Ketubah styles
Classical ornament, illuminated borders and time-honored layouts.
Traditional ketubahs carry the visual language of the past: illuminated borders, symmetry, gold, and hand lettering that echoes centuries of manuscripts. They are the natural choice for an Orthodox or Conservative text, and they anchor a ceremony in continuity. The finest examples are painted or papercut entirely by hand.
Jerusalem, Israel
Trained at Jerusalem's Bezalel Academy, Danny Azoulay works in hand-cut paper, painting, and gold leaf to create ketubahs rooted in classical Jewish ornament. His studio has produced marriage contracts for couples on every continent, each one built around detailed papercut borders and luminous color.
Melbourne, Australia
Nikki Green hand-scripts and paints each ketubah in gouache, watercolor, ink, and 23kt gold or silver leaf on heavy Fabriano paper. Her contemporary designs blend the visual language of ancient manuscripts with motifs drawn from the Australian landscape, making every contract a one-of-a-kind commission.
Newton, Massachusetts, United States
Mickie Caspi has been designing Judaica and ketubahs for decades, working in watercolor, gouache, pen and ink, and gold leaf. Her contracts lean traditional and finely lettered, with border ornament that echoes historic illuminated manuscripts.
United States
Stephanie Caplan blends silk painting, watercolor, collage, and calligraphy into ketubahs with a soft, luminous quality. Her work feels handmade and personal, and she collaborates closely with couples on custom color and text.
New Salem, Massachusetts, United States
Amy Fagin creates illuminated ketubahs in the manuscript tradition, using acrylic, pastel, ink, and collage. Under her studio Twentieth Century Illuminations, she treats each contract as a small illuminated painting, richly detailed and built to last.
United States
Rabbi Yonah Weinrib works in the tradition of the illuminated manuscript, combining exacting Hebrew calligraphy with layered ornament, micrography and gold. His studio, Judaica Illuminations, produces ketubot alongside illuminated volumes on the Jewish life cycle, and offers Ashkenazi and Sephardic texts as well as ketubot written on klaf.
United States
Pamela Feldman-Hill has been making ketubot and Judaic art since 1980, working in papercut, painting and print under the Pearl Editions imprint. The ketubah collection runs from finely cut papercuts to painted borders drawn from Jewish ritual objects and the landscape of Israel.
United States
Debra Band is a Hebrew manuscript artist whose ketubot carry the same illuminated language as a long shelf of published volumes on Psalms, Song of Songs and Kabbalat Shabbat. Each one is painted with dense color, gold and papercut detail, with the couple's own imagery worked into the border.
Jerusalem, Israel
Jamie Shear is a Torah scribe and artist who has lived in Jerusalem since 2005 and has written twelve Torah scrolls for communities around the world. Through his Ktavtam studio he writes ketubot to halachic standards and decorates them with micrography, forming ornament out of the letters themselves.
Toronto, Canada
Bluth's Ritual Studio in Toronto makes scribed contemporary ketubot, pairing hand calligraphy with collage, pressed flowers and architectural motifs. Moroccan doorways and Italian pomegranate collage sit alongside plain hand-scribed pieces.
United States
Susan Leviton pairs delicate papercutting with soft watercolor backgrounds, often painting scenes of Jerusalem above hand-lettered Aramaic text. Her ketubahs have a quiet, devotional feel and a strong sense of place.
Jerusalem, Israel
Jerusalem-born artist Noam Shargorodsky creates handmade ketubahs using oils, watercolors, and 23k gold leaf under the studio name Ketubahome. Her pieces draw on Jewish texts and Israeli landscapes, with Jerusalem, the Old City, and the Western Wall recurring throughout her work.
Chicago, United States
Judith Joseph is a painter, calligrapher and printmaker whose ketubot are built in egg tempera, india ink and watercolor on ragboard. The work takes cues from illuminated manuscripts, folklore and each couple's own story, and every text is lettered by hand.
London, United Kingdom
Mordechai Pinchas, also known as Marc Michaels, is a London sofer STaM who writes and repairs Torah scrolls, tefillin and mezuzot, and holds a Cambridge doctorate in Jewish manuscripts. He conducts his scribal work according to Orthodox halacha and writes ketubot on paper or parchment, plain or illustrated, for communities across the spectrum.
New York, United States
Ketubah Maven is a New York studio producing handcrafted ketubot with an ornamental, decorative streak. Designs range from reaching garden trees to Persian carpet patterning and sunburst florals.
Jerusalem, Israel
Ayala Ophir cuts papercut ketubot and personalized Judaica in Jerusalem, working in a traditional idiom of symmetrical florals and fine cut lace. Most pieces are hand-painted after cutting.
Hod HaSharon, Israel
Tomasio Art makes contemporary Judaica and ketubot from Hod HaSharon, working in gold-accented florals and tree-of-life compositions. Designs are set to order with the couple's names and date.
Canada
Aviel Barclay is a Canadian soferet, the first woman to be traditionally trained and certified as a Jewish scribe. Her ketubot are hand-written and hand-decorated, often on parchment, with painted borders drawn from historic manuscript traditions.
Manchester, United Kingdom
SHB Ketubahs is a Manchester studio making hand-painted and printed ketubot and Judaica. Botanical borders and tree-of-life designs are finished with gold detailing, and bespoke commissions are taken for individual couples.
Giv'at Ada, Israel
Shiri Lanzer hand-paints ketubot and letters the calligraphy by hand, working from a studio in Giv'at Ada. Pieces are made on parchment as well as paper, and the designs favor bright, layered color over restraint.
South Africa
Born and raised in South Africa, Angela Munitz draws her ketubah designs from nature observed and painted directly. Her work is soft and botanical, built on close attention to flowers, leaves, and light.
Our guide walks through modern vs traditional, papercut vs painted, and how to match the art to your text.
How to choose a ketubah