Photo by Assaf Pinchuk

 “. . . modern media formats quickly become obsolete. Why run the risk of choosing objects that may become mute and indecipherable? It is proven that books are superior to every other object that our cultural industries have put on the market in recent years. So, wanting to choose something easily transportable and that has shown itself equal to the ravages of time, I choose the book.” Umberto Eco, “This is Not the End of the Book”

A book by any other name is still a book . . .

Several recent events have propelled the National Library of Israel into the limelight; there has been the legal battle over the literary estate of Franz Kafka (what remains of it) and it indirectly brought to the forefront the writings of Max Brod, then there has been the announcement of an architectural competition for a new building, and now the launching of their new website.

The good news for English speakers is the English-language access to everything on the site and by everything I mean everything. The website, which took more than two years to develop, became available this past November. Clicking on to it opens a world of books, periodicals, maps, photos and musical selections, and conveniently, you can also get information about guided tours.

Until the new building appears on the Jerusalem landscape, the National Library occupies a building at the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University. If Yad Vashem is about memory, then the Library is about mind; its mandate to “collect, preserve, cultivate and endow the treasures of knowledge, heritage and culture in general, with an emphasis on the Land of Israel, the State of Israel and the Jewish people in particular”. I wandered through the Library, stopping at special exhibits and then awed by the magnificence of the glass wall designed by the artist Mordecai Ardon. As the author Umberto Eco points out, the book is an easily transportable item and as Jews wandered (or were expelled) from country to country, they wrote books, illustrated books and printed books, in Hebrew and the languages of their exile. They also composed music, sang songs, drew maps of their journeys and preserved precious manuscripts from destruction. The National Library has the largest collection of publications within Israel, so inclusive that it ranges from the recently acquired archives of Naomi Shemer to the entire library of Gershon Scholem. Certainly the wide breadth of Jewish civilization is testament to the ease with which it exchanged ideas and absorbed the cultures of the lands they lived in and passed through; the Library is a repository of material from Europe, the Ancient Near East, Islam, and the Mediterranean Basin.

Log on to the website and then find the time to schedule a visit to imbue the atmosphere of this unique part of our heritage. This not only is our library, it is our treasure.

The National Library, at The Hebrew University, Edmond Safra campus, Givat Ram

Open Sunday - Thursday, 09:00 to 20:00; Friday 09:00 to 13:00

Entrance: free of charge

Tel: 02 658 5027 Website: http://web.nli.org.il