A special kind of homecoming will take place at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in autumn 2019: for the first time in fifty years the precious Amsterdam Mahzor, a Jewish prayer book from the thirteenth century, will once again be on show in Cologne. The richly adorned manuscript is a unique piece and numbers among the oldest still extant Hebrew illuminated manuscripts in the German-speaking world; indeed, it is one of the foremost of its kind. In 2017 the Landschaftsverband Rheinland together with the Joods Historisch Museum Amsterdam succeeded in acquiring the Mahzor. In cooperation with the two organisations, the Wallraf will be exhibiting the large format manuscript in the Window Gallery on the second storey of its permanent collection. With a view there opening on to the excavation of Cologne's City Hall and the future site of the MiQua. LVR-Jüdisches Museum im Archäologischen Quartier, the Mahzor will be returning very close to the mediaeval synagogue where it was read from for the very first time, 700 years ago.

View the Machsor online: http://amsterdammahzor.org.

The Amsterdam Mahzor was acquired with the support of the Kulturstiftung der Länder, the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, the Kulturförderung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, the C.L. Grosspeter Stiftung, the Rheinischen Sparkassen- und Giroverbandes, the Sparkasse KölnBonn, and the Kreissparkasse Köln. On its 331 parchment pages, the Amsterdam Mahzor lays down the specific Cologne rite with its prayers and liturgical poems. To this day, the book’s impressive illuminations, including gold initials with vine scrolls, filigrees and figures, testify to the immense importance of this unique manuscript.