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10 treasures from the New York Public Library’s 125-year-old Jewish collection
(New York Jewish Week) – In the heart of Manhattan, you can page through the Passover story in an Italian haggadah from half a century ago, check out the posters for the most popular Yiddish plays of the 1920s and examine dried flower arrangements from the Holy Land made at the end of the 19th century.
Opened just two years after the New York Public Library itself, the Dorot Jewish Division of the New York Public Library is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.
Today the collection, housed in the library’s main building on Fifth Ave., boasts over 250,000 materials from all over the world, with the earliest ones dating back to the 13th century.
“People don’t realize the amount of depth we have in this collection chronologically and geographically and it is still growing,” said Lyudmila Sholokhova, the curator of the collection. “I think we have been too modest about what we have here — this library is for everybody and the community needs to know that.”
To celebrate its 125th birthday and spread the word, the Dorot Jewish Division is putting some of its favorite materials on display for an event with librarians, scholars and writers from around the country to discuss the history of Dorot, and its future, on Wednesday, Dec. 14. The event is in person and online.
That history dates to November 1897, when banker and philanthropist Jacob Schiff donated $10,000 to the New York Public Library for the purchase of “Semitic literature” and the hiring of a curator of a Jewish division in the library. Schiff ended up donating $115,000 (nearly $4 million today) over the course of his lifetime.
The head librarian position went to bibliographer and historian Abraham Solomon Freidus, who immigrated to New York from Latvia in 1889. Under his watch, the newly established Jewish Division became a prominent research and reference center for Jewish scholars all over the world. A reading room dedicated to the Jewish Division, where scholars have researched everything from a study of Jews and chocolate to a history of Jewish women in theater, has remained in active use at the library since 1911.
Sholokhova came to the NYPL in 2020 after nearly 20 years working as a librarian at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Part of her mission is to showcase the collection to the public and help bring awareness to the library’s extensive resources.
Through most of its history, the Dorot Jewish Division was used as a reference site while scholars worked on encyclopedias and research. Today, the reading room is still open to the public — and there’s alos an extensive digital catalog available on the library’s website. All New Yorkers need to do is request the items they want to see a few days in advance.
Though the division inherited a few small collections and private libraries, many of its items have been purchased or donated over time.
The New York Jewish Week recently stopped by to see what would be on view during the anniversary celebrations. Here are 10 highlights:
1. Historic haggadahs from Venice and Amsterdam
Traditional illustrated haggadahs from Venice (left) and Amsterdam (right). Printed in the 17th century. (Julia Gergely, design by Grace Yagel)
The Dorot Jewish Division boasts an impressive collection of haggadahs, the guides used at Passover seders. The collection includes the Venice Haggadah with Judeo-Italian translation, printed in 1609, and the Amsterdam Haggadah printed in 1695. Both of these volumes are first editions of what became a standard structure for a haggadah — the Venice Haggadah influenced Mediterranean tradition and the Amsterdam Haggadah influenced Central European tradition.
2. The very first Sunday edition of the Forverts
Vol. 1, No. 1. Sunday edition of the Forverts from May 2, 1897. (Julia Gergely, design by Grace Yagel)
Forverts (or “Forward” in English), the Yiddish daily that circulated in New York throughout the 20th century, is not just one of the most significant publications in American Jewish history — at its height it was the highest-circulation daily in New York. The paper began publishing in April 1897 and paper copies from its first few months in circulation are incredibly scarce. Sholokhova believes Dorot’s original copy of its first Sunday Supplement, published May 2, 1897, may be the earliest known copy of the Forverts in existence.
3. The earliest image of the North American continent in a Hebrew book
An image of the globe in Ma’aseh Toviyah, an encyclopedia of science and medicine. (Julia Gergely)
Published in Venice in 1707, “Ma’aseh Toviyah” (Work of Tobias) is an encyclopedia of science and medicine written in Hebrew, with sections on theology, astronomy, medicine and geography. Written by Toviyah Katz (also known as Tobias Cohn), the book contains the earliest known image of the American continent in a Hebrew book.
4. First Hebrew alphabet printed in the United States
The first Hebrew grammar book, printed for a Hebrew course at Harvard College. (Julia Gergely)
Printed around 1735, “A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue” or “Dikduk leshon l’ivrit” is the first known book in the American colonies to contain the entire Hebrew alphabet and a lesson on Hebrew grammar. Compiled by Judah Monis, a Hebrew teacher at Harvard College, the book was intended for Harvard students who desired to study the Old Testament in its original language. Monis was born Jewish but converted to Christianity.
