1000 years of Hebrew books, Melbourne

Jews, Christians and Muslims, Peoples of the Book, shared a common basis of their religious beliefs in the Jewish Bible aka the Old Testam­ent. Recognising the two older systems as precur­sors to their own, Muslims grant­ed free­dom of worship to Jews and Ch­ristians within their dominions. The importance of canon­ic scriptures within these three related traditions set them apart from all cultures (Christopher Allen, The Australian 7/3/24). 

Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, 

Spain, 1325-74

British Library

ALL civilisations had books of religious doctrine, scripture, wis­dom and mythology. The Greeks had a body of Hom­eric and other hymns, but Greek religious belief was always evolving. The Indians had many sacred books, from several related relig­ious traditions. The Chinese had the ancient divinatory texts, plus the different teachings of Confucius and Lao Tzu. But only the 3 Peoples of the Book developed a strict canon in which every sacrosanct word was credited to divine revelation. Such a strict approach to scripture favoured continuity, but also promoted orthodox thinking.

The role of the Book in ensuring the continuity of tr­adition was central. In the centuries after the Ro­man Empire fell, the Bible bec­ame the veh­icle for cult­ure and coh­es­ion AND largely the only ve­hicle for calligraphy and ill­umination. In the Jewish and Islamic wor­lds there was an even great­er emphasis on the writing of the word, since images were limited by the 2nd Commandment.

All books were portable, but the Bible was the one sacred text carried across the world. Pre-lit­er­ate cultures were often tied to sp­ec­if­ic locat­ions; but books allowed culture to be carried and established wherever people settled. The portability of culture was important in the history of Jews. Considering the centrality of the Pr­omised Land in their tradition, they survived for a lot of their hist­ory in exile, un­t­il their return to their ancestral home­land. Being exiled from Israel seemed to have strengthened Jewish identity!

But even in Israel itself, Jews lived largely un­der fo­r­eign colonialisation: Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs or Turks. After the Temple’s destruction by Titus in 70 AD, the Jews spread across the Roman Emp­ire. There were already large commun­ities in cit­ies like Alex­andria where the Bible had been translated from Hebrew to Greek 250 BC. Life under these foreign masters was difficult, and Jews had to maintain their own identity and strict code of laws, while comply­ing with local laws.

Jewish commun­ities also faced persecutions, riots and ex­pul­sions. Christ­ians knew that their religion was founded on Judaism, as was their Old Testament. But they believed that Christ’s birth led to a new honour, and that the Jews were persisting in obsolete be­liefs. Many Chr­istians blamed Jews for executing Christ, alth­ough in strict Christian theology the dea­th was necessary to bring salv­ation into the world. Other ancient peop­les lost their identity via inter­marriage with other ethnic groups; only the Jews remained sub­st­ant­ially the same people they’d been in antiquity.

Luminous: Thousand years of Hebrew manuscripts was a cool exhibition in Melbourne using 37 volumes lent by the British Library, illustrating the beauty and importance of Hebrew texts related to life, culture, science, religion, philosophy, music & magic. They were part of its Hebrew Manuscripts: Journ­eys of the Written Word Exhibition, 2020. Plus there were loans from the Jewish Museum of Australia, private collections and State Lib­rary’s Rare Books.

The biblical scriptures were represented by a handsome Torah scroll which spoke of the global spread of Jewish culture: it was copied in the C17th in Kaifeng China, where a C10th Jewish community migrated from the Middle East. There were no images, but several displays showed how the sac­red scriptures were used in everyday life.

Torah scroll, 

Kaifeng China, 17th century, 

British Library

 

The exhibition also showed that marginal ill­ustrations-micrography could be acceptable if they took the form of fig­ures composed of tiny words, of textual commentary. In an C18th collection of prayers books, less sacred than the Torah itself, some remark­able illuminations included a view of Moses bring­ing Tablets of the Law from Mt Sinai.

The exhibition offered insights into the complex cultural int­eractions and exchanges between the Jews and others among whom they liv­ed, often in the East. Thus there were stories and poems in Judaeo-Persian, Judaeo-Arabic and Judaeo-Urdu, all written in Hebrew.

A maths treatise was written in Judaeo-Arabic and annotated in the mar­gin in Arabic, showing the importance of linguistic and cult­ural exchange here. Hebrew itself had only been read by scholars since Hellen­istic times, but the translation of Avicenna’s Canon medic­inae into Heb­rew endowed the language with a new medical and scientific vocabulary.

 Astronomical tables, 

Southern France or Spain, C15th, 

British Library 

All of these Sephardic texts were from Oriental, North African and Ib­er­ian au­thors. But after the expulsions from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s, the texts were later relocated to England and Holland. The central and eastern European Jewish tradition was called Ash­kenazi. One Ashkenazi book was written in Hebrew letters but used Yiddish-German words.

There were works by the clever medieval Jewish philosopher, Maimonides. But Jew­ish intellectual life leant more to legalistic commentary than to philosophy, and over time commentaries accum­ulated. But unlike the Mus­l­ims, the Jews embraced printing when it was invented (C15th) and one dis­play showed the ingenious way that the main commentaries were laid out around the sacred text itself.

In this exhibition several Jew­ish books were on mystical kab­bala which fascinated Ch­ristian intellectuals. And there were import­ant texts that bore witness to the Hebrew texts being subject to censors’ exam­ination; they made sure the texts did not contain any anti-Christian ideas. Ce­n­sorship was usually carried out by Jews who’d con­verted to Christ­ianity, since reading Hebrew was diffic­ult for Christ­ians. See some Hebrew texts annot­ated with censors’ signatures.

Sloan Haggadah for Passover

Germany, 1740

State Library Victoria

image created from micrography

quirkbooks

Micrography was an art form unique to Judaism that developed during the Middle Ages, when illuminations were frowned up. Here reading, writing, and imagery come together in one, particularly in Spain and Portugal. Each letter might have been only 1 mm high.

Many thanks to Christopher Allen in The Australian and Vic­torian State Library.