Objects

The Torah reading indicator – yad (Hebrew for hand or palm) – was used in the synagogue during the public reading of the Pentateuch. The scroll is considered sacred, and thus must not be profaned by running one's finger directly over the text while reading.

The ivory exhibit is 25 cm high and consists of two parts. Its elements were separated from each other by a wooden profiled ring placed in the middle and decorated with a pearl ornament. The slimmer part of the artefact, in the form of a shaft with a round cross-section, is covered with diagonal fluting, while the sides of the upper, wider, polygonal part are covered in alternately smooth and decorated engraved ornaments in the form of diagonal or longitudinal incisions. The end of the narrower part of the exhibit, with the actual pointer, which probably had a form of a hand with an extended index finger, has not survived. The thicker part is terminated with a large, wooden, egg-shaped ending, repoussed from its midline, with a ring attached to the end to hook the yad to a string. In place of the smooth incisions there is an inscription in Hebrew: רָחֵל אֶסְתֵּר (Ester Rachel / Ebel) – probably the names of its commissioner. The item was purchased from a private individual in 1984 and underwent conservation in 2021.