Illuminated Hebrew Bible on Display in NYC this Holiday Season

THE JEWISH WEEK
By Diane Cole

Menorah from the Cervera Bible

NEW YORK - The Jewish holiday of Chanukah lasts eight days, but New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is celebrating over the course of eight weeks, in the form of its recently opened exhibition “Lisbon’s Hebrew Bible: Medieval Jewish Art in Context,” on display through Jan. 16. And the contexts are plural, not singular. Produced in Cervera, Spain between 1299 and 1300, the “Cervera Bible” as it is called, is an illuminated manuscript that is both a sacred Jewish book and a masterpiece of the Gothic era. Its most famous image — of a resplendent seven-branched golden menorah (candelabrum) framed by two large olive trees — is familiar from its frequent use on Jewish-themed holiday cards (though it is a temple-style rather than a Chanukah menorah, which allows for eight lights) and innumerable book covers. [link]