This blogpost highlights a single parchment leaf in Hebrew letters that has survived the centuries as binding for a Latin book printed in Frankfurt am Main in the late 16th century. The Hebrew leaf comes from a manuscript copy of "Beit Yosef" [The House of Joseph], a monumental code of Jewish law composed by Joseph Karo (1488-1575), one of the most important Jewish figures of all time.
The Library of Congress has several manuscripts of one of the best-known and most influential works of Muslim cosmology, Qazwini’s famous “‘Aja’ib al-Makhluqat wa-Ghara’ib al-Mawjudat” (Marvels of Creation and Rarities of Existence).
Two Junior Fellows discuss the displays of the Hebrew calendars and American Yiddish Theater collections that they prepared for the Junior Fellows Display at the Library of Congress.
(The following is a repost from the Library of Congress Blog. The author is Neely Tucker, writer-editor in the Office of Communications.) “The Shahnamah,” (translated as “The Persian Book of Kings”) is the majestic narrative that recounts the history of pre-Islamic Persia, a staggering work of literature first published about 1,000 years ago. Written by …
The African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED) Reading Room in LJ 220 will move on Wednesday, April 24th after regular business hours at 5:00 p.m. to the new AMED Reading Room in the Northeast Pavilion (LJ-229) and open to readers on Thursday, April 25th at 8:30 a.m. In order to reach us, enter the Library …
(The following is a post by Ann Brener, Hebraic Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division.) The spectacular news of the Venus flyby conducted by the Parker Solar Probe made headlines around the world last autumn, dazzling us all with its close-ups of the sun and reams of new data on nearby planets. Little …
In the field of Middle Eastern and North African studies, Dr. Mary-Jane Deeb is a scholarly authority. And after 20 years of leading the Near East Section and the African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED) of the Library of Congress, this authority will retire from the Library at the end of February to embark on …
(This is a repost from the Library of Congress Blog. The author is Sylvia Albro, a senior paper conservator in the Conservation Division. Earlier this month, the Library released online the Omar Ibn Said Collection, including Omar Ibn Said’s autobiography, the only known extant autobiography written in Arabic by an enslaved person in the United …
(This is a repost from the Library of Congress Blog. The author is Mary-Jane Deeb, chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division.) In the summer of 2017, the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress acquired a collection of unique documents, some dating back to the 1830s. Although the documents are …
