Remembering Clinton Bailey, Friend of Ben-Gurion and the Bedouin

The prolific researcher, who passed away on January 5, dedicated his life to building bridges between Jews and the Bedouin community

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Clinton Bailey interviewing a Bedouin elder, 1972, photo by Boris Carmi, from the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israel

Well into his 80s, Clinton Bailey was a man in constant motion. Even when he was just inviting you to sit for one of countless cups of coffee or physically sitting while drinking one of those cups, his mind was always racing. Yet it raced calmly, collectedly, in the way perhaps only the mind of someone who’s shared thousands of cups of coffee with thousands of very different people can.

Even as his memory began to frustratingly fail him, it was better than most people a quarter of his age.

Whenever Clinton was asked a question he wasn’t expecting or needed time to think about, his instinctive response would be his characteristic chuckle followed by a “Well…” 

He’d share conversations he had with elder Bedouin tribesmen in the deserts of the Negev or the Sinai decades ago. Many of the contexts and phrases he’d still remember sharply were remembered only by him, with his interlocutors long passed and their descendants no longer familiar with much of their own culture’s oral tradition.

Fortunately (or strategically), Clinton foresaw this extinction, which is why he dedicated much of his life to preserving those traditions, jeeping from Bedouin encampment to Bedouin encampment with a tape recorder, an encyclopedic knowledge, child-like curiosity, dimpled smile and sensitivity that remained with him until the end.

Almost everyone at his funeral this week – most of whom referred to him by his Hebrew nickname “Itzik” – echoed the same core sentiment: Clinton was someone who truly, naturally cared about others, and in response they truly, naturally cared about him.

From the farther reaches of western Egypt to the deserts of Jordan in the East, his name preceded him. “Dr. Bailey” apparently became a sort of mythical figure. 

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A Bedouin panel of judges holding court, photo by Clinton Bailey, from the Clinton Bailey Archive at the National Library of Israel

Mention of “Dr. Bailey” would bring forth a visceral reverence.

When Israelis would show up at various Bedouin encampments, it was not uncommon for them to be asked if they knew him. One such visitor who happened to actually know Dr. Bailey inquired about the locals’ deep fondness for his friend.

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Clinton Bailey interviewing Bedouin elders, 1972, photo by Boris Carmi, from the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israel

 “Don’t lots of Israelis come through here?” he asked. “Why do you love Dr. Bailey so much?”

They responded that while the other Israelis who came through only cared about themselves, Dr. Bailey cared about them. And, indeed, besides simply preserving their ancient oral tradition – which Clinton saw as closely linked with the most ancient Jewish traditions – he also truly did care about contemporary Bedouin life. He worked diligently to preserve Bedouin history as well as to promote their civil rights in Israel.

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Bedouin elder Anayzan Salim Sulayman al-Urdhi welcomng Dr. Clinton Bailey, 1993, photo from the Clinton Bailey Archive at the National Library of Israel

Generally an optimist, Clinton was ever pragmatic and rational, understanding all too well the complexities of living in this corner of the earth. As an officer in the 1980s in the IDF’s 522 Lebanon liaison unit, Clinton would frequently run alone from Shiite village to Shiite village in southern Lebanon, befriending the locals, gauging if they could be strategic friends or partners.

He apparently believed that at least some of them could, and should have perhaps been preferred over the Maronite Christians with whom Israel became bedfellows. He expressed his opinions to higher echelons of the Israeli military and political establishment, yet those efforts ultimately proved fruitless. 

As a senior adviser to notable military and government officials, Clinton surely had some great stories with prominent people stowed away in that remarkable memory of his, yet he was not one to particularly enjoy name-dropping. He was, nonetheless, certainly proud of his personal friendship with Paula and David Ben-Gurion, a relationship documented in a now-legendary interview he conducted with Israel’s first prime minister shortly before Ben-Gurion passed away.

Clinton is probably the only friend David Ben-Gurion and I have been fortunate enough to share in common, and yet whether he was having coffee with iconic Israeli figures like Ben-Gurion, venerable Bedouin chieftains, or simple people he knew from daily life like me, Clinton always projected warmth and sincerity as he asked how your wife and kids were, shared details about his family reunions in Skiathos, or an epic tale or aphorism from a long-ago desert trek.

