w The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life University of California, Berkeley WARREN HELLMAN GALLERY CHARLES MICHAEL GALLERY KORET FOUNDATION & TAUBE PHILANTHROPIES LOBBY August 27–December 18, 2015 & January 26–June 24, 2016 CASE STUDY NUMBER 6 THE MAGNES COLLECTION OF JEWISH ART AND LIFE CURATORS’ INTRODUCTION 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley California 94720 magnes.berkeley.edu The Bible stands at the very center of Jewish life, both as text and as a physical object. The Jewish Bible can be seen as a Galleries open Tuesday to Friday 11am–4pm dynamic network of intersecting texts developed over a long (closed during Winter Break, December 19, 2015– period of time, beginning with the Bible itself, and continuing January 25, 2016) with translations, midrash, and rabbinic commentaries that bit.ly/livebythebook extend into the present. But the physicality of the Bible is equally central. Its words are written in manuscript scrolls and printed books, housed in synagogues and homes, embellished Exhibition team with decorative objects, encased in treasured chests, and CURATORS: dressed with precious textiles. The text is also visually repre­ Dr. Francesco Spagnolo, Curator, and sented in a multiplicity of formats, through images, symbols, Daniel Fisher (PhD Candidate, Near Eastern Studies), reproductions, and objects that both evoke and interpret it for Magnes Graduate Fellow use in all aspects of life. REGISTRAR: This core physical presence of the Bible has offered Jewish life Julie Franklin definition and structure, operating in the background to color RESEARCH: the experience of time, space, and the self. Biblical texts help Gary Handman, Archivist navigate the physical world: Jews keep biblical time, cultivate Lauren Cooper, Anna Bella Korbatov, and Zoe Lewin biblical bodies (from circumcision to clothing and food), and (Undergraduate Research Apprentices) build and imagine biblical spaces, in their synagogues, homes, DESIGN: and community centers, and in their attachment to the Holy Gordon Chun Design Land. Even outside of ritual, Jews may lead biblical lives, and experience the everyday power of text in a variety of contexts. Acknowledgements Paradoxically, one can describe the impact of the Bible on Jewish life almost without books themselves, and most Major support for The Magnes comes from the Hellman certainly without having to “open” a book. This exhibition Foundation, the Koret Foundation, the Magnes Museum brings together objects, clothing, furniture, and tourist mem­ Foundation, Taube Philanthropies, the Magnes Leadership o rabilia from across The Magnes Collection that interpret Circle, and the The Office of the Chancellor at the University of the Bible with remarkable diversity and creativity. From the California, Berkeley. most precious ornaments to the very mundane, these objects Research for Living by The Book was made possible in part by showcase the ways text can serve as an archive of possibilities funds provided by the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, and a powerful platform for shaping everyday life. the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP), and Digital Humanities at Berkeley. –Dr. Francesco Spagnolo, Curator, and The curators wish to thank Professor Mauro Perani (University Daniel Fisher, PhD Candidate, Near Eastern Studies, and of Bologna, Italy) and John Shepard (Jean Gray Hargrove Music Magnes Graduate Fellow Library, UC Berkeley) for their assistance. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] WARREN HELLMAN GALLERY / CASE A 4. Miniature Bible with silver box and photograph of Max Cohen Maine, United States, n.d. (ca. 1920) The Bible as Object: A Survey Hebrew Paper, cloth binding, sterling silver, silver gelatin print Often referred to as “The Book,” the Hebrew Bible takes Gift of the Estate of Roger Levenson, 94.36.1 a–c many forms, ranging from manuscript scrolls and codices to books of varying sizes, to a variety of digital formats. The Miniature Bible given by Governor Percival P. Baxter of Maine (1921–1925) to his friend and advisor Max Cohen Bible is also often evoked through visual representation: an (d. 1930). A photograph of Cohen is inside the box alongside open scroll, the Tablets of the Law, the Decalogue, but also the Bible. crowns (Heb. keter torah, the “crown of the Torah,” after Avot 4:13) and trees ripe with fruit (‘etz chayyim, the “tree of life,” after Proverbs 3:18). In all of these instances, the Bible is, first and foremost, an object. 