Michelle Margolis
@mmargolis.bsky.social
N.E. Alexander Librarian for Jewish Studies at Columbia. Lover of old & worn early printed books/manuscripts & the stories they tell in the margins. Co-director, Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time and Place. #dhjewish 🟦
Well, I was looking for the source of the illustration of the family at the Seder (Corfu, 1887), but instead found an illustrated Livorno haggadah in Tunisian Judeo-Arabic, an Alexandria haggadah, and one printed in Calcutta (also JA, for Baghdadi Jews).
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November 13, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Well, I was looking for the source of the illustration of the family at the Seder (Corfu, 1887), but instead found an illustrated Livorno haggadah in Tunisian Judeo-Arabic, an Alexandria haggadah, and one printed in Calcutta (also JA, for Baghdadi Jews).
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A Kurdish book of Tales (with silver leaf)! A prayerbook translated entirely into Italian by a woman (Eli bat Menahem)! Penintential prayers including the Temple as imagined by 18th c. French Jews! The Esslingen Mahazor (it's huge, but you can't tell from the pic)!
November 3, 2025 at 8:46 PM
A Kurdish book of Tales (with silver leaf)! A prayerbook translated entirely into Italian by a woman (Eli bat Menahem)! Penintential prayers including the Temple as imagined by 18th c. French Jews! The Esslingen Mahazor (it's huge, but you can't tell from the pic)!
I was struck by items that were similar to ones in our collection, of course, like this Constantinople Ketubbah (ours is missing the decorated top, alas), and this micrographic carpet page on a Yemenite Bible (just bought one with a similar illustration - maybe the same artist?) 📜📚
November 3, 2025 at 7:54 PM
I was struck by items that were similar to ones in our collection, of course, like this Constantinople Ketubbah (ours is missing the decorated top, alas), and this micrographic carpet page on a Yemenite Bible (just bought one with a similar illustration - maybe the same artist?) 📜📚
Okay, I finally have a minute to add some pics/comments: The exhibit was organized based on world areas. So we started with the Cairo Geniza, then moved to the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Yemen.
(Here, an amulet and a Judeo-Persian Joseph story, + musical notation of Obadaya the Proselyte)
(Here, an amulet and a Judeo-Persian Joseph story, + musical notation of Obadaya the Proselyte)
November 3, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Okay, I finally have a minute to add some pics/comments: The exhibit was organized based on world areas. So we started with the Cairo Geniza, then moved to the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Yemen.
(Here, an amulet and a Judeo-Persian Joseph story, + musical notation of Obadaya the Proselyte)
(Here, an amulet and a Judeo-Persian Joseph story, + musical notation of Obadaya the Proselyte)
Soooo I finally went to the glorious JTS exhibit at the Groler Club. (Image below of the study for the painting of Aldus Manutius handing books to Jean Grolier, which appears in many formats throughout the building).
Go check it out! In person or online: grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/sho...
Go check it out! In person or online: grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/sho...
November 3, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Soooo I finally went to the glorious JTS exhibit at the Groler Club. (Image below of the study for the painting of Aldus Manutius handing books to Jean Grolier, which appears in many formats throughout the building).
Go check it out! In person or online: grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/sho...
Go check it out! In person or online: grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/sho...
New exhibit up at the RBML explores books as media for art. It's very cool.
September 5, 2025 at 11:23 AM
New exhibit up at the RBML explores books as media for art. It's very cool.
Is it a Hebrew Alphonsic Tables? We've got one too!
exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/sho...
I'm so looking forward to reading what you found :)
exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/sho...
I'm so looking forward to reading what you found :)
September 4, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Is it a Hebrew Alphonsic Tables? We've got one too!
exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/sho...
I'm so looking forward to reading what you found :)
exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/sho...
I'm so looking forward to reading what you found :)
Gene Matanky just did a fabulous dissertation on 16th c. Kabbalists that focused on their material books - they'd add specific manuscript glosses to wide-margined copies of specific editions of texts that they were studying (like our B893.17 G31). There's definitely research potential there!
