Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

The domestic life of Jews, their homes, houses, and households, was the subject of research for the 2019-20 Katz Center Fellows. 

Above: Wedding ring surmounted by a symbolic house Italy, 17th century. Inscribed in Hebrew inside the band: "mazal tov." The Stieglitz Collection of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Courtesy of the Israel Museum Jerusalem. Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

The study of Jewish life in modern Islamic contexts during the 2018-19 Fellowship year at the Katz Center delved into the meaning of modernity in North Africa, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Central and South Asia.

Above: Yigal S. Nizri, "Boulevard Mohammed V, Casablanca"

With photographs selected from the Lenkin Family Collection, the exhibition presents the role of people in 19th-century Holy Land photography and the ways in which their visual representations met or challenged 19th-century conventions about the Holy Land.

Above: Bedouins, photographed by Luigi Fiorello (1847–1898)