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Category: Book Illustrations

Modesty and Piety: Improving on the Past

Modesty and Piety: Improving on the Past

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Modesty and Piety: Improving on the Past by: Michael K. Silber The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The well known “coat of arms” of the priestly Rapaport family first appeared as a colophon at the end of Avraham Menachem Rapa of Porto’s Mincha Belulah (Verona, 1594), fol. 207b, readily at HebrewBooks.org (here). Instead of a motto, a banner proclaimed the author’s name above and below the shield which featured a pair of hands raised in priestly benediction in the upper half,…

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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions

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          A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND QUESTIONS By Eli Genauer Authors note: I would like to thank Dr. Peggy Pearlstein and Sharon Horowitz of the Library of Congress for their help in allowing me to assemble the various printed editions of the Talmud that I used in this article Amongst all the difficult tractates of the Talmud, Eruvin stands head and shoulders above most. The Gemara tries to describe in words what would normally take a picture to…

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Illustrated Title Pages in Upcoming Auction Catalog

Illustrated Title Pages in Upcoming Auction Catalog

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This Thursday, Kestenbaum & Co. is having an auction.  The catalog is available online and the viewing takes place this week.  For those interested in some highlights, the website provides those.  But, I wanted to highlight a theme that hasn’t been noted.  First, a quick background regarding Hebrew book auctions.  [Note, this is not a comprehensive attempt.] There are five auction houses that concentrate on Hebrew books, Kestenbaum, Judica Jerusalem, Asufa, Baronovitch, and, a recent entry, Kedem.  While all five…

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Non-Jewish Iconography in Hebrew Books

Non-Jewish Iconography in Hebrew Books

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As we have discussed on numerous occasions, Hebrew books contain a fair amount of non-Jewish iconography and imagery that is of non-Jewish origin.  See, for example, here, here, here and here.  Of course, Marvin Heller's article on Mars and Minerva appearing on Hebrew title pages, Marvin Heller, "Mars and Minerva on the Hebrew Title-Page," in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 98:3, Sept. 2004, reprinted in Heller's collected articles Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (which…

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Review: The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History, and Commentary

Review: The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History, and Commentary

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Book Review: The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History, and Commentary by Elli Fischer  Rabbi Elli Fischer is a freelance translator living in Modiin, Israel.  He maintains the “On the Contrary:Judasim with Comments Enabled ” blog.  This is his second contribution to the Seforim blog. Given the thousands of haggadot that have been published over the years, and the dozens of new ones published each year, it is not easy for any single haggadah to separate itself from the others on the market….

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A Conspiracy Theory To Explain A Racy Title Page

A Conspiracy Theory To Explain A Racy Title Page

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We have discussed on multiple occasions the use of illustration of nudes to adorn the title pages of Hebrew books. It appears, again as we have seen before, that even though the appearance of such illustrations are really unremarkable, some will go to great lengths to either expunge or, in this case, explain away the appearance of such illustrations. In the April, 2008, Jerusalem Judaica auction catalog (provided below) they have a rather rare work of R. Yitzhak Hiyut (c….

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