Illustrated highlights from the Judaica Collection of the Library of Congress.
Books Like Sapphires showcases a wide range of Hebraic treasures from the storied collection at the Library of Congress, many of them for the first time. Tracing the history of Judaica collecting in the twentieth-century United States, the book illuminates varied works, telling their stories alongside vibrant color images. These include a unique manuscript about a betrothal scandal in Renaissance Crete, an illustrated Esther Scroll, a poem from 1477 celebrating the new technology of printing, amusing rhymed couplets in sixteenth-century Padua, and the Washington Haggadah. This book also tells the story of the patrons and collectors, first among them Jacob Schiff, as well as archivists and curators, who made the storied Judaica archive at the Library of Congress the precious resource that it is today.
Nonfiction
Books Like Sapphires: From the Library of Congress Judaica Collection
April 16, 2023
Discussion Questions
Books Like Sapphires: From the Library of Congress Judaica Collection by Ann Brener, the Hebraic Specialist at the Library of Congress from 2009 to 2022, is a “book about books, patrons and collections.” And, as the title portends, it is a gem. Why sapphires, one might ask? We learn in Brener’s preface that Hebrew writers throughout the ages have used the image of sapphires to describe the “beauty of the Hebrew book and the clarity, sparkle of the Hebrew page.” Books Like Sapphires highlights only a fraction of the collection’s 250,000 objects and the selection is based on Brener’s “personal … and perceived literary or cultural interest.” From the “greatest” of the Hebraic treasures in the collection, the Washington Haggadah, to the “heaviest”, the Arca Noe: Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae Novus, Brener lyrically pens each entry with an intimate knowledge of the material as well as a conversational ease and connection to the reader. As she proclaims, she is indeed the “sharer-in-chief” of the collection, and the book shines as a result.
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