5. A palmistry guide according to Kabbalah
A kabbalah palmistry book, dated around 1800. (Julia Gergely)
This book details the art of palmistry, or hand-reading, according to the Jewish mystical tradition of kabbalah. “Sefer Hochmat HaYad,” or “Book of the Wisdom of the Hand,” was compiled by Eliyahu Mosheh Galino, who lived in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in the early 16th century. The library dates the printing of this copy, notable for illustrations that feature white lines etched into black hands, to sometime around 1800.
6. Farewell banquet invitation for Eliezer Ben-Yehudah, lexicographer of the first Hebrew dictionary
Invitation for a farewell banquet for Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who compiled the first Hebrew dictionary at the New York Public Library. (Julia Gergely, design by Grace Yagel)
One of the Dorot Jewish Division’s most famous researchers, Eliezer Ben-Yehudah, was an early Zionist who became known as the father of Modern Hebrew. During World War I, Ben-Yehudah came to the New York York Public Library to work on the first modern Hebrew dictionary, which he eventually brought back to Palestine. The archive has kept an invitation for Ben-Yehudah’s farewell dinner on Feb. 26, 1919, which includes all the names of the members of the dinner committee as well as the menu in Hebrew and English.
7. A community ledger from Mariupol, Ukraine
The title page ledger with minutes from a mishnah study class in Mariupol, Ukraine. (Julia Gergely)
A pinkas is a census-like ledger kept by Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, recording births, deaths, financial transactions, events and even criminal cases. This illustrated pinkas comes from a mid-19th century Hasidic community in what is now Mariupol, Ukraine, and details the minutes of a Mishnah study class held over the course of a decade. The first entry is dated 1837 and the last is 1848. The pinkas is dedicated to the Trisk Rabbi, Avrohom ben Mordechai Twersky.
8. An 18th-century Megillat Esther
An illuminated manuscript of Megillat Esther, read on Purim. The illustrations, in folk style, were drawn in the late 18th century. (Julia Gergely)
An illustrated scroll of Megillat Esther, the scroll read on Purim, is believed to be from Eastern Europe from the late 18th century. The scroll is significant because it is an illuminated manuscript, with hand-drawn images from scenes in the Book of Esther surrounding the text.
9. Pressed flowers and photographs from 1890s Palestine
Left: An 1899 photo of Jerusalem by Bruno Kentschel. Right: Flowers from Israel, dried and pressed in the 1890s. (Julia Gergely, design by Grace Yagel)
In the 1890s, as the political Zionist movement was beginning to take shape, small books of pressed flowers that were gathered in the Holy Land appeared in the United States. Dorot’s holding features native flowers pressed into the shape of Jewish symbols, and will be shown next to photographs of the landscape of Jerusalem from the same period, taken by Bruno Kentschel, a German photographer who worked from a small studio in Jerusalem.
10. Advertisements from Jewish businesses in the United States
Advertisements , postcards and trading cards for American Jewish businesses. (Julia Gergely, design by Grace Yagel)
The Dorot Jewish Division also has a vast collection of matchboxes, postcard advertisements and trading cards from Jewish businesses across America. The colorful, illustrated advertisements from the 19th and 20th centuries are very often the only traces of Jewish businesses that still exist, Sholokhova explained.
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The post 10 treasures from the New York Public Library’s 125-year-old Jewish collection appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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He reconnected with Judaism as an adult. With his art, he hopes others do the same.
Bruce David’s magnum opus is a psychedelic lithograph depicting practically the entire Torah. Over eight months, David filled it with a plethora of hidden symbols: If you look closely, you can see Joshua blowing a shofar, which hugs the Israeli flag. Squint even more and you’ll notice Joshua’s face is the flared end of an even bigger shofar that encompasses the Ten Commandments, a shofar made up of dozens of small people, seven of whom hold flames as if making a human menorah.
To understand every hidden image in just this one painting would take more words than I have space for. David gave me the “short version” of the piece’s story on Zoom — it still took six minutes.
Although David has now spent decades making Jewish art — prints, mosaics, stained glass and metal works — and exhibiting it across the country, it wasn’t what he had anticipated doing with his life. David doesn’t have any formal art training and for several years, he lost touch with his Judaism.
“Oftentimes I’ll refer to myself as a deeply flawed holy man wannabe,” David told me over Zoom from his house in Bloomington, Indiana. “But I always had this spiritual pull.”
David grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, with a Reform father and a mother from an Orthodox family. His Orthodox grandmother, Bess Harris — who he described as a force to be reckoned with — was a particular influence on him.
“I really learned my Jewish heart from her and her love of God,” David said. “She was involved with starting a Jewish day school, a Jewish nursing home, the synagogue, and she would lead trips to Israel.”
But traditional religious practice didn’t speak to him when he was a kid. He told me that one time he even climbed out of the window during Hebrew school to go play basketball.
Years later, his wife Diane was the one who helped him find new ways to connect with Judaism. Although she was raised Catholic, Diane was curious about Judaism. David needed to refresh himself on the answers.
“We started looking at the different aspects of Judaism and different things started to make sense,” David told me. “Shabbat made sense — you know, everybody needs a time to rest, recharge. Yom Kippur makes sense as a time to forgive and be forgiven. Rosh Hashanah to start again. Sukkot to get out and celebrate and get close to nature.”
When the couple met, David’s job was making deliveries for his grandfather’s wholesale store in Louisville. For David’s 30th birthday, Diane gave him a set of pigment pencils and the art started flowing out of him. Many of his pieces are concerned with biblical stories — like his mosaic of Jonah emerging onto the shores of Nineveh or his rainbow colored print of Balaam and his donkey — and he refers to them as “visual midrash.”
Unsure what to do with his art, David went to the Hillel at Indiana University Bloomington to see if the rabbi had any ideas. The rabbi connected him with art professor Mazelle Van Buskirk who was taken with David’s work. She arranged for an exhibit at IU’s School of Fine Arts, making him the first community artist to be given such an honor and kicking off his career.
He has presented his art at Jewish schools and exhibited it at events like the National Hadassah Conference, the Cincinnati Jewish Folk Festival, and the Coalition for Alternatives to Jewish Education. His work has been on the cover of books and Jewish publications. Many of the events that have had the greatest impact on David’s life were unplanned.
“We’ve always lived our lives on miracles,” David told me.
Among these, David said, was Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, “the Singing Rabbi” who wrote hundreds of liturgical melodies in the 20th century, conducting a (planned) conversion for Diane and an (unplanned) wedding ceremony for the couple in the 80s.
“We went to the mikvah for the conversion,” David told me. “And then he tells us ‘Oh by the way we’re going to marry you Saturday night after Shabbat.’”
Another miracle happened when David met a couple looking for someone to manage 29 acres in Bloomington overlooking Monroe Lake. Nature lovers, the couple quickly took the opportunity to live somewhere they could connect with the earth. David’s admiration for natural forms can also be found in much of his art; the shapes tend to flow and bend.
Over the 46 years that the couple has lived on their property, they’ve turned it into a home base for their Jewish worship and educational group Light of the Nations, which conducts lessons at various synagogues and JCCs through art and music. They host parties for Sukkot and the solar eclipse on their huge lawn, welcoming dozens of visitors.
David said they wanted their home to be a “place where people come out and get close to nature in life and slow down.”
Seventy-five years old and battling blood cancer, David is now spending his time focusing on helping people connect to Judaism in a holistic way and see the beauty that brought him back to religion. He’s slowed down on exhibiting his art, instead working on making sure Light of the Nations’ mission can continue once he is gone and that his art will find a home.
David hopes that people recognize in his art “that there’s this amazing, incredible life force influencing all creation.”
The post He reconnected with Judaism as an adult. With his art, he hopes others do the same. appeared first on The Forward.
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Metropolitan Police investigating abuse of Jewish attendees at London Pride
(JTA) — London’s Metropolitan Police launched an investigation Monday into antisemitic abuse at a Pride parade after videos and pictures circulated on social media showed Jewish participants enduring taunts at Saturday’s event.
The police department said in a statement that officers were “aware of videos circulating online that show antisemitic verbal abuse directed towards attendees” at the parade in central London and that footage was being reviewed to assess whether criminal offenses had been committed. The department added that it “continues to work hard to tackle hate crimes of all types.”
Videos shared online show people carrying rainbow flags incorporating the Star of David being confronted by individuals shouting “Free Palestine.” The harassment escalated with attendees shouting, “Go back to your Zionist homeland,” “You kill Arab children, you kill gay children,” “F*** you, Jew,” and “How many babies did you kill?”
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reached out to Pride in London for comment. The group had not replied by press time.
The incident comes amid heightened concern over antisemitism in Britain since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, with a record number of antisemitic incidents reported over the past two years. It also comes as Pride celebrations around the world have been roiled by tensions over Israel and antisemitism.
Pride in London drew tens of thousands of participants and visitors to the Soho neighborhood in the British capital. Some Jewish LGBTQ+ organizations have in recent years chosen not to participate in Pride, citing hostility towards Zionist Jews. But this year, around 150 people marched as part of a Jewish bloc at the event.
Organizers said the return this year followed discussions with Pride in London over Jewish inclusion and commitments that organizers would undertake antisemitism awareness training in partnership with the Community Security Trust, the main security consultant to the Jewish community. Jewish LGBTQ group Keshet UK stated earlier this year that the measures were intended to help ensure Jewish LGBTQ+ participants could march “safely and openly” following concerns raised after Oct. 7.
It was not clear whether the Jewish marchers who endured the abuse were part of the official Jewish bloc – accounts from marchers who stayed with the Jewish bloc were generally positive.