August 28, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Gene Matanky just did a fabulous dissertation on 16th c. Kabbalists that focused on their material books - they'd add specific manuscript glosses to wide-margined copies of specific editions of texts that they were studying (like our B893.17 G31). There's definitely research potential there!
Found ANOTHER interleaved Hebrew Bible with wide margins for annotations (the facing page was blank, now filled with notes in the same hand as the margin). Going on the list for the LitHum Hebrew Bible session!
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August 27, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Found ANOTHER interleaved Hebrew Bible with wide margins for annotations (the facing page was blank, now filled with notes in the same hand as the margin). Going on the list for the LitHum Hebrew Bible session!
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Saw this binding on a shelf and thought, wait, a saint in a Jewish book? No, it was S(hmuel) T(e) - really de - Modena.
B893.1 M46
B893.1 M46
August 27, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Saw this binding on a shelf and thought, wait, a saint in a Jewish book? No, it was S(hmuel) T(e) - really de - Modena.
B893.1 M46
B893.1 M46
Spent some time foliating the Soncino-Casalmaggiore Mahazor in prep for a big conservation project today, and noticed lots of fun things (initial letters that look pinned together! 15th c. capslock! Transferred ink! The most gorgeous Matza ever!)
@hgot.bsky.social
@hgot.bsky.social
August 21, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Spent some time foliating the Soncino-Casalmaggiore Mahazor in prep for a big conservation project today, and noticed lots of fun things (initial letters that look pinned together! 15th c. capslock! Transferred ink! The most gorgeous Matza ever!)
@hgot.bsky.social
@hgot.bsky.social
This was one of the books we looked at: a Ladino abridgement of the Shulhan Arukh focusing on day-to-day Jewish laws
B893.181 K15
B893.181 K15
August 15, 2025 at 5:11 PM
This was one of the books we looked at: a Ladino abridgement of the Shulhan Arukh focusing on day-to-day Jewish laws
B893.181 K15
B893.181 K15
Also, the annotations on the Haggadah portion of the prayer book are something.
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August 15, 2025 at 1:48 AM
Also, the annotations on the Haggadah portion of the prayer book are something.
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TFW you need to show off what the collection can do and just happen to have a copy of a translation and commentary by Almosnino Moses of Georg von Peurbach's Theoricae Novae Planetarum, by Almosnino Moses produced in Greece in 1546 on a cart for exhibit review :)
MS X893 Al6
MS X893 Al6
August 13, 2025 at 10:21 PM
TFW you need to show off what the collection can do and just happen to have a copy of a translation and commentary by Almosnino Moses of Georg von Peurbach's Theoricae Novae Planetarum, by Almosnino Moses produced in Greece in 1546 on a cart for exhibit review :)
MS X893 Al6
MS X893 Al6
Is that a 1597 Minhagim hidden in the back of a Polish-rite prayer book? Why yes I think it is.
B893.1 J59
B893.1 J59
August 13, 2025 at 3:45 AM
Is that a 1597 Minhagim hidden in the back of a Polish-rite prayer book? Why yes I think it is.
B893.1 J59
B893.1 J59
I have a lecture I give on the history of the Haggadah as the history of the book, and I include this slide. (Tl;Dr a priest who converted to Judaism made copies of this unicum on 15th c. paper - he got caught because he tried to sell a second one too soon...and the wormholes matched!)
August 7, 2025 at 4:00 PM
I have a lecture I give on the history of the Haggadah as the history of the book, and I include this slide. (Tl;Dr a priest who converted to Judaism made copies of this unicum on 15th c. paper - he got caught because he tried to sell a second one too soon...and the wormholes matched!)
Today is the 9th of Av, the day of the destruction of the first and second temples, and a general day of national morning for the Jewish people.
Here: two Roman coins celebrating the victory over "Iudaea," and a Dutch representation of the destruction of the second temple by the Romans.
Here: two Roman coins celebrating the victory over "Iudaea," and a Dutch representation of the destruction of the second temple by the Romans.
August 3, 2025 at 5:28 AM
Today is the 9th of Av, the day of the destruction of the first and second temples, and a general day of national morning for the Jewish people.
