Jewish Treasures from Oxford Libraries

by Rebecca Abrams (Editor), Cesar Merchan-Hamann (Editor)

Representing four centuries of collecting and a thousand years of Jewish history, this book brings together Hebrew manuscripts and rare books from the Bodleian Library and Oxford colleges. Highlights of the extraordinary collections include a fragment of Maimonides’ autograph draft of the Mishneh Torah, the earliest dated fragment of the Talmud, exquisitely illuminated manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, stunning festival prayer books, and one of the oldest surviving Jewish seals in England. Lavishly illustrated essays by experts in the field bring these outstanding works to life, exploring the personalities and diverse motivations of their original collectors.
 
Saved for posterity by religious scholarship, intellectual rivalry, and political ambition, these extraordinary collections also detail the consumption and circulation of knowledge across the centuries, forming a social and cultural history of objects moved across borders from person to person. Together, they offer a fascinating journey through Jewish intellectual and social history.

304 pages, Hardcover

Published July 15, 2020

Reviews

[Wendelle]

Beautiful book that tracks the growth of the Bodleian Library's Hebrew and Judaica collection through the aggregations and donations of a group of scholarly benefactors and collectors with wide-ranging cerebral interests and intense acquisitive desire for manuscripts.

[Brian Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful and remarkable book, highlighting the Hebrew collections within Oxford colleges and the Bodleian Library, and introduces the reader to a fascinating sample of the textual material available, together with their histories, the dates when they were created, and by whom.
This book provides the essential details for further understanding of both Judaism and the Islamic world,together with the interpretations of early Christian Hebrew scholars, and each of the included collections is introduced by a highly regarded specialist in their field.
Gradually, the Hebrew material held at Oxford is being transferred to the digital realm, for greater, easier access for both the dedicated scholar and anyone interested in improving their understanding and appreciation of this invaluable material, but this publication alone provides a satisfying introduction to these remarkable collections - a hardback book produced to the highest standards that will grace any library.