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The world’s oldest medieval Judaica relic is now its most valuable, too
In 2023, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts opened a permanent Judaica gallery, the country’s second at a general — read: non-Jewish — institution. A year later, Houston’s MFA followed suit. And, just last week, the Toledo Museum of Art, in Ohio, continued this Judaica revival of sorts by acquiring a 12th century Afghan kiddush cup for a cool $4 million, a record for a ceremonial object of Judaica. (The previous high was $1.6 million, for a Rothschild Torah Ark.)
Sharon Liberman Mintz, International Senior Specialist in Judaica at Sotheby’s, New York, presided over the sale. “This object ticked all the boxes,” she told me over Zoom. “It’s close to 1000 years old, and except for a little bit on the lip, which has been repaired, it’s in astonishingly good condition.” The finely crafted silver cup is the oldest of the 25 medieval Judaica relics left in the world. Mintz sometimes asks people how many such artifacts they think have survived; their guesses are invariably too high, and she would know. “I counted them,” she said, chuckling a little.
The Toledo Museum of Art had been searching for an object that embodied the “connectivity” of the pre-modern era, said its director, Adam M. Levine, over email. The cup would make an excellent narrative device, therefore, calling attention to the largely forgotten medieval Jewish community of eastern Khorasan, modern-day Afghanistan; to the many fruitful exchanges between Jews and Muslims in the region; and to the crucial medieval trade route that sliced through central Asia, the Silk Road.
It was only recently that the Jewish contribution to Khorasan, an important hub of medieval silver production, was unearthed, thanks to the discovery of a multilingual cache of letters, prayers and legal documents known as the Afghan Geniza. These confirmed not simply that Jews existed in the region, but also revealed the extent of their collaboration — culturally, linguistically, financially — with non-Jews.
The kiddush cup’s elegant Arabic and Hebrew motifs illustrate this nicely. Alongside the Hebrew name of the object’s owner — Simcha, or in English, joy — are a series of Arabic dedicatory phrases that also appear on other relics from the period, Mintz said. The word surur, joy in Arabic, is written twice, which likely is a reference to Simcha’s name, and is why Sotheby’s called the artifact the ‘Cup of Joy.’
The artifact is wide, flat and often mistaken for a bowl, Mintz added, but is in fact “the shape of wine goblets at the time.” And dotted along the cup’s rim are several teardrops so large they look almost cartoonish, each containing a bird — a pattern that appears on a number of other Khorasanian objects, too.
Levine was likewise taken in by the cup’s various influences; they seemed, to his mind, a kind of thumbnail version of the Jewish diasporic experience. “It represents such a compelling story of cultural exchange,” Levine said. “And it speaks not only to the religious commingling along the Silk Road, but also expands the narrative we can tell about this period in Khorasan.”
Mintz’s enthusiasm for the relic is so infectious that even an oppressive medium like Zoom can’t dampen it. “To be in the presence of something so old, that had such meaning, and that was so often used – it’s electrifying,” she said. “When people look at it, they’re just mesmerized.”
The post The world’s oldest medieval Judaica relic is now its most valuable, too appeared first on The Forward.
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UK PM Starmer Says There Could Be New Powers to Ban Pro-Palestinian Marches
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor/File photo
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government could ban pro-Palestinian marches in some circumstances because of the “cumulative effect” the demonstrations had on the Jewish community after two Jewish men were stabbed in London on Wednesday.
Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest, but chants like “Globalize the Intifada” during demonstrations were “completely off limits” and those voicing them should be prosecuted.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular feature in London since the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Critics say the demonstrations have generated hostility and become a focus for antisemitism.
Protesters have argued they are exercising their democratic right to spotlight ongoing human rights and political issues related to the situation in Gaza.
Starmer said he was not denying there were “very strong legitimate views about the Middle East, about Gaza,” but many people in the Jewish community had told him they were concerned about the repeat nature of the marches.
Asked if the tougher response should focus on chants and banners, or whether the protests should be stopped altogether, Starmer said: “I think certainly the first, and I think there are instances for the latter.”
“I think it’s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect,” he said, adding that the government needed to look at what further powers it could take.
Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe” on Thursday amid mounting security concerns that foreign states were helping fuel violence, including against the Jewish community.
“We are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK,” the head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement, adding that police were also working “against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors.”
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War Likely to Resume After Trump’s Rejection of Latest Proposal, Says IRGC General
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following an IRGC attack on Israel, in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – A senior Iranian military figure said that fighting with the US was “likely” to resume after President Donald Trump stated he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s latest proposal, regime media reported on Saturday.
The comments of General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, one of the top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, were relayed by the Fars news agency, considered as a mouthpiece of the the powerful paramilitary body.
“Evidence has shown that the Americans do not not adhere to any commitments,” Asadi was quoted as saying.
He further added that Washington’s decision-making was “primarily media-driven aimed first at preventing a drop in oil prices and second at extricating themselves from the mess they have created.”
Iranian armed forces are ready “for any new adventures or foolishness from the Americans,” he said, going to assert that the Iran war would prove for the US a tragedy comparable with what was for Israel the October 7 massacre.
“Just as our martyred Leader said that the Zionist regime will never be the same as before the Al‑Aqsa Storm operation [the name chosen by Hamas leadership for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel], the United States will also never return to what it was before its attack on Iran,” he said. “The world has understood the true nature of America, and no matter how much malice it shows now, it is no longer the America that many once feared.”
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Trump Says US Navy Acting ‘Like Pirates’ to Carry Out Naval Blockade of Iranian Ports
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship M/V Touska as the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Spruance conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released April 19, 2026. Photo: CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US Navy was acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
Some of Tehran’s vessels have been seized by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.
Iran has blocked nearly all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz apart from its own since the start of the war. Trump has imposed a separate blockade of Iranian ports.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The war has raised oil prices and led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Trump, who has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war that remains unpopular in the US, has faced widespread condemnation over his comments on the conflict, including when he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization last month.
Many US experts said last month that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure.