This calligraphic masterpiece, 11-inch high piece of parchment that contains the entire biblical Song of Songs in Hebrew micrography (written in tiny letters). It is signed by the Lithuanian artist/scribe, Baruch ben Shemaryah, 1794. It renders the entire Song of Songs as a work of art, in letters that are at once text and illumination. Shir (song) is the central word around which the text revolves. The crown, labeled “crown of kingship” perhaps refers to the Song’s opening statement that its author is King Solomon.
Religious authorities in both Judaism and Christianity made the Song’s prominence possible by interpreting it allegorically, as an expression of God’s love. The document’s chronogram—Hebrew words whose numerical value indicates the date—uses ahavat olam: eternal love. It may refer to a prayer about God’s love for Israel which begins with these words; or it may mean that the document was created in honor of a marriage. For, in everyday usage and in its plain meaning, the Song of Songs is about spring, youth, love, and yearning.
In addition to the collection of Judaica books in the library, we have been collecting manuscripts of various kinds that are of interest to scholars. These different genres of materials enhance the Judaica Collection by providing library patrons with materials that are unique to Yale. Since the library’s holdings are cataloged online, knowledge of these items is accessible to scholars all over the world.
The largest of our manuscript collections are the Jewish community registers from Europe. These registers, known in Hebrew as pinkase kehilah, were produced by synagogue congregations, study societies, charitable societies and burial societies (the hevra kadisha). The pinkasim (pl.) in Yale’s collection originate primarily in Eastern and Central Europe (mostly Hungary and Romania). The contents consist of proceedings of meetings, regulations and by-laws, records of monetary contributions, and the recording of births and deaths. The title page of many of them are elaborately written and decorated. They are an excellent primary resource for the study of the economic, social and religious life of Jewish communities in Eastern and Central Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They originated in the large centers of Jewish life but also in small out-of-way communities. They thus shed light on Jewish life in geographic locations where there is precious little other information available. There are pinkasim in the collection that contain records that go up to the early 1940s, the point at which these communities were destroyed by the Nazis.
The community register collection serves as a complement to Yale’s large collection of yizkor books, memorials to the destroyed Jewish communities of Europe during the Sho’ah. These are works that were by-and-large compiled by survivors of those towns. Those that remained alive at the end of the war attempted to evoke the towns of their birth in earlier times when those towns were still vibrant and active. In addition to the many essays concerning the village, town, or city found in these books, the compilers also included photos of members of the various Zionist groups, sports clubs, school graduations, family outings, socialist or Bundist gatherings, and other events in the life of their community. The yizkor books celebrate the life of European Jewish communities that were brutally destroyed; the community register collection serve to shed further light on many of those communities. A list of most of Yale’s holdings can be found at: http://www.library.yale.edu/judaica/site/collection/yizkorbooks.php
Shiviti plaque : Herat, Afghanistan, early 20th century?
Such plaques were hung in the synagogue to inspire more devout prayer. Physical Description: 1 item ([1] leaf) ; approximately 60 x 48 cm In Hebrew. Summary: Manuscript, ink and paint? on paper. God’s name is written in large letters at the top of the document and two turquoise fish appear among the letters. They may be there as symbols of fertility. Throughout the Shiviti are words with that have magic and folk kabbalistic significance. The shiviti includes five seven-branched candelabra formed from calligraphic texts of psalms. In between the bases of the candelabra are four six-pointed stars formed by Hebrew letters that seem to have magical meanings. The text on the outer border quotes Jacob’s blessing of Joseph in the Book of Genesis. There is some damage to the text at the bottom. The plaque is dedicated to the memory of Netanel bar Mosheh, but the identity of the scribe is unknown since only his initials are given.
Louis Mayer Rabinowitz became Yale’s great friend and benefactor as a result of a visit to the university in 1943 when he presented to the Yale library a recording of speeches by Wendell Willkie, Al Smith and others. Until then, his main interest was art collecting but librarians at Yale and particularly James T. Babb, the University Library, encouraged him also to buy books and manuscripts. From there on in, he became an avid collector, and his extraordinary gifts to the Library helped make Yale a major player in the world of rare books and manuscripts.
Louis M. Rabinowitz’s life story represents the classic American dream. He was born in Lithuania and he arrived in this country as a penniless immigrant at the age of 14. As a young boy, he sold remnants of fabric from a pushcart on Hester Street, and then became a house painter’s helper. He went on to make a fortune in the manufacture of women’s undergarments. Though his formal education ended when he was 12 years old, he became a knowledgeable and cultured man through his own efforts and hard work.
Rabinowitz’s greatest contribution-though by no means his only one-to Judaic studies in the Yale library is the Judaica collection of the Yiddish writer,Sholem Asch. He purchased Asch’s collection in 1945 and presented it to the University. Yale also received with the gift several manuscripts of Asch’s own writings. The Rabinowitz/Asch Collection, as it came to be called, contained about 330 items of incunabula (books printed before 1500), 16th century imprints, first editions of important rabbinic works, magnificent illuminated ketubot (marriage contracts) and megilot (Scrolls of Esther) from Italy, and early editions of important works in Yiddish. Among the ketubot are several from the 18th and early 19th centuries from the Modigliani family. All are from Rome though the famous painter, Amadeo Modigliani, belonged to the branch of the family that resided in Livorno.
Keter (crown) Place and date unknown Symbolic representation of the three crowns: learning, priesthood, royalty. But surpassing them all is the fourth, the crown of a good name. To your left is a representation of the Tabernacle or the Temple with seven-branched candelabrum, the ark of the law, and the cherubim in the center. The shew-bread is on the left. The hands below represent the priesthood with an incense-holder. This document, like the one above, was also probably meant to be hung in a synagogue.
Other treasures include a group of illustrated manuscripts built around the statement in Pirke Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 4:17 that three crowns were given to the Jewish people: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood and the crown of kingship. However, the crown of a good name is above them all. Leon Nemoy, Yale’s first curator in charge of Judaica and the curator at the time of the gift, called these documents, ketarim (crowns) because there is no other genre in which to include them. They stand alone as artistic representations of spiritual values and they are among the most beautiful documents in Asch’s collection. Included in the gift are 7 incunabla.
Known in English as cradle books because they were the very first books ever printed, they are needless to say exceedingly rare. Given their age, they are often missing pages or have many damaged pages but they are nevertheless the most desired of books and to receive seven of them at one time was most fortuitous for Yale. Among them is a volume of the latter prophets (Isaiah and Jeremiah only) and a volume of the ketuvim (hagiographa) both printed by Eliezer Toledano in Lisbon in 1492, the year in which the Jews were expelled from Spain and Columbus discovered America. Portugal expelled the Jews in its realm—and that included all the Jews who fled there from Spain—in 1497. The ensuing chaos and destruction meant that most Jewish books printed in Portugal were either lost or destroyed. Those that survived are therefore extremely rare and precious.
Another book that stands out is the Bovo-bukh printed in Amsterdam in 1661 by Uri Phoebus ben Aaron ha-Levi. It is a translation by Elias Levita (1468-1549) in rhymed Yiddish verse of the Italian version of the Buovo d’Antona which is in itself a translation of the early 14th-century Anglo-Norman original, Boeuve de Hanstone. This chivalric romance which tells the story of the heroic adventures of the noble Bovo became one of the most beloved tales in the Yiddish literary canon and remained so over the course of more than two centuries.
In a future blog, I will discuss some of the other treasures that came with the Asch Collection.
