The Many Faces of the Rylands’ Jewish Manuscripts

This small collection of magical incantations, medical prescriptions, and amulets against various ailments and other calamities. The treatments range from protection during childbirth to getting out of jail! Although magic is condemned in the Torah it was an important part of Jewish life. Amulets were a bit like a doctor’s prescription. The collection might have been made by a Jewish healer, or possibly by a scholar interested in magic. It is written in a neat Ashkenazi (German Jewish) handwriting of the 17th or 18th century. The manuscript was a gift to Moses Gaster in 1913 from I I Bramson of Stoke Newington. Gaster steadily enlarged his collection with such gifts. 

Amulet book