1. Wimpel (Torah binder made from circumcision cloth) for a child named Eliezer, called Lasi, bar Levi born on the first of the month of Tammuz [5]600 Gernsheim, Hesse, Germany, 1840 Pigment on linen Judah L. Magnes Museum purchase, Siegfried S. Strauss collection, 67.1.21.2 2. Torah pointer and (decommissioned) spice container [Morocco], n.d. (ca. 1920) Silver repoussé Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Sanford Burstein, 71.21.1 3. Isaac Leeser (1806–1868) 5. Miniature Torah Ark with curtain and Torah scroll, torah neviim u­khetuvim. The twenty-four books of the depicting the Tablets of the Law, a crown, and two flanking Holy Scriptures carefully translated after the best Jewish lions authorities United States, n.d. (ca. 1920) English and Hebrew Lacquered wood with brass cartouche, cotton velvet curtain Philadelphia, L. Johnson & Company, 5619 [1858–59] with silk embroidery floss (inside: miniature paper Torah) Gift of Marion Blumberg, 2009.6 Gift of Mrs. Sophie Eisenberg in memory of Morris Eisenberg, 85.17 a–d [ 4 ] [ 5 ] WARREN HELLMAN GALLERY / CASE B 2. Domenico Pellegrini (Bologna, early 17th century— after 1682) The Bible as Object: Torah Scrolls, Armoniosi concerti sopra la chitarra spagnola Bologna, G. Monti, 1650 Repurposed Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library, University of California, Berkeley, M127.P36 A7 1650 Scrolls of the Hebrew Bible are made with parchment Many Jewish books and manuscripts were confiscated by (animal skin) panels, stitched together with hair or sinew Inquisition authorities in Italy during the 16th century. In and inscribed with ink. Torah scrolls are extremely valuable Bologna, the Talmud and other Hebrew works were burned objects, made professionally with costly materials, and on the instructions of Pope Julius III in 1553. Multiple meant to last for a long time. When left behind in migration manuscripts and Torah scrolls, made of parchment, were processes, seized by hostile religious authorities, or lost in the repurposed as bookbindings. The fragments of the original Holocaust, fragments of these scrolls have been repurposed texts are currently being retrieved, inventoried, and as bookbindings, tourist memorabilia, and even as painting re­assembled by scholars. This guitar tablature published in surfaces. Bologna in 1650, now in the Music Library at UC Berkeley, was bound with a 14th–15th century Torah scroll fragment 1. V. Chugayev (Numbers 32:11–34:13) in Hebrew Sephardic square script. Untitled (Landscape on the back of a Torah scroll fragment) 3. Illustrated Haggadot for the Passover Seder 1943 Ink and oil paint on parchment The Haggadah (“narrative”) is a Jewish text performed at 2007.0.25 the Passover Seder, a ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Festival of Passover. The Seder (“order”) is one of the Landscape painted on the back of Torah scroll fragment core events of Jewish life. In modern times, it is celebrated (Genesis 38:26–42:7) written in Hebrew Ashkenazi square by families within the Jewish home, or by communities and script. The origins of this item in The Magnes Collection are congregations inside synagogues, community centers, and unknown. The painter, Chugayev, could not be identified, university campuses, as well as hotels and even cruise ships. but his name and the date point to Eastern Europe, probably The text of the Passover Haggadah combines a narrative the Soviet Union, during the Second World War. of the Exodus from Egypt with blessings, rituals, songs, The orientation of the landscape is set against that of the and Talmudic commentaries. Textually, the Haggadah is Hebrew text on the scroll. For the purpose of this display, an “open narrative”: its contents can be augmented, and the landscape is thus shown upside down, allowing the new generations and Jewish groups have been adding to it, Hebrew text to be read correctly. pursuing both tradition and experimentation. Visually, the Haggadah often presents itself as an illustrated manuscript or book, and the illustrations reflect a wide variety of aesthetic approaches, representational needs, and cultural and political agendas. The covers of the printed Haggadot assembled here offer visual ways of performing the story of the Exodus from Egypt, blending it with familiar motifs (ranging from contemporary, local styles to ancient Egyptian imagery) and other, more recent struggles—against Nazi Germany, for religious freedom and freedom of movement in Soviet Russia, and for civil rights in the United States, in the wake of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. These struggles are often presented and perceived as both particular to the Jewish experience, and shared globally. As Arthur Waskow notes in his introduction to the Freedom Seder Haggadah (1969): “In our world all men face the Pharaohs who could exterminate them any moment, and so enslave them all the time. Passover therefore fuses, for an instant, with the history and the future of all mankind.” 3.1 Mark Podwal, ill. (b. 1945) Let My People Go. A Haggadah English and Hebrew New York, Darien House, Inc., 1972 Haggadah 43.13 [ 6 ] [ 7 ] 3.2 Arthur I. Waskow (b. 1933) OBJECTS OF INTERPRETATION and Lloyd McNeill, ill. Incorporating text and visual elements, Jewish works of art The Freedom Seder. A New and ritual objects have the capacity to evoke biblical words, Haggadah for Passover characters, stories, individual books, and even, at times, the English and Hebrew entire Bible. Such “condensation” of biblical materials into Washington, D.C., The Micah individual objects offers a way to interpret the texts them­ Press, 1970 selves, embodying a rather strong, powerful, hermeneutical Haggadah 42.8 position.