He used to say that the traditional Bedouin woke up in the morning with nothing and if they had something by the time they went to bed they considered themselves fortunate. We, on the other hand, wake up with plenty and if any little thing goes wrong, we consider ourselves unfortunate.

Perhaps that perspective was a large part of Clinton’s magic.

Discover the Clinton Bailey Archive of Bedouin Culture, here

The Mysterious Collector Who Founded Our Islamic Manuscript Collection

The collector Yohanan Ben David left his art collection to the Israel Museum and his manuscript collection to the National Library of Israel. The latter bequest formed the core of the Library’s Islamic manuscript collection. Despite his considerable stature in the art world, he is largely unfamiliar to the general public. Here we take a look at the life of this enigmatic collector.

Early one morning in 1969, two cars from the Israeli Embassy pulled up outside an ordinary-looking apartment building in North London. One of the building’s residents, the collector Yohanan Ben David, had recently died and left his entire art collection to the State of Israel. “A wonderful collection,” he once wrote, “that is unparalleled even compared to the British Museum and the museum in Cairo”. Parts of the collection were displayed in the early twentieth century in highly-regarded galleries, but no one really knew its true dimensions and contents.

When the embassy staff entered the various rooms of the apartment, which had been locked behind closed doors for some time, they discovered a treasure trove of manuscripts, carpets, armaments and various artifacts from India and Persia. Faced with the surprising amount of material, they quickly called for more staff and cars to transport the collection to the embassy. From there it made its way bit by bit to Israel via diplomatic mail.

Yohanan Ben David’s collection forms the basis of the Israel Museum’s collection of Islamic art and the early foundations of the collection of Islamic manuscripts at the National Library of Israel. However, despite the large and impressive assortment of cultural artifacts, which is indicative of the expertise and unique taste of their former owner, Ben David remains almost unknown to the general public.

Hookah bowl in the Qajari style, Iran, 19th century. Tin-plated copper, gold inlay.  The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Estate of Yohanan Ben David, London. 2017.040.0344. Photo © Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Yohanan Ben David (Yuhannah Dawud in Persian) was born in 1885 to a wealthy Jewish family from Tehran, Iran. His family wandered between Persia and India, and in 1907, the 22-year-old Yohanan arrived in England to study art history and literature at Cambridge University. After his studies, he began advising various collectors, including Henri Moser. While advising others, he also began assembling his own collection of manuscripts. In 1920, he donated a number of Persian manuscripts to the British Library, mainly letters of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and several other writings related to the Bahai faith. In 1925, he donated a number of manuscripts to the Jewish National and University Library. Prof. David Eder, a physician and Zionist activist who worked in England on behalf of the Hebrew University, recommended accepting the donation. Eder wrote to Hugo Bergmann, then head of the Library, that Ben David’s donation of manuscripts would be a welcome addition to the Oriental Studies Collection which was then being established. According to Bergmann, Ben David’s manuscripts would balance the recently arrived Ignac Goldziher book collection. In 1925, Yohanan Ben David donated 39 manuscripts on various subjects to the Library. Among the most important are decorated manuscripts of the Persian poets Hafez, Jalal al-Din Rumi and Jami. He also contributed several writings of Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i religion.

Persian miniature, Yohanan Ben David Collection

According to Dr. Sivan Lehrer of the Hebrew University, Ben David was hardly the only Jew to adopt the Baha’i religion alongside his original faith. There were quite a few Jews of Persian origin who did the same. In 1911, the son of the founder of the Bahai faith, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, traveled to London and Paris in order to meet with his followers. While there, he officiated at Ben David’s marriage to Regina Khanum. In the book about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s journey, it is written that the bride’s family had been followers of Bahá’u’lláh since his days in Iraq. In the book, Ben David expresses loyalty to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, but also is careful to emphasize his Jewish identity, for example, by noting the Hebrew date alongside that of the Gregorian calendar. In the family album he prepared one can also find the Jewish deed of terms for his marriage to Regina.

