Description

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Illustrated highlights from the Judaica Collection of the Library of Congress.
 
Books Like Sapphires showcases a wide range of Hebraic treasures from the storied collection at the Library of Congress, many of them for the first time. Tracing the history of Judaica collecting in the twentieth-century United States, the book illuminates varied works, telling their stories alongside vibrant color images. These include a unique manuscript about a betrothal scandal in Renaissance Crete, an illustrated Esther Scroll, a poem from 1477 celebrating the new technology of printing, amusing rhymed couplets in sixteenth-century Padua, and the Washington Haggadah. This book also tells the story of the patrons and collectors, first among them Jacob Schiff, as well as archivists and curators, who made the storied Judaica archive at the Library of Congress the precious resource that it is today.

About the Author

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Ann Brener served as the Hebraic Specialist at the Library of Congress from 2009–2022. Prior to that she taught Medieval Hebrew Poetry at Ben-Gurion University in Israel and published two books on the subject, Judah Halevi and His Circle of Hebrew Poets in Granada and Isaac ibn Khalfun: A Wandering Hebrew Poet of the Eleventh Century. She lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

Praise For…

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“An introduction to the field through the lens of a particular collection, exceptionally readable and well-presented. A book that is fresh and compelling, a total pleasure to read.”
— Marc Michael Epstein, Vassar College, author of Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts

“A well written and interesting view on a selection of Hebraic rara. A beautiful and highly useful means of communicating the treasures that are known only to a few scholars to a wide, interested public.”
— Katrin Kogman-Appel, University of Münster, author of Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain: Biblical Imagery and the Passover Holiday