“A few people came and chanted ‘free, free, Palestine,’” Israeli author and LGBTQ+ activist Hen Mazzig told JTA. “They were passing through. And there was another person who was at a cafe and then they came by and they were just staring at us.”
Mazzig shared footage from the event on X, writing, ”My pride is not affected by the opinions of others. I am gay, I am Jewish, and I’m here to stay. Am Yisrael chai.”
Mazzig splits his time between London and Tel Aviv, because his husband is British. He told JTA in a phone interview that Saturday’s incidents “were scary, especially when a Pride parade is supposed to be inclusive.”
Mazzig said that since Oct, 7, circumstances have been exceptionally challenging for the British Jewish community “but specifically for LGBTQ youth that are being forced to choose between their Jewish identity and their queer identity.”
Mazzig claimed that Jewish marchers are not accepted unless they specify that they are anti-Zionist. “Every statement of solidarity with LGBTQ Jews seems to come with a ‘but,’” he said. ‘We support you, but not if you’re physically Jewish, not if you’re supporting Israel. You have to renounce half of your identity first.’ That’s not equality.”
In advance of Saturday’s event, some 650 Met police officers were deployed to enforce “zero tolerance” on hate crimes and to ensure that attendees could “safely and securely” enjoy the parade.
When JTA asked the Metropolitan police why at least two policemen appeared to stand by as Jews were subject to abuse, the Met requested that JTA provide the video in question. After being supplied with the video, the Met later told JTA that it had nothing further to add at this stage but would provide an update if it did.
Mazzig said the Met police should consider the abuse at the parade “shameful and it should alarm everyone.”
He added, “I hope that we stop debating whether or not antisemitism is real and accept it. And that communities that are supposed to be inclusive and pluralistic start taking action.”
The post Metropolitan Police investigating abuse of Jewish attendees at London Pride appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s diaspora minister calls Erdogan a ‘grotesque hybrid of Hitler and Sinwar’
(JTA) — Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli compared Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Adolf Hitler and slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a post on X on Monday.
“We all know how narcissistic power-obsessed fanatics like you begin and how they end. The Jewish people have never feared mere flesh and blood, from Pharaoh until today,” Chikli wrote. “You are nothing but a pathetic blood soaked zero who history will soon forget.”
In the post, Chikli accused the Turkish leader of being a “patron of Hamas and ISIS” and described him as a “grotesque hybrid of Hitler and Sinwar” alongside an AI image of Erdogan in front of a Nazi flag.
Chikli’s post was in response to an address by Erdogan last month, in which the Turkish leader called Zionism a “genocidal occupying expansionist ideology” and said the “struggle” against Zionism was for the “collective survival of ourselves and our nation.”
Long-standing tensions between Turkey and Israel stoked by the war in Gaza have escalated in recent weeks, amid increasing Israeli concerns over the tight ties between Ankara and Washington and the possible sale of advanced American F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. Erdogan, who has consistently voiced support for Hamas, has been one of Israel’s most outspoken international critics.
Chikli’s post followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s blistering attack against Erdogan during an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Fox News Monday. Netanyahu said Turkey was “governed by a man who calls openly for the annihilation of Israel…and talks openly about conquering Jerusalem.”
The Israeli leader warned against the sale of weaponry to Ankara, portraying Turkey as an aggressive country that didn’t help the U.S. battle Iran. He spoke in advance of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to Ankara late Tuesday for a two-day summit of NATO.
“For a regime infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America and chants ‘death to America’ from that side of the spectrum, I don’t think they should be given F-35’s or the engines for their fighter jets,” Netanyahu told Fox News.
Such a sale would “upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority and … by America’s posture in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.
Relations between the two regional powers have also been aggravated by the Israeli government’s June 28 decision to recognize the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire during and immediately after World War I.
Turkey has condemned Israel’s recognition of the Armenian genocide. It’s a move so diplomatically controversial that to date, only some 33 countries, aside from Israel, have taken this step, including the U.S. in 2021.
According to Politico, Erdogan said in a public address last week, “We do not give the slightest heed to the slanders about our country from the murder network that has the blood of 73,000 innocent Gazans, most of them children and women, on its hands.”
Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Saar, also took aim at Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, during a press conference in Jerusalem Monday, decrying Fidan’s comments to CNN Türk on Friday in which he said that Israel had become a “burden that humanity can no longer bear.”
“The remarks by Turkey’s Foreign Minister are a clear call for genocide,” Saar said. “The Jewish people know all too well what happens when such words are allowed to go unanswered. The first step on the road to genocide is dehumanization.”
The post Israel’s diaspora minister calls Erdogan a ‘grotesque hybrid of Hitler and Sinwar’ appeared first on The Forward.
