December 15, 2010 
Rabbi Jo David
2
Do you have a place you go that makes you feel as though time is suspended? A place where, if you center yourself, you can vividly experience things that have happened to you there in the past? The 1970 novel, “Time and Again,” by Jack Finney, proposes the theory that there are some physical places which, because they remain unchanged, can be portals for time travelers.
One place like that for me is the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) at 122nd Street and Broadway in Manhattan. JTS is a Jewish university which trains Conservative rabbis and cantors. It also offers an undergraduate degree, a doctoral program, and an Education program. In 1985, as I was preparing to apply to rabbinical school, I was appointed head of the JTS Marketing and Public Relations department.
JTS in 1985 was at a pivotal point in its development. While I worked there, the school celebrated its centennial and ordained the first female Conservative rabbi, Rabbi Amy Eilberg. It would take several years before the Cantorial school would invest its first female cantors, although the Chancellor at the time, Dr. Gerson Cohen, of blessed memory, was anxious for the school to do so.
I had pursued the job at JTS because I wanted to get to know a great many rabbis. Although I was preparing myself to apply to rabbinical school, I knew very few rabbis personally, and I thought it would be a good idea to work in the Jewish world surrounded by rabbis and Jewish scholars. The job at JTS fit like a glove in many ways, and I had a wonderful time there.
When my son, Justin, decided to enter the JTS rabbinical program, I was delighted. I knew that it would be the perfect seminary for him. We had a number of wonderful experiences together on the campus, including the celebration of my grandson Lior’s bris. Whenever I’m uptown, I try to stop into JTS for lunch in the cafeteria. Over the years, I’ve attended educational programs, holiday celebrations, concerts, religious services and conferences. And of course I’ve used the library many times.
All this is a long way of saying that I have many levels of experiences at JTS. I was there last night to attend an Open House at the JTS Library, acknowledged to be the greatest Jewish library in the Western Hemisphere. As I walked into the lobby below the Library, I was overcome by waves of memories. I spent some time walking around, looking at the art, some of which was installed during my tenure at JTS, thinking about Lior’s bris, Justin’s graduation, the programs that I facilitated while working there, Amy Eilberg’s graduation. There was such a strong sense “home.” During the Open House, I didn’t meet anyone I knew, but I had such a wonderful feeling of being comfortable and embraced by my memories.
It was ridiculously cold yesterday and hauling myself cross town and all the way uptown would normally have been very low on my list of priorities. However, the invitation to the Open House promised an up close and personal look at materials from the Library’s Special Reading Room on the Fifth floor. The Seminary has a fabulous collection of rare books, manuscripts, paintings, and prints, as well as a wealth of material from the famed “Cairo Geniza.”
The Cairo Geniza was a repository of old and unused Hebrew documents stored in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt. Discovered in the late 19th century, the material sheds light on the social, cultural, religious and economic life of Mediterranean Jewry from the ninth through the nineteenth centuries. The discovery of the geniza revolutionized the study of medieval Jewry. There are thirty-five thousand fragments from the geniza in the Seminary’s collection. There are other major collections of geniza fragments throughout the world.
When I was at the Seminary in 1985, scholars at JTS had been working for years to piece the fragments together by hand. I remember going into the rare bookroom archives and looking through the volumes in which the fragments had been conserved. It was thrilling. Today, thanks to technology, all the fragments are being digitized and catalogued so that they can be accessed online through The Friedberg Genizah Project. (For more information, see below.) This is a major breakthrough in Geniza research.
Another delight was the ability to look through the Seminary’s illuminated books and manuscripts. I would have gladly lived in the rare book room. The friendly librarian who understood how I felt about manuscripts and rare books (my being the daughter of a rare-book collector and dealer, as well as being a collector myself) was very generous in giving me access to the collection. It was a privilege that stands out as one of the great experiences of my life. The chance to see some of these documents again was what compelled me to defy the elements to attend the Library Open House.