Scribe’s pen case decorated with the images of three Qajari kings. Signed by Abu al-Hassan al-Afari, Isfahan, Iran, Qajari style, painted and varnished paper mache. Israel Museum, Jerusalem, estate of Yohanan Ben David, London. B69.0747. Photo © Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Oded Lobel

In 1946, Ben David made another donation to the National Library of 56 manuscripts, mainly on subjects of Islamic law. In 1965, he wrote to the Library’s director, Prof. Curt David Wormann, asking to donate the rest of his collection in exchange for conditions that would allow him to come to Israel and help catalog the materials. He was not able to realize his desire to immigrate to Israel, and passed away in England several years later.

Yohanan Ben David was a very spiritual person. His archive, which can be found at the National Library of Israel, contains hundreds of handwritten notes in which he formulated his ideas about God, the Jewish people and the mission of the faithful in this world. These drafts formed the basis for more complete theological essays in which he elaborated his theological doctrine regarding the status of the Jewish people in the world. For example, in a work he compiled in memory of his brother Yekutiel, he claims that circumcision is the sign of the Jewish people who were chosen and protected by God in order to declare God’s truth to the world, and “establish his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven”. This wording is nearly identical to that of the Christian “Lord’s Prayer”. Ben David’s mixing of traditions displays the flexibility he allowed himself in adopting different traditions which he consolidated into his unique spiritual approach.

Page from the essay Yohanan Ben David prepared in memory of his brother

Among the unique items in Ben David’s archive is a family history book he created. It is decorated with verses that Ben David wrote and tastefully adorned with parts of manuscripts which he cut out and pasted as frames around various photos and certificates.

Yohanan Ben David’s special personality and impressive collection has inspired three exhibitions. Two by textile artist Katia Oicherman, “The Collector’s Room” and “Rendering of Writings” as well as “No Thing Dies” by photographer Ilit Azoulay.

Lab Results Confirm: This Ibn Sina Manuscript Is Nearly 1000 Years Old

A manuscript attributed to the famous 11th-century Persian physician and philosopher Ibn Sina has created a scholarly stir regarding its dating. Is it contemporary with the author? If so, this would make it an important and reliable copy. Or was it copied a few hundred years after his death? There was only one way to find out...

رسم ابن سينا من مخطوطة تعود للعصور الوسطى بعنوان subtitles of truth من عام 1271 (المصدر ويكيبيديا)، وهاجر ميلمان، مختصّة حفظ وترميم في مختبر الحفظ والترميم في المكتبة الوطنيّة الإسرائيليّة، وهي تقطع برفق خط رفيع من المخطوطة.

Ibn Sina, as he appears in the medieval manuscript titled Subtleties of Truth, 1271 (source: Wikipedia), and Hagar Milman, of the Conservation and Restoration Laboratory at the National Library of Israel, as she delicately cuts a sample from the edge of a manuscript page

“Scalpel,” says a woman in a white lab coat, holding out her hand while standing over a brightly lit table. Knife in hand, she then leans over and begins making the incision.

The “patient” on the operating table is not a person, but a manuscript whose date of writing, or rather of copying, is the subject of debate.

The purpose of the “operation” is to determine how old this manuscript truly is. This will be done by analyzing the sample that has been extracted in an external laboratory. The results of the test will have significant implications, for this is no ordinary manuscript but one that is attributed to the renowned 11th-century Persian philosopher and physician Ibn Sina.

Ibn Sina, as he appears in the medieval manuscript Subtleties of Truth, 1271. Source: Wikipedia

Ibn Sina is considered one of the most important thinkers of the Islamic world, and he is part of a small group of Islamic thinkers who were renowned in their own lifetime, both in the Islamic world and in Europe, where he was known as “Avicenna.”

Ibn Sina rose to prominence at a young age as a respected physician and philosopher. His early fame came when he was called to the bedside of the Sultan of Persia who had been suffering from a prolonged illness. Ibn Sina was able to heal the Sultan when the court physicians could not. His reward was access to the royal library, a development which spurred him on to write many different works, including his famous text on the philosophy of science known as the Book of Healing (Kitab al-Shifa).

