
Daily Kickoff: Inside the Library of Congress’s Hebrew collection
👋 Good Thursday morning!
Today is Veterans Day in the U.S., and Remembrance Day in the U.K. and Commonwealth countries.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is scheduled to travel to Israel next week with Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan, where she will meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
Congressional delegations to Israel led by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) met separately with Lapid yesterday.
The Cardin/Hoyer delegationalso met with Herzog.
The J Street-organized congressional delegation visited children in Hebron in the West Bank, yesterday.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) tweeted after that meeting, “There are streets they cannot walk and places they cannot go, simply because they are Palestinian. When I asked about their dreams, their answer was simple: freedom. The occupation must end.”
The Yeshiva University Maccabees won their home opener against Eastern Connecticut State University 99-69, bringing their winning streak to 39 games, the longest streak across all levels of men’s college basketball.
inside the stacks
An inside look at the Library of Congress’s Hebrew treasures

Before the pandemic, visitors to the Library of Congress’s ornate Jefferson Building could pop into a reading room and ask to see almost anything in the Library’s collection. While tours have recently resumed, visitors can no longer show up at a reference desk unannounced, asking to see archival treasures. But in an interview last week in a sun-filled, empty reading room, Hebraic specialist Ann Brener and senior reference librarian Sharon Horowitz showed Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutchsome of the Hebraic section’s most important books, including some of the oldest printed Hebrew books to be found anywhere in the world.
Worldly outlook: “If you’re going to be a country of great scholars, you can’t really be parochial in your outlook, and the Library of Congress is now the largest library in the world, with all languages and all subjects,” Brener said. The section is known for its Hebrew and Yiddish books, although it also has books in related languages such as Ladino, Aramaic, Coptic and Amharic. “You’re asking why Hebrew, but the point is, why not?”
Wandering bookseller: The Hebraic section was established in 1912 during a period of international expansion for the institution. Financier and philanthropist Jacob H. Schiff, a German Jewish immigrant to the U.S., donated nearly 10,000 books and pamphlets to the Library. The items had been collected by a prominent bookseller named Ephraim Deinard. “He went wandering into the marketplaces of Iraq. He went to people’s basements. That’s how you collected manuscripts and books in those old days. It’s all different now,” explained Brener.
Common story: Brener held up a 16th-century book, a large volume and the first book printed in the Ottoman Empire in Hebrew. Printed in Safed, this was a commentary on the Book of Esther, which is read every year on Purim. Brener offered a theory on the book’s topic: Jews in Safed had “fled Spain. They had been forced to flee or forced to become Catholics, or to pretend that they were Catholics when they were really Jews. And I think they felt a deep connection to this Biblical story because it is really the story of Esther, and she was like them. She was forced to hide her Judaism. She had to pretend to be something else.”
Congressional status symbol: It has become rather trendy for members of Congress and other political appointees to request unorthodox, historical books for their official swearing-in. “It’s gotten to be a big status symbol to request a non-standard thing to be sworn in on,” said Horowitz. “Some people request a very old edition of the Constitution. That’s apparently OK. Muslim members of Congress request very old editions of the Quran. So the Library of Congress, on swearing-in day, brings a whole cart of things.”