Until recently, the Met Cloisters, situated at the top of a peaceful hill in Fort Tryon Park in the middle of Manhattan’s bustling Washington Heights—a neighborhood with multiple synagogues and many Jewish residents—predominantly featured medieval Christian art and architecture. In July, however, the museum opened “The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish Legacy,” a small yet poignant exhibit featuring jeweled rings, a cache of silver coins and other precious possessions belonging to a single family in the once-flourishing 14th-century Jewish community of Colmar. The treasure was discovered by workmen in 1863 during the renovation of a confectionery shop on the rue des Juifs (“Street of the Jews”) in Colmar, a city on the Rhine River in modern-day eastern France. One of the treasure’s highlights, an elaborate medieval Jewish wedding ring with the words “Mazel Tov” spelled out...

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