When wildfires tore through Southern California in January 2025, hundreds of families from Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades lost their homes—and their ketubahs. Some couples managed to save theirs. Most did not.
That’s when Rabbi Daniel Sher reached out to Ketubah.com, a global online company specializing in personalized ketubahs. He had an unusual request: could the studio create nearly 200 ketubahs in less than a month?
“Rabbi Sher had worked with us before,” recalls Tani Gordon, Ketubah.com’s director of operations. “He told us the community was planning a vow renewal ceremony. Of course, we said yes. It was an honor.”
This wasn’t the first time Ketubah.com stepped up in a time of crisis. The company has supported couples through everything from COVID lockdowns to the October 7 Hamas massacre and the war that followed. In one instance, a bride stuck outside Israel needed a new ketubah overnight after her wedding date and location suddenly changed. Her fiancé, a soldier on active duty, was granted just a few days’ leave to attend the wedding and Sheva Brachot. Ketubah.com designed and shipped a custom ketubah within hours—free of charge. Their deep commitment to giving back to chayalim reflects their gratitude for those who risk everything to protect Israel and the Jewish people.
Ketubah.com has provided many of these emergency ketubahs over the years without cost. “We’re in business to help,” says Gordon. Ketubah.com’s has been able to create so many original, high-quality ketubahs at such short notice in thanks to the company’s unique production process.
By exclusively licensing the designs of about 75 contemporary ketubah artists as well as historical ketubahs from the permanent collections of the National Library of Israel and the Jewish Museum in New York, the studio has hundreds of artistic master templates on-hand, as well as a wide variety of texts. It’s a “unique model” that artists appreciate, Michael Shapiro, the founder and CEO says. “The artists get to do the part they love and receive royalties for every ketubah of theirs that we sell. This allows prices to remain accessible and affordable—Shapiro compares the model to medieval ateliers that once produced illuminated manuscripts: “Some did the calligraphy, others the gilding. We’re a 21st-century version of that.”
Couples can simply go online, choose a design and text, have it Rabbi approved, shipped and ready at their door. For those in a rush—like the California families or war-affected couples—the streamlined process is a lifeline.
Founded in 1996 by Michael Shapiro, a former Procter & Gamble executive, Ketubah.com has grown into the largest ketubah publisher in the world. To date, it has created nearly 100,000 ketubahs for couples of all backgrounds—Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, interfaith, LGBTQ+, and more. “Our goal is to help people connect to our beautiful Jewish tradition in a way that makes sense for them, on their own terms,” Shapiro says.
Shapiro was inspired to launch the company after studying at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem and seeing artist Ardyn Halter’s ketubahs. “I had never seen a ketubah as art,” he recalls. What began with home visits and artist prints is now a full-scale production studio.
Recent years have brought subtle shifts. After October 7th and the rise in global antisemitism, couples began choosing more explicitly Jewish artwork—Magen Davids, Jerusalem motifs—over the previously preferred pastoral scenes. In rare cases, even non-Jewish couples have requested ketubah-style art after seeing a friend’s copy. “They want to capture their vows in a beautiful, meaningful way,” Gordon says.
Thirty years after coming up with the idea to launch Ketubah.com, Shapiro is still innovating. Launched in 2023, HebrewNamer.com is a one-stop resource for exploring, selecting and storing Hebrew names for babies, conversions and beyond. It also has a feature to help engaged couples practice signing their Hebrew names for their ketubah.
This past August, The Jewish Publication Society (JPS) published Ketubah Renaissance – The Artful Modern Revival of the Jewish Marriage Contract. With a Foreword by pre-eminent ketubah scholar, Professor Shalom Sabar of the Hebrew University, it features 60 of the most innovative ketubahs of the past half-century. For Shapiro, it’s about more than art. “A ketubah is a bridge between past and future,” he says. “It marks a commitment, not just between two people—but to Jewish continuity.”