In commemoration of the Ninth of Av, the day of mourning and fasting marking the destruction of Temple, the National Library of Israel presents this ancient map printed in Hartmann Schedel’s large world chronical. The chronical, an early modern book, published in 1493 in the German city of Nuremberg was an ambitious undertaking. It contained an overview of world history from the creation of the world until that time. The book boasts a mass of illustrations drawn by the leading artists of the time and was only made possible due to the invention of the printing press.
The map illustrated the destruction of Jerusalem and depicts the Temple going up in flames. However, this is not an illustration of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period and a description of the Jews who lived there. It is rather the printing of an engraving depicting Jerusalem’s Christian sites alongside the Temple, typical to the 14th-15th centuries.
It is fascinating though, that the text accompanying the map describes the history of the destructions of Jerusalem – first, the destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, the destruction of the Second Temple by Titus, the Temple vessels being looted, the execution of Shimon bar Giora in Rome, and finally, Jerusalem being turned into Aelia Capitolina, the Roman colony built upon the ruins of the holy city. The author of the text relates that the city was later held for short periods of time by other Western and Crusader kings (Charlemagne of France, Conrad III of Germany and Louis XI, also of France) – but they did not manage to hold it for long against armies of Islam. According to the author, in 1943 the city was under the control of Mohammed’s battalions, which Schedel refers to as “a nation of sin.”
The former curator of the Humanities Collection at the National Library, Dr. Milka Levy-Rubin explained that despite Christianity seeing the destruction of the Temple as conclusive proof of Christianity’s victory over Judaism, not only is the text void of any gloating about the destruction of the Temple but on the contrary. “It appears that the destruction of the Temple – which is referred to in the illustration as “Solomon’s Temple” and the destruction of the City of David is the reason for the writer’s sorrow. This is testimony to the fact that the day of the Ninth of Av is also seen by Christians as a day of mourning and sorrow for the destruction of the holy city,” Dr. Levy-Rubin explains.
The Jewish Face of the Moon
How was the moon drawn by Jews throughout history?
Many eons ago in the ancient world, the Jews adopted the moon as the basis of the Hebrew calendar. Only isolated groups, such as members of the Judean desert cults, attempted to build the Jewish calendar around the sun but all such attempts ended with the destruction of the Second Temple, and the lunar calendar was universally accepted as the Jewish calendar.
The moon emerged as the undisputed victor in the battle for the Jewish perspective of time. While the days in Jewish culture are determined by the sun – from sunset to sunset – the calculation of the days into months depends on the “birth” of the moon.
While the pagans regarded the moon as a god in its own right, the moon’s central function in Judaism is expressed not only in the calculation of the months but also in the blessing recited at the beginning of each Jewish month – ‘Birkat HaLevana’ [the ‘Blessing of the Moon’]. The blessing praises the one God, the Holy One Blessed Be He, creator of all natural phenomena.
This also seems to be the reason that, throughout the generations, Jews drew the moon with human features, as it is considered a natural phenomenon created by God and therefore not a transgression of the prohibition against making idols or graven images.
The Jewish Stew Made of Anything but the Kitchen Sink
With very few fresh ingredients at their disposal, the Jews created a plethora of dishes that took full advantage of the limited components that were available.
There is a level of unappreciated genius behind the Jewish culinary experience. With very few fresh ingredients at their disposal, the Jews created a plethora of cultural dishes that took full advantage of the limited options that were available.
There is a certain magic that comes with eating a bowl of carefully prepared, piping hot, aromatic Cholent on a cold Shabbat afternoon. The dish can only be described as a masterpiece of ingenuity and a work of art that has withstood the test of time to make it from the Middle Ages to modern day food establishments, cook offs and the typical Shabbat table.
The “anything goes” style dish can best be described as Jewish comfort food, came into being as a result of the Jewish law that forbids cooking on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. The dish is cooked on Friday afternoons and left on the heat for a long, slow overnight cook. The traditional, rich stew is comprised of whatever fixings are available on hand with ingredients and styles varying by country and continent, wherever Jews can be found. The typical Ashkenazic Cholent, stemming from Eastern Europe, is made from dried beans or barley, chicken or beef scraps, potatoes and assorted spices.
The name of the stew typically varies by location as well. The term Cholent is believed to stem from the French word, chald, meaning warm, referring to the low and slow method of cooking the meal in a pot. Others believe it stems from the Hebrew SheLen, meaning rested, referring to the overnight cooking method that would ensure a hot meal on Shabbat afternoon. In the Sephardic tradition, the dish is called Hamin, derived from the Hebrew word, Ham, meaning hot.
