People of the Image: Jews & Art
A synthetic reinterpretation of Jewish engagement with the visual arts across three millennia.
Books
Ten Books, 1997–2025
Three solo monographs, one major edited volume, several co-authored facsimile editions of illuminated Hebrew manuscripts, and two annotated liturgical texts — together a thirty-year arc of writing on Jewish visual culture.
PROSE Award in Art History & Criticism 2016 · National Jewish Book Award, Arts 2016 · Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award 2015 · Times Literary Supplement Best Books of the Year 2011 · Jordan Schnitzer Prize, AJS 2011, H.M.
The New Venice Esther & Deck of Esther
Translation, annotation, and illustrated edition of the Scroll of Esther, with the companion Deck of Esther — a shuffled and wordless book.
The New Venice Haggadah
Translation and annotation of the Passover Haggadah in the tradition of Venice, with original artwork.
The Lombard Haggadah
The earliest stand-alone Italian Haggadah, illustrated with seventy-five watercolors from the circle of Giovannino de’ Grassi in late-fourteenth-century Milan.
La Bibbia miniata della Comunità ebraica di Venezia
The Illuminated Bible of the Jewish Community of Venice — Italian/English critical edition.
The Brother Haggadah: A Medieval Sephardi Masterpiece in Facsimile
Facsimile edition of one of the finest surviving medieval Sephardi Haggadot, from the British Library’s John Rylands collection.
Reviews
Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts
A foundational survey of Jewish manuscript illumination across three millennia and every region Jews have inhabited.
- PROSE Award in Art History & Criticism Association of American Publishers, 2016
- National Jewish Book Award, Arts Jewish Book Council, 2016
- Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award Jewish Book Council, 2015
The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination
A sustained reading of the great fourteenth-century Sephardi and Ashkenazi Haggadot as works of narrative, interpretation, and visual theology.
- Best Books of the Year Times Literary Supplement, 2011
- Jordan Schnitzer Prize Association for Jewish Studies (H.M.), 2011
The Jerusalem Haggadah: Gateway to the Haggadah
An illuminated Haggadah illustrated by Yael Hershberg, with Epstein’s introduction and textual apparatus.
Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature
Epstein’s first book — still foundational — on how medieval Jewish artists appropriated and repurposed Christian iconography from within a minority position.
Press& Reviews
Scholarly and popular reviews, collected by book.
Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink
The Brother Haggadah
Further Coverage
Features and essays on the Seforim Blog.
- Birds’ Heads, Romaine Lettuce, and the Art of Reading a Haggadah · March 30, 2026
- Pesach, Haggadah, Art & Sundry Matters: A Recap · April 4, 2023