Manuscript from the Berlin State Library returned to Tel Aviv
Press release from 11/06/2008
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation today returned a Hebrew manuscript from the Berlin State Library to the "Beit Ariella" library in Tel Aviv. It is a Talmud commentary written in 1793, which was stolen from the public library in Israel around ten years ago. Unaware of this fact, the State Library had purchased the manuscript in February 2000 from a renowned antiquarian bookseller for its Oriental department. The latter had acquired it after it had failed to find a buyer at an auction in New York in 1999.
It was only by chance that the manuscript was identified as the one missing in Tel Aviv: After the acquisition, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin routinely made a microfilm of the manuscript for the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts (IMHM), Jerusalem. While processing the film, the then director of this institute discovered that a microfilm of the manuscript already existed in his archive, which came from the Beit Ariella Library. An examination revealed that the manuscript inventoried in the State Library under the number Hs. Or. 13533 was in fact one of nine books stolen from the Tel Aviv library. Due to this history of the manuscript, which is of great historical, cultural and emotional value to the Beit Ariella Library, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation decided to return the work as soon as possible.
The manuscript "Sefer Avodat ha-Levi"
The Talmud commentary "Sefer Avodat ha-Levi" was written in Berlin in 1793 by Israel Yehuda ben Uri Segal Reis. The 184-page manuscript has a decorated title page, which was not customary for a Talmud commentary as it was for other Hebrew theological writings due to the prohibition of images under Jewish law. In addition to the coloured figurative illustration itself, the naming of the illustrator is a special feature. His name is written in Latin and Hebrew (Cossman Riess / Kosman Riess Halevi) below the columns of the painted archway that forms the main motif of the title page.
The Oriental Department of the Berlin State Library
The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is the largest academic universal library in Germany. The collections in its Oriental Department are among the most important of their kind in Europe. With around 600,000 volumes of printed material and an extensive collection of periodicals, they offer outstanding primary and secondary material on all aspects of Africa and Asia (except East Asia). Its remit therefore includes the acquisition and cataloguing of literature from and about Israel (as well as Hebrew studies and Judaism in general). However, the manuscript collections deserve special attention, as they include unique originals from Africa to East and Central Asia as well as one of the largest collections of manuscript copies on microfilm in the world. The Berlin State Library has the largest collection of Hebrew manuscripts in Germany.