If Jews are the people of the book, what stories do the books themselves tell about the varied communities and intersecting worlds of the scholars, scribes, artists, printers, readers and worshippers who produced and used them? Anyone seeking an answer may find it at the Yeshiva University Museum's current exhibition in New York, A Journey Through Jewish Worlds: Highlights from the Braginsky Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books.
The historical saga that the objects on display recount is (quite literally) a page-turner—a complex narrative of dispersion and continuity, played out in overlapping and at times conflicting worlds both sacred and secular. (A virtual catalogue can also be viewed online at www.braginskycollection.com.)
The dates of these exceedingly rare and well-preserved illustrated scrolls, wedding contracts, Bible commentaries, prayer books and miscellanies span seven centuries. The earliest item, a copy on parchment of the legal code of rabbinic scholar Moses of Coucy, dates to 1288. They come from several continents: Europe, Asia, Northern Africa and the Middle East.
Each item possesses a storyline all its own. A 14th century astronomical volume from Catalonia, for instance, includes a "star count" for the year 1391. There are texts by Ptolemy, among others, translated into Hebrew and colorful images inspired by a Persian scientific work. The manuscript shows how Jewish scholars helped transmit and preserve scientific knowledge in Medieval Europe.
The volumes also provide clues to the ways in which they were used—oil lamp and candle stains suggest study sessions late into the night—and how they were passed along from one community to another. For example, a 1487 edition of the Book of Job with rabbinic commentary represents one of the first books to be printed in Hebrew in Naples.
Who owned the book and how it may have passed from one owner to another is uncertain, but evidence suggests it was read and carried from one Jewish community to another. Every page also contains handwritten annotations and marginalia composed as much as two centuries later; in Hebrew characters in Judeo-Persian, a language local to the area that is now Iran.
The reason behind this book's (and its owners') probable move from one country and continent to another may not have been benign. This is apparent at the exhibit from a series of 11 documents in Italian. Dated 1553-1555, they probably belonged to the Venetian Inquisitor who was charged with enforcing papal orders to ban and burn the Talmud and other Hebrew books.
But that was not the end of Hebrew printing in Italy. A few years later, in 1560, a Christian printer in the Duchy of Mantua worked with members of the Jewish community there to produce an illustrated Haggadah—the text for the Passover seder service at whose center is the retelling of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt. Although it was probably printed in secret, its very existence adds to the theme of liberation embedded in the text of the Haggadah, says Yeshiva University Museum's director Jacob Wisse.
Mr. Wisse adds that not only does the exhibition highlight the historical use and function of books in Jewish contexts. It also demonstrates the many ways that books provide "bridges between the worlds" of all the different sectors both within and across geographically wide-ranging Jewish communities, as well as between Jewish and non-Jewish worlds.
These artifacts also point to lost or forgotten aspects of the past that relate to hot-button issues in Jewish tradition today, such as the role of women. Witness the 1564 decorated scroll of the Book of Esther, produced in 1564 by—yes—a woman, Estellina, the daughter of Menahem.
Those looking for the antecedents of today's "New Age" interest in spirituality and kabbalah will find much to contemplate from an older age, starting with a late 14th century copy of "Hayyei ha-Olam ha-ba" ("Life of the World to Come"), by the 13th century mystic Abraham Abulafia. Among its contents are various circles made in red and black ink that, upon closer inspection, turn out to be Hebrew texts containing specific instructions on how to meditate.
Beyond all of this there is a larger, artistic context. Mr. Wisse points out that the show brings together "beautiful, aesthetically rich, historically important books and manuscripts that fit within a larger Western tradition" of artists and illuminators. Indeed, while the Jewish themes and subjects of these manuscripts clearly inform and inspire their decorative aspects, stylistically they resemble the art works from the time and place where they were produced.
Thus, a fancifully decorated mid-18th century kettubah (wedding contract) from the northern Italian town of Coreggio has Baroque feel of the period. The intricately interlaced gold leaf that frames a early 20th century ketubbah from the Jewish community of Cochin in southern India reflects a mix of Eastern and Western styles.
All these stories speak to the intertwined lives and histories of the people of the book—and to the books that continue to connect them to tradition, to each other and to the worlds around them. But the relationship is perhaps best expressed in an 1830s ketubbah from Gibraltar.
Illustrated with a Holy Ark and the Ten Commandments, the document announces an allegorical union that continues to resonate: The groom is the people of Israel; the father of the bride is God; and the bride, of course, is the holy Torah.
Ms. Cole is the author of the memoir "After Great Pain: A New Life Emerges," a contributing editor of U.S. News & World Report, and the book columnist for the Psychotherapy Networker.
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