Treasures of Jewish Art : The 1673 Illuminated Scroll of Esther Offered to a Romanian Hierarch

Presented by one of Romania''s greatest scholars, Academician Cornelia Bodea, the scroll provides evidence of important cultural and spiritual relations between two peoples living together in the same land, Romanians and Jews.

The Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest holds a rare piece of Jewish art from the seventeenth century, an illuminated scroll of the biblical Book of Esther, dated 1673. This manuscript is a unique example in terms of Jewish art because of two unique components. One of them is the date indicating a year in Cyrillic characters, viz. 7181 since the creation of the world according to Byzantine chronology, corresponding in the Gregorian calendar to the year 1673. The second component is the coat of arms of the Principality of Moldavia, placed within the escutcheon in the ornamental section at the beginning of the scroll.

The scroll provides evidence of important cultural and spiritual relations between two peoples living together in the same land, Romanians and Jews, as well as two noted scholars of the time, Dosoftei, the Romanian archbishop, and the cabalist Nathan Nata Hanover, rabbi for over fifteen years (1657-1673) of the Jewish community in Ia?i, the capital city of the principality of Moldavia.

This book includes a full-color reproduction of this manuscript, along with a comprehensive discussion of the origin and significance of this unique piece of Jewish Art.