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An Illustration of Kiddush Levanah
May 20, 2016 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Emor
The middle of this week’s parashah (Lev. 23) details the cycle of the Jewish holidays. Each holiday is listed according to its month and its day. The months of the Hebrew calendar are strictly lunar, from new moon to new moon. Kiddush Levanah, a selection of prayers in honor of the new moon, is traditionally recited at the end of the first or second shabbat of each month.
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The Beautiful Possible: A Novel
Mar 2, 2016 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
A lively discussion with Amy Gottlieb on her epic debut novel The Beautiful Possible, in the vein of Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love. Gottlieb’s story follows a postwar love triangle between an American rabbi, his wife, and a German-Jewish refugee.
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Mourning for Joseph
Dec 25, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Vayehi
Joseph and Zulaykha was written by Jāmī, a Persian poet and adherent of the mystical tradition of Islam (Sufism). It is based on the biblical story of Joseph and the wife of the Egyptian courtier, Potiphar (she is known as Zulaykha in Muslim tradition).
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In God’s Image: Myth, Theology, and Law in Classical Judaism
Oct 20, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
A discussion with author Dr. Yair Lorberbaum, professor at Bar Ilan University Faculty of Law and senior researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute.
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Portrait of the Kings: The Davidic Prototype in Deuteronomistic Poetics
Oct 15, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
A discussion with author Dr. Alison L. Joseph, adjunct assistant professor of Bible at JTS and visiting assistant professor at Towson University.
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Grapes of Zion
Jun 12, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Shelah Lekha
It might be surprising, given its association with the people’s sin of being dissuaded from entering the Land, that the motif of the two spies carrying an enormous bunch of grapes (Num. 13:23) became a popular Zionist symbol and eventually even the logo of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. Indeed, it has been suggested by arts writer Menachem Wecker that several of the older Christian representations of this image deliberately portray the two grape-bearers in a negative light.
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All This Has Come Upon Us
May 12, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
An evening with Mark Podwal, artist, physician, author, and former Op-Ed artist of the New York Times
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Pepper, Silk & Ivory: Amazing Stories about Jews and the Far East
May 7, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
A discussion with authors Rabbi Marvin Tokayer and Dr. Ellen Rodman.
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God, Faith & Identity From the Ashes
Apr 16, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
How have the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors shaped their identity and developed their attitudes toward God, faith, Judaism, the Jewish people, and the world?
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A Dialogue of Life: Toward the Encounter of Jews and Christians
Mar 26, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
This event was cosponsored by The Library and the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue of The Jewish Theological Seminary.
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The Construction of the Tabernacle From the Hebrew Republic (1700)
Feb 20, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Terumah
The Hebrew Republic (De Republica Hebraeorum in the original Latin) was written in the aftermath of Dutch independence from Spain. Petrus Cunaeus principally drew from biblical and Talmudic sources and from Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah in order to reconstruct (or, in reality, construct) the development, structure, and challenges of an ancient Hebrew republic, with the intention of providing a model for the emerging Dutch republic that was both religious and practical.
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Leadership in the Bible: A Practical Guide for Today
Feb 19, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
How would Abraham, Joseph, and Moses respond to the 40 most difficult situations you encounter in daily life?
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Illustrations of Moses in the Amsterdam Haggadah, 1695
Jan 9, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Shemot | Pesah
Strikingly, Moses is barely mentioned in the text of the Haggadah, despite his prominence in the Torah’s account of the Exodus that begins with this week’s parashah. He is, however, prominently featured in some editions via the illustrations.
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The Bus on Jaffa Road: The Story of Middle East Terrorism and the Search for Justice
Nov 19, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
The Bus on Jaffa Road explores the 1996 incident that took the lives of JTS student Matthew Eisenfeld (z”l) and his fiancée, Sara Duker (z”l), and the couple’s legacy.
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An Illustration of the Binding of Isaac From the JTS Library
Nov 7, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Vayera
The Hebrew Bible in which this engraved frontispiece is found was printed in Venice in 1739 at the request of a physician named Isaac Foa. In addition to the Hebrew text, it contains Italian explanations of difficult passages. The engraver, Francesco Griselini (1717–1787), illustrated many non-Jewish works as well as notable borders for megillot, and later became known for his scholarly writing on natural history.
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Catalog of Judeo-Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary
Oct 23, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
The JTS Library holds the largest Judeo-Persian manuscript collection in the West, and the third largest in the world. This repository is crucial in understanding the intellectual legacy of the ancient Iranian Jewish community, whose extant works rest in only a few large but neglected collections.
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Jews Around the World: India and Its Jewish Community
May 14, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
Presented by Peter A. Geffen, Founder and Executive Director, KIVUNIM and Graduates of KIVUNIM.
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Yom Hasho’ah: Documents From the JTS Library and Songs by Johanna Spector
Apr 28, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio | Yom Hashoah
Dr. Johanna Spector (1915–2008), who taught Ethnomusicology at JTS, was a Holocaust survivor who documented Jewish music from around the world. This special Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration will highlight her life and work, as well as The JTS Library’s Johanna Spector Archives and Holocaust-related materials.
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Dreamland of Humanists: Warburg, Cassirer, Panofsky, and the Hamburg School
Feb 10, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
The recent discovery of a new trove of Nazi-looted art in Germany has awakened us to the world of culture and ideas that was lost when Hitler came to power. Dreamland of Humanists: Warburg, Cassirer, Panofsky, and the Hamburg School tells the forgotten story of Hamburg’s emergence as a center of that early 20th-century intellectual world.
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Memory and Covenant
Feb 3, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio
Memory and Covenant: The Role of Israel’s and God’s Memory in Sustaining the Deuteronomic and Priestly Covenants combines a close reading of texts in the Deuteronomic, Priestly, and Holiness traditions with analysis of ritual and scrutiny of the different terminology regarding memory that is used in each tradition.
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