First page of the manuscript the Book of Healing (Kitab al-Shifa), in the collection of the National Library of Israel

During his short life, Ibn Sina managed to compose hundreds of works. In the Library’s collections there are hundreds of manuscripts of Ibn Sina’s writings as well as later commentaries on them. But two in particular stand out: one in the field of medicine and the other in various fields of science.

Ibn Sina’s uniqueness in these two works is his overarching approach, which included mapping the entire field of knowledge, and dividing it into clear categories. Moreover, he critically examined these categories, presenting his own insights in each and every field. This method of examining the different categories critically, especially in the field of medicine, eventually became the basis of modern medicine – an approach formally known as “evidence-based medicine”.

The Book of Healing includes four volumes, each of which is dedicated to a different subject. In the Library’s collections is the first volume, which deals with logic. The other volumes deal with the natural sciences, psychology, computational sciences (geometry, mathematics, music and astronomy) and metaphysics. The Book of Healing is a survey of all the fields of science known at the time of its composition. Its uniqueness and importance, as already noted, lies in its structure, which became the standard for all books of philosophy that came after it.

The first volume of the Book of Healing was donated to the National Library as part of the vast collection of the eminent researcher, writer and collector Abraham Shalom Yahuda. The cataloger of the collection, Efraim Wust, recorded the details of this unique manuscript in the Library catalog. Every book cataloged in the Library includes the known or estimated year of its creation.

However, there was no clear date for the creation of this manuscript inside the manuscript itself, and in the catalog entry for it West listed the date as “1050” followed by a question mark. It is not clear what led West to assign this date to the manuscript. Was it an informed assessment perhaps based on the paper or the type of ink, or was it just a gut feeling?

Screenshot of the National Library catalog for the manuscript Kitab al-Shafa (Book of Healing). The catalog shows all the basic data related to every item in the National Library of Israel, and here prominently listed is the date: 1050?

But what is the importance of dating a manuscript anyway?

A manuscript copied during an author’s lifetime is usually indicative of the standing and reputation of the author and is considered more important than one copied after the author’s death because the wording will be closer to the original. It should be noted that there are very few manuscripts of Kitab al-Shafa from Ibn Sina’s lifetime. The discovery of an additional copy made during his lifetime might shed further light on the original wording of this important treatise.

There are several ways to date a manuscript. The easiest way is if the manuscript contains a colophon, that is, a note written by the copyist of the manuscript in which he notes when the copy was completed and sometimes also additional details about the manuscript. One finds colophons in many manuscripts, but as mentioned, not in this one.

An example of a colophon, which often appears in the form of a triangle, one of whose points face downward. From a manuscript in the collection of the National Library of Israel

In the absence of a colophon, there are other less direct ways for dating a manuscript that involve examining various details of the item – the title page and the information it contains, notes, seals of the manuscript’s previous owners or notes of consent for the study of the book (adjazat). However, many early manuscripts do not have a title page at all! Sometimes marginal notations can also shed light on the date a manuscript was copied.

In addition, the physical material from which the manuscript is made may also serve to indicate its time of origin – the type of paper, the type of ink, colors and decorations, the calligraphy, the numbering of the pages or the number of quires, and the like. However, the codicologist (a scientist who studies the materials from which books were made) of the Islamic Collection at the National Library of Israel warns against trying to date a manuscript (or even a printed book) by its cover because that part of a book can be easily replaced.

One thing that may help to pin down the date of a manuscript is the type of paper – its quality, its texture, its degree of transparency, the surface gloss and color, and its firmness or flexibility. Looking at the type of paper of the manuscript under discussion, we can clearly see these things. For example, one can see the fibers from which the paper is made and also some darker areas on the paper, which help to date when the manuscript was written.

Since its arrival at the National Library, there have been various opinions regarding the date the manuscript was copied: some argued that the manuscript was indeed contemporary with Ibn Sina, while others claimed that the manuscript was copied after the author’s death.

The issue became more acute when a specialist in Islamic codicology from Italy approached the Library with questions about the date in the catalog, and claimed that it was copied 200 years later. The Library staff decided to check once and for all in order to unequivocally solve the question of the manuscript’s dating.

