At The N.Y. Public Library
(Conclusion)
Books displayed in the second section, which is devoted to the Oral Tradition, include a volume of the first complete edition of the Babylonian Talmud, printed by Daniel Bomberg in Venice (1520-1523), the first edition of the Turim (Piove di Sacco, Italy, 1475) and the first edition of the Shulhan Arukh (Venice, 1564-1565). Outstanding among the manuscripts in this section are three beautifully illuminated copies of Maimonides’ Mishne Torah. One was executed in Germany towards the end of the 13th century, another in Lisbon in 1471-1472, and the third in Italy in the 15th century. The latter is not complete.
The next section – Prayer Books and Haggadoth – is dominated by manuscripts. Here you see – among other manuscript Haggadoth – a fragment of an illustrated Haggadah from about the year 1000 which was discovered in the Cairo Geniza, and several colorful and lavishly illuminated Haggadoth, including the Golden Haggadah, the Ryland’s Spanish Haggadah and the Kaufmann Haggadah (all written and illustrated in Spain in the 14th century) as well as the Bird’s Head Hagggadah, executed in Germany about the year 1300. The Bird’s Head Haggadah has thus been called because most of the figures in its illustrations have no head, but bird-like features. The illustrator, apparently for religious reasons, was unwilling to draw a complete figure.
There is also the Farissol Haggadah, written by Abraham Mordecai Farissol in Ferrara in 1515. Farissol was a Bible commentator and geographer. His Iggeret Orhot Olam (Venice, 1586) – displayed elsewhere in the exhibition – was the first Hebrew book to contain a description of the New World.
The Prague Haggadah (1526), the first illustrated Haggadah of which complete copies have been preserved, the famous Amsterdam Haggadah of 1695 and the Arthur Szyk-Cecil Roth Haggadah, are among the printed Haggadoth on display.
Illuminated Mahzorim on view include the Catalan Mahzor (14th century), which features drawings of Sanctuary vessels and the sumptuous Tripartite Mahzor, written and illustrated in southern Germany about 1320. The Mahzor’s three parts are in the possession of three different collections (Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest; The British Library, London; Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, West Berlin). They were brought together for the exhibit.
Of the two unadorned manuscript Mahzorim shown in the section, one was written by Yehudah Machabeu in Amsterdam in 1659. In another section is displayed the scribe’s Sample Book, from which his clients could choose the script they preferred. The other Mahzor – seemingly from the 17th century – hails from China. It opens like a fan and its Hebrew letters show the influence of the Chinese script.
Books and manuscripts shown in the last two sections include an illustrated manuscript of Maimonides’ More Nevukhim, executed in Barcelona in 1348: an illustrated manuscript of Josef Albo’s Sefer HaIkkarim (central Italy, circa 1460-1470): the first printed editions of Nathan ben Yehiel’s Arukh (Rome, circa 1469-1472) and of Bahya ben Josef’s Hovot HaLevavot (Naples, 1489); Abraham Bar Hiyya’s Tzurat HaAretz on astronomy (Basle, 1546); Toledot Ya’akov Yosef by Rabbi Jacob Josef HaKohen of Polonnoye (Koretz, 1780), the first Hasidic book to appear in print; and Jossipon, published in Calcutta in 1841.
A companion volume to the exhibition, containing scholarly essays on various aspects of the Hebrew book, was published by the New York Public Library in cooperation with Oxford University Press. I will still come back to this important publication, but here I should like to quote from ״The Hebrew Manuscript as Source for the Study of History and Literature,״ which my good friend D. Menahem Schmelzer, renowned authority on Hebrew manuscripts, has contributed to the volume. His concluding words describe accurately the growing interest in Hebrew manuscripts:
״Since the Holocaust, the appreciation of Hebrew manuscripts as testimony to the spiritual and historical greatness of destroyed Jewish life has assumed new dimensions. The overwhelming loss of Jewish treasures during the Third Reich has made the survivor generation much more conscious of the need for the preservation of what remains. The dramatic upsurge in Jewish studies, in Israel and in the United States, has led many scholars to the study and publication of Hebrew manuscripts. Through the ready availability of modern technology, microfilming, computerization, and the industry, scholars built upon the advances that have had already been achieved. Progress will undoubtedly continue, and still-hidden treasures preserved among the leaves of Hebrew manuscripts will come to light: to enrich, to instruct, and to add to our understanding of the Jewish heritage.״
By Tovia Preschel The Jewish Press, 11-25-1988