Here: two Roman coins celebrating the victory over "Iudaea," and a Dutch representation of the destruction of the second temple by the Romans.
Here: two Roman coins celebrating the victory over "Iudaea," and a Dutch representation of the destruction of the second temple by the Romans.
Really wonderful post from Noam Sienna on recent @footprints-heb.bsky.social. Come for the books, stay for the snarky comments by a Sultan about the Spanish Inquisition not letting Jews in:
edblogs.columbia.edu/footprints/2...
edblogs.columbia.edu/footprints/2...
July 29, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Really wonderful post from Noam Sienna on recent @footprints-heb.bsky.social. Come for the books, stay for the snarky comments by a Sultan about the Spanish Inquisition not letting Jews in:
edblogs.columbia.edu/footprints/2...
edblogs.columbia.edu/footprints/2...
I think they...laminated this book? 😱
Sefer Tsurat ha-Arets (on astronomy, etc.), Offenbach, 1720
QB41.A28
Sefer Tsurat ha-Arets (on astronomy, etc.), Offenbach, 1720
QB41.A28
July 9, 2025 at 1:10 AM
I think they...laminated this book? 😱
Sefer Tsurat ha-Arets (on astronomy, etc.), Offenbach, 1720
QB41.A28
Sefer Tsurat ha-Arets (on astronomy, etc.), Offenbach, 1720
QB41.A28
Today's stacks find: a Hebrew bible printed in Venice in 1635 "with strange words translated into Spanish (in Hebrew characters)."
B893.1BJ C35
B893.1BJ C35
July 7, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Today's stacks find: a Hebrew bible printed in Venice in 1635 "with strange words translated into Spanish (in Hebrew characters)."
B893.1BJ C35
B893.1BJ C35
It's official!! This is going to be EPIC (the largest exhibit of JTS Judaica treasures in at least 75 years will be at the Grolier in the fall. 📜📚#rarebooks #bookhistory
July 1, 2025 at 2:49 PM
It's official!! This is going to be EPIC (the largest exhibit of JTS Judaica treasures in at least 75 years will be at the Grolier in the fall. 📜📚#rarebooks #bookhistory
I always start the session by asking "What do you think of when you think of the word 'Bible'" and almost always get an answer of "a leather-bound book with very thin pages."
Then I show them this:
Then I show them this:
June 30, 2025 at 2:02 PM
I always start the session by asking "What do you think of when you think of the word 'Bible'" and almost always get an answer of "a leather-bound book with very thin pages."
Then I show them this:
Then I show them this:
Recent array of bindings found in wanderings of the stacks...📜
June 20, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Recent array of bindings found in wanderings of the stacks...📜
And some of the images of the poor (and once beautiful, but now not usable) manuscript I'm hoping to image one day to be able to virtually restore to its once-glorious illustrations.
@sjlahey.bsky.social (I found it!)
X893 H12 (it's a Haggadah, probably illustrated by Leipnik)
@sjlahey.bsky.social (I found it!)
X893 H12 (it's a Haggadah, probably illustrated by Leipnik)
June 10, 2025 at 1:18 AM
And some of the images of the poor (and once beautiful, but now not usable) manuscript I'm hoping to image one day to be able to virtually restore to its once-glorious illustrations.
@sjlahey.bsky.social (I found it!)
X893 H12 (it's a Haggadah, probably illustrated by Leipnik)
@sjlahey.bsky.social (I found it!)
X893 H12 (it's a Haggadah, probably illustrated by Leipnik)
The rabbis compared the giving of the Torah to a wedding, a covenant between the Jewish people and God, and so it was the custom in some places to write a ketubah (marriage contract) special for the holiday. Here, from Corfu, 1886.
Full digit: babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nn...
Full digit: babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nn...
June 1, 2025 at 7:42 PM
The rabbis compared the giving of the Torah to a wedding, a covenant between the Jewish people and God, and so it was the custom in some places to write a ketubah (marriage contract) special for the holiday. Here, from Corfu, 1886.
Full digit: babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nn...
Full digit: babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nn...