Heinrich Heine, the famous poet who converted from Judaism to Protestantism due to political pressures, was so enamored by the traditional dish that he wrote a poem professing his love and sharing his feeling that the recipe for Cholent must have been given to Moses by God Himself.
“Cholent is the food of Heaven, And the recipe was given By the Lord himself to Moses One fine day upon Mount Sinai
Cholent is God’s bread of rapture, It’s a kosher-type ambrosia.”
While this may seem like some serious love for a good pot of Cholent, a little parodic pamphlet written in the early 1800’s from the National Library’s Ephemera collection tells a tale of a lost love and the adversity and horror faced when a pot of Cholent gets tragically burned.
The pamphlet tells the story of an old man sitting at his Shabbat table surrounded by his family, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the traditional pot of Hamin. The dish arrives at the table and the old man opens the lid expecting the beautiful aroma of a perfect stew to wash over him but instead, to his horror- the contents of the pot have been completely burned. So deep is his sorrow at the sight of the smoky pot of food that he feels compelled to eulogize the poor stew.
“Hamin the son of Hamina, may his memory be a blessing, may the King in his mercy who rests between the stovetop and the oven and between the tongue and the lips, between the smile and the teeth, that was burned on the Shabbat through no fault of his own the death of his food is an absolution for all those who keep the Shabbat. May the King in his great mercy, have compassion on its consumers.”
The satirical eulogy concludes with a Mi Shebeirach (a public prayer or blessing recited aloud for an individual or a group), calling for God to bless the poor anonymous man who was served a pot of burned Cholent on the holy Shabbat.
This dedication and commitment to Cholent also found itself in the shtetls of Europe, where, on Friday afternoons, each family would walk their hot pot of freshly prepared Cholent down the road to the local bakery. There, the assorted pots, sealed with a paste of flour and water, would be placed in the baker’s oven to keep warm overnight. On Saturday afternoons, following the conclusion of prayer services, the reverse pilgrimage would take place when families would carefully fetch the hot pot from the oven in time for lunch.
Today, Cholent has its own cult of following. On Thursday evenings in Israel, there are many who flock to the eateries in the Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods to treat themselves to a pre-Shabbat Cholent to ring in the weekend. For those who don’t live near a restaurant where Cholent is served, the dish is also readily available in easy to prepare packets and, in some countries, you can even buy it ready made in a can from your supermarket shelves- although we definitely recommend the homemade version.
The consumption of the heavy, aromatic stew tends to cast a spell on diners – one that can only be compared to the lethargy that comes following the perfect Thanksgiving turkey – lending to the perfect atmosphere for a good nap on the day of rest.
There is an old saying that claims you cannot consider yourself a good Jew unless you eat Cholent on Shabbat – but we believe a good pot of Cholent can be enjoyed any day! Perhaps it is time to break out the old cookbooks and give it a try?
This post was written as part of Gesher L’Europa, the NLI’s initiative to connect with Europe and make our collections available to diverse audiences in Europe and beyond.
Leafing Through the First Printed Book: The Gutenberg Bible
History is being preserved at the National Library of Israel with the conservation of two pages from an original Gutenberg Bible.
Though there is no doubt that the Chinese were initially ahead of the curve when it came to printing technology, the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg took Europe by storm in just a few short years. Initially Gutenberg printed only single sheets of paper, leaflets containing poems, games, and short stories, but once he managed to convince investors to fund his invention, he printed the first edition of the first printed book in history in 1455: 180 copies of the world’s all-time best seller – the famed Gutenberg Bible.
There may have been earlier attempts at developing a quick and efficient way of copying text, but Gutenberg’s method was the one that caught on in Europe and is still the basis of printing technology today, even in the electronic and digital era. In 1500, less than 50 years after the first printed book made history, there were already millions of printed books available throughout the European continent – some of which were printings of the Bible and other works that pre-dated the printing press, along with other, brand new works.
The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed book, deserves an additional title: The First Printed Work of Art. It’s a 1,286-page masterpiece written in Latin using artisanal engraved Gothic script. Additionally, it features illustrations and decorated letterheads that were engraved and painted by hand. Of the initial 180 copies printed by Gutenberg, only 49 have survived over the centuries. The National Library of Israel doesn’t have a full copy in its possesion, but does hold two pages from an original copy of the Bible.
The invention of the printing press changed the world entirely. It enabled unprecedented distribution of knowledge and information, intrigued and intimidated authoritarian regimes, was a contributing power behind the Protestant Reformation, brought about the common layout of the Talmud, jump-started literacy, and was, according to historians and other researchers, a major enabler in the rise of nationalism in the modern era.
Though you may be reading this article on a digital screen, even now, 600 years after the first publication of the first printed book – print is far from dead; the same can be said about the first work brought to print by Gutenberg: The Bible itself.