hiddur-mitzvah

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reposting gay words with op's permission bc i too don't even know how to say "i am a lesbian"

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Jewish farmers from the Bessarabia region (Moldova) celebrating Sabbath, ca. 1920s

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1. “Jews’ Wailing Place”

2. “Jaffa Gate, Ashkenazi Jews in festival dress”

Taken circa 1880s-1920s, part of a set of 90 diapositive glass lantern slides of views in and around Jerusalem.

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In the Synagogue — Johannes Bosboom (1817-1891), Dutch

signed J. Bosboom (lower left)

oil on panel

62 by 51 cm

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Ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) from Yazd, Qajar Iran, 1915

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“To be a Jew is to take the risk of believing that the evils of this world are not inevitable or irremediable; that we can mend some of the fractures of humanity; that we, by loving others as God loves us, can bring the Shekhina into our lives, turning a little of the pride of the human condition into poetry and song.”

— The Koren Machzor Yamim Nora’im, Rohr Family Addition. Commentary on Ne’ila, page 1393.

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Leonard Freed Lighting Shabbat Candles, Frankfurt, Germany 1961

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1. A large American parcel-gilt silver Torah shield, dated 1896, height: 30.9 cm

The inscription inside the Tablets reads: “The Holy Society Roumanian American Chebrah Or Chodash 1896.”

2. A Galician parcel-filt silver Torah shield, dated 1836-37, height: 20.4 cm

The inscription at the base of the columns reads: “You shall make a frontlet of pure gold and engrave on it the seal inscription: ‘Holy to God’” [Ex. 28:36].

At center below: “The year [5]597 [1836-1837].”

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Reminder that “The Ghost and Molly McGee” episode “Festival of Lights” has quite possibly the best Hanukkah representation I’ve seen in animation.

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The Wailing Wall — Eugène-Alexis Giradet (1853-1907), French

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Bukharan Jews on Shabbat, Uzbekistan, 1980s

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Members of the Mountain Jewish community of Oghuz, Azerbaijan, 2013.

Oghuz is known as a place where Muslims and Jews have always lived in peace. According to the local rabbis and Imam Shovkat Jalilov (effendi), many traditions of Muslims and Jews in Oghuz are the same. The Muslim population of the town keep some traditions of Passover and the Jewish people do the same about Ramadan and Eid al-Adha. Mixed marriages are common and funerals and wedding ceremonies seem very similar.

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In "Hallelujah" Leonard Cohen states "You say I took the name in vain/ I don't even know the name / But if I did, well, really, what's it to ya?" implying that there is doubt to be casted on the fact that he doesn't know the name. At the same time, Leonard Cohen is, as his name suggests, a Kohen, and he has even given the priestly blessing before. In ancient times, the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) was the only person who pronounced/knew how the pronounce the divine name. Does this line from Hallelujah imply that Leonard Cohen is from the line of the last Kohen Gadol and his line is in fact the only one that still knows how to say the name? In this essay I will...

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Torah case, Yemen ca. 19th century

This Torah case is made of painted wood and brass, crafted in Yemen sometime in the 19th century.

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Blah blah blah when’s the appropriate time to put up your Christmas lights NO! When does the Hanukkah hype start.

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A lil Fanart I did a few months ago

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Abraham performed no miracles, commanded no armies, ruled no kingdom, gathered no mass of disciples and made no spectacular prophecies. Yet there can be no serious doubt that he is the most influential person who ever lived, counted today, as he is, as the spiritual grandfather of more than half of the six billion people on the face of the planet. His immediate descendants, the children of Israel, known today as Jews, are a tiny people numbering less than a fifth of a per cent of the population of the world. Yet they outlived the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, the medieval empires of Christianity and Islam, and the regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, all of which opposed Jews, Judaism or both, and all of which seemed impregnable in their day. They disappeared. The Jewish people live. It is no less remarkable that the small, persecuted sect known as the Christians, who also saw themselves as children of Abraham, would one day become the largest movement of any kind in the history of the world, still growing today two centuries after almost every self-respecting European intellectual predicted their faith’s imminent demise. As for Islam, it spread faster and wider than any religious movement in the lifetime of its founder, and endowed the world with imperishable masterpieces of philosophy and poetry, architecture and art, as well as a faith seemingly immune to secularisation or decay. All other civilisations rise and fall. The faith of Abraham survives.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt"l, The Great Partnership p.12