It was truly a wonderful evening. Curators were available to describe the various exhibits on display and to answer questions. Of particular interest to me were the illuminated wedding poems and puzzles, mostly documents from 17th century Italy.
The Italian Jewish community of that time was quite wealthy. Jewish women donated their ball gowns (made of rich materials) to the synagogue so that the skirts could be turned into Torah mantles. If you visit the Jewish museum in Rome, you can see these mantles. They look like the skirts of ball gowns, but the materials are exquisite.
At that time, it was a custom for friends of the bride and groom to present them with poems written especially for their wedding. Sometimes, the bride and groom would create a puzzle and send it to their guests prior to the wedding. At some point during the festivities, their guests would present their solutions to the puzzle. An example of such a puzzle, with the solution written out by a guest, was on display last night and is shown below.
Sharon Liberman Mintz, shown below, explained the wedding poems and puzzles in detail and with great understanding and sensitivity. A specialist in the fields of illuminated Hebrew manuscripts and rare printed books, Ms. Liberman Mintz has curated more than forty exhibitions and co-authored eleven exhibition catalogs. Since 1994, she has also served as the senior consultant for Judaica and Hebraica at Sotheby’s New York, where she curated and mounted the record-breaking exhibition of the Valmadonna Trust Library. A recent publication, “A Journey through Jewish Worlds: Highlights from the Braginsky Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books,” accompanies an international exhibition of rare Hebrew books that she co-curated. She also recently participated in curating the “Three Faiths of Abraham” exhibit currently on display at the New York Public Library in Manhattan.
Another fascinating display at the JTS Library is the work of award-winning contemporary artist Rudi Wolff. His colorful and moving digitally-created images illustrate twelve stories from the Biblical Book of Genesis. Of particular interest to me was the illustration for Lech L’cha, the story in which God commands Abram to leave his home and begin a journey to an undisclosed location. Commenting on the inspiration for his illustration for this section of the Torah, Wolff writes, “As a refugee from Nazi Germany, this verse resonates with me – to be torn from home and country and become a refugee. Perhaps this command foreshadowed the wanderings of the Jewish people. (See image below.)
Other outstanding exhibits currently on display are “Jewish Musical Response to German Kultur” (Alperin Lobby – first floor). From the musical archives of the Seminary, this exhibit explores the changes in Jewish music from the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) through the Nazi years with historical photos, engravings, correspondence and musical scores. The curator, Elliott Kahn, the Seminary’s music archivist, gave wonderful explanations of the materials on display. Also of note is “Bernard Picart: Biblical land Religious Prints of the Eighteenth Century,” on the Fifth floor.
Original materials from the past are like miniature time machines. Looking at them, surreptitiously touching them (very gently), is a way of making a direct connection with people and societies long gone. I always have a sense of strong connection to the past when I hold an old book or manuscript. I hear the whispers of those who held the items when they were brand new; I can imagine their excitement, their interest, their curiosity. Thank you, JTS, for the opportunity to go back in time and dwell there for awhile.
The main photo today is a detail from a late 17th century Italian ketubah. It shows the Old City of Jerusalem as envisioned at the time. The building on the bottom at the far right is the mosque on the Temple Mount. The building directly to its left is the “Wailing Wall.”
Below, information on some of the organizations mentioned in today’s blog.
The Friedberg Genizah Project – http://www.genizah.org/index.htm
Jewish Theological Seminary – http://www.jtsa.edu
Jewish Theological Seminary – Special Treasure On Line – http://www.jtslibrarytreasures.or
Jewish Theological Seminary Library – http://www.jtsa.edu/x166.xml
Rudi Wolff – http://www.rudiwolff.com/index.html also – www.commandmentandimage.com and www.creationandimage.com
Sharon Liberman Mintz, Curator of Jewish Art, explains an Italian wedding poem.
The art reflects the artist's feelings about being a refugee from Nazi Germany.
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