Marcela Szekely, the Head of Conservation and Restoration at the National Library of Israel, asked Professor Elisabetta Boaretto to use radiocarbon dating, known to be the most reliable method for dating paper. Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto, a world-renowned expert in the field, came to the National Library to collect a sample of the manuscript.

An “operation” to extract a sample was performed. Since this is an invasive type of test, the operation was preceded by a long discussion between Marcela Szekely and Professor Boaretto about how and from where to take the sample. The initial thought was to conduct the test on the ink used in the manuscript. But in the end, in order to minimize damage to the manuscript as much as possible, it was decided to take the sample from the sides of several pages in the form of an elongated strip and not in the form of a rectangle as is usually the case.

Prof. Boaretto wraps the specimen from the manuscript in foil paper for transport to the lab at the Weizmann Institute for radiocarbon dating

This test, also known as the radiometric method, is based on the fact that every organic substance has a constant rate of radioactive decay. Thus, the older an object, the smaller the amount of radioactive carbon that will be found in it. Research in the field has developed significantly over the years, and today this method can be used to date any inanimate object of organic origin going back 50 thousand years. It was also decided to test for the composition of the paper at the same time. The test was carried out at the Dangoor Research Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot under the supervision of Prof. Boaretto.

Prof. Marcela Szekely, Head of Conservation and Restoration (left) and Prof. Boaretto (right) with the Kitab al Shifa manuscript. Every special request to view an ancient manuscript or rare item takes place in a room dedicated for this purpose, with the item placed on a special cushion for its protection.

When the answer finally came back from Prof. Boaretto, it was clear that the collector and cataloger had both been right and their gut feeling was accurate: the manuscript is not from the 14th century, but dates to between the years 1040–1160 at the latest, shortly after the death of Ibn Sina in 1037. It was also discovered that the source of the paper is cellulose. Further tests will be performed to discover the type of fibers from which the paper was made. This is another example of how science comes to the aid of history to help us to learn more about the Library’s cultural treasures which are available to the general public for reference and research.

The article was compiled with the assistance of Marcela Szekely, head of the Department of Conservation and Restoration at the National Library of Israel.

Animals, Monsters and Far-Off Lands

What do mythological beasts and imaginary creatures have to do with the Mongol conquest?

عجائب المخلوقات وغرائب الموجودات، 1659، المكتبة الوطنية

Zakriyya al-Qazwini could not run fast enough.

Born in 1203 in the Iranian city of Qazvin, he spent his life either fleeing Chinggis Khan’s Mongol armies, which by 1283 had forged an empire stretching from China to Eastern Europe, or racing to find his place in the world the Mongol conquests had left behind.

Zakriyya al-Qazwini’s The Wonders of the Creatures and the Marvels of Creation, 1659

In 1220, Qazwini left his native town for Mosul and then Baghdad. Still, the conquerors caught up with him in the Iraqi town of Wasit, where they murdered 40,000 inhabitants. The Mongols spared intellectuals, artisans, and others they deemed useful, and thus Qazwini, a legal scholar and judge, was not killed. He continued his career under his new patrons, serving as judge and a teacher at the city’s al-Sharabiyya college.

However, the shock that the Mongol conquest delivered to Qazwini and Islamic civilization as a whole cannot be overstated. And so, when Qazwini came to write The Wonders of the Creatures and the Marvels of Creation, the book for which he is best known, he sought to reassure his readers that the order of the cosmos remained secure. The book is an encyclopedic summary of the created world, proceeding in order from the heavens above to the earth below. Illustrations of the constellations, angels, animals, plants, and other creatures, including mythical beasts and fantastic men, accompany the text.

Zakriyya al-Qazwini’s The Wonders of the Creatures and the Marvels of Creation, 1659

The manuscript seen here, copied in Baghdad in 1659, is a perfect example of Qazwini’s orderly world. As a Turkish translation, it also demonstrates how widely Qazwini’s book was read and copied over the centuries, making it one of the most ubiquitous Islamic illustrated books.