The Rylands Haggadah A Cry from Catalonia

I want to take you on a journey to a land where Jews once flourished. They even felt secure enough to make this masterful illuminated manuscript, the Rylands Haggadah. This Jewish community had been fully legitimate citizens of the Iberian Peninsula for over three hundred years as a minority population under first the Moslems and then the Christians. They were valued members of society, acting as doctors, ministers, financiers and diplomats. They had developed a sophisticated literature and poetry, not to mention some of the greatest thinkers in the Jewish world. Maimonidies and Judah Halevi were the children of this tolerant civilization.

Whether it is Purim or not, it’s always a good time to see Artemisia at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Artemisia Gentileschi is the artist who painted Esther before Ahasuerus. And who exactly is this Artemisia Gentileschi? Why, she is the most famous, and perhaps only, serious woman painter of 17th Century Italy.