OPenn website. Consisting of 249 historical documents of exceptional provenance, written in a variety of Jewish scribal hands, many beautifully decorated, the collection presents intimate family heirlooms that are at the same time unique works of art and genealogical records. The Katz Center is pleased to welcome Professor Sabar as the David B. Ruderman Distinguished Visiting Scholar.
Featuring
Shalom Sabar
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Shalom Sabar is the David B. Ruderman Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Katz Center in the fall of 2022. He is a professor of Jewish art and folklore at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He researches Jewish and folk material culture and ephemera, objects associated with the cycles of life and of the year, and ritual and custom in the Jewish communities in Europe and in Islamic Iands. He is also interested in the culture of Italian Jews and the Sephardic diaspora in Europe, the cultural and artistic interrelationships between the Jewish communities and their Christian and Muslim neighbors, and the image of the Jew and Hebrew writing in art.
Sabar received his PhD in Art History from UCLA.
Cosponsors
This lecture is sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania and The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies.
