So What’s the Deal with Shavuot?

Ladder cakes, all-night prayer sessions and tractor parades! The strange evolution and quirky traditions of one of the oldest holidays in the Jewish calendar...

A kibbutz member carries a milk can, 1941. Photo: Rudi Weissenstein, the Photohouse Collection

The Festival of Shavuot is the second holiday of the Shelosha Regalim, the three Biblical pilgrimage festivals. The holiday has many names, the most widely used are Chag HaBikkurim (Festival of first fruits), Chag HaKatzir (Festival of the Harvest), and Chag Matan Torah (Festival of the Giving of the Torah).

According to the Torah, the Festival of Shavuot is celebrated fifty days after Passover. This is the only holiday for which the Torah does not note a date. Nowadays, Shavuot is celebrated on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan.

Common customs of the holiday include Tikkun Leil Shavuot (an evening of study held on the night of Shavuot), as well as the reading of piyyutim (Jewish liturgical hymns) and azharot (warnings).

The Piyyut "Adon Imnani" is recited during morning prayers on the first day of Shavuot. From the Worms Mahzor, manuscript on parchment, Vol. 1, 111r. 1272, the National Library collections. — The *piyyut* (hymn) “Adon Imnani” is recited during morning prayers on the first day of Shavuot. From the Worms Mahzor, manuscript on parchment, 1272, the National Library collections. Click to enlarge.

The Book of Ruth is also read on Shavuot. Tradition has explained this in a variety of ways. The Book of Ruth deals with an act of kindness that takes place during the harvest. It tells the story of Ruth the Moabite, who accepted the Torah and joined the people of Israel. At the end of the story, which takes place in the vicinity of Bethlehem, it is told that Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David. Thus, we see that a number of Jewish values underpin the Book of Ruth, including kindness to strangers, the rewarding of acts of benevolence, acceptance of the Torah, and the legitimacy of the kingship of the House of David. The reading of the Book of Ruth on Shavuot reaffirms these values.

Another custom popular among Israeli communities on the Festival of Shavuot is the eating of dairy products. The reason for this is not exactly clear, but some claim that the roots of the custom date back to when Moses brought the Torah down to the People of Israel from Mount Sinai. The Israelites supposedly didn’t have time to slaughter livestock and prepare meat to celebrate the event, and therefore turned to dairy foods instead.

Thousands upon thousands of cheesecakes are consumed in Israel during Shavuot. Photo by Kimberly Vardeman.

The National Library archives contain notes by the folklore researcher Yom-Tov Levinsky, in which he documents the Shavuot traditions of different ethnic groups. The following description can be found among them: “In Ashkenazi communities it was customary to bake cheesecakes in celebration of the holiday, ‘Mount Sinai’ cakes filled with fruit and cheese”. However, Levinsky does not describe the preparation of dairy foods alone. The motifs of Mount Sinai and Moses’ ascent to receive the Torah on the mountain unleashed the creative memory of different communities: “In Italy they would bake sulam (“ladder”) cakes, for sulam is numerically equivalent to Sinai in gematria [the system which attributes a numerical value to each Hebrew letter]. Among the Sephardic Jews there is a custom still common today to bake a “siete cielos” (seven heavens) cake for Shavuot, in honor of the seven heavens from which God descended to Mount Sinai, or alternatively, commemorating Moses’ passing through the seven heavens until he reached the Divine Seat of God in order to receive from him the Torah for the People of Israel.“

The baking of symbols for the Feast of Shavuot is documented by Levinsky as a custom among the Jews of Tripoli in Libya, who would bake all sorts of symbolic cakes: “We make ladder-shaped biscuits because it was a ladder which Moses used to ascend to Mt. Sinai. Moreover, sulam (ladder) is numerically equivalent to Sinai.” But ladders were not the only symbols baked by the Tripoli community. Hamsa hands, the tablets of the covenant and even doves would often emerge from the ovens as well: “We prepare hamsa hands because one holds out one’s hands to receive the Torah, and we prepare two tablets of the covenant like those we received on the day the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, and we also bake dove-shaped biscuits symbolizing the People of Israel who received the Torah [peacefully] like a dove.”

In the Land of Israel, before the establishment of the State of Israel, Shavuot was chosen as the day to express the connection of the Jewish People to the Land. In the agricultural settlements, the tradition of harvest ceremonies and the presentation of the first produce of the season was re-established. Especially notable is the tradition of bringing forth the first fruit, which became central in the kibbutzim. This was an opportunity to display the achievements of the kibbutz farmers, who had spent the year toiling in the fields. Kibbutz members would parade their decorated wagons, heavily loaded with fruits and vegetables, showcasing the latest available innovations in agricultural machinery, as their families and friends looked on, including all of the babies born on the kibbutz since the previous Shavuot.

Farmers in the fields of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, Shavuot, 1958. The Nahal Oz Archive. Click to enlarge.

Folk dancing during Shavuot in Kibbutz Heftziba in the 1970s. The Bitmuna Collection at the National Library. Click to enlarge.

In addition, a theatrical aspect developed with parades gradually becoming more elaborate and plays and performances being staged in front of large audiences. In the archives of the National Library there are numerous documents attesting to this aspect of Shavuot in the kibbutzim. Standardized forms of the “Inter-kibbutz Festival Committee” including suggestions as to how to decorate the wagons illustrate the visual aspect of the holiday: “A car whose sides have been removed and covered with tent cloth until it resembles a sort of a hill, on which the various grains are suitably arranged in a natural fashion“. The dairy production branch could opt for the following suggestion: “A decorated cow, whose horns are coated in gold, carrying a basket in which a calf has been put“. The committee even thought of the fisheries: “A boat on a wagon. Nets and fishing equipment. The fish itself – the first produce to be presented – should be placedin the net“.

Shavuot celebrations, 1970. Photo by IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection at the National Library. Click to enlarge.

The documentation at the National Library also includes humorous takes on this kibbutz tradition. For example, in Beit Zera, those working in the fisheries would recite in Hebrew: “Look here and see, we’ve brought you every kind of fish, to enjoy the feast in glee“. But in most cases, the preparations for the celebrations actually had a serious tone to them, as did the performances themselves. The authorities of the Kibbutz Movement were also strict in demanding a detailed report from the kibbutzim as to what had been done on each day of the festival, what content was chosen for the performances, which biblical verses were used for the public signs and so on.

Shavuot celebrations in Kibbutz Heftziba. The Bitmuna Collection at the National Library. Children often take an active part in the festivities, though some members of the Kibbutz movement have objected to this. Click to enlarge.

The agricultural machinery parade underway during Shavuot at Kibbutz Heftziba in 1976. The Bitmuna Collection at the National Library. Click to enlarge.

Unsurprisingly, children were often involved in the various holiday celebrations and performances, but there were some who felt this was inappropriate. This approach is evident in documents held in the National Library, including forms sent out by the “Inter-Kibbutz Festival Committee”. On one of these forms, representatives of Kibbutz Beit Hashitah wrote the following: “The festival of Shavuot is the festival of those who sowed and planted and hoped all year long, and they are those who deserve to sincerely rejoice and exhibit that which they have produced. The children did not sow in tears, nor did they reap in mirth (except for on the children’s farm), therefore it will be a sacrilege and a lack of respect to allow the children to represent this moment of seriousness and happiness in the festival. The children shall be made part of the celebration in accordance with their participation in the work […]. If there is no truth in the festival, it cannot in any way express or satisfy those who celebrate it.“

It was not only the agricultural communities that marked Shavuot with parades. The National Library collections include posters from the 1920s and the 1930s inviting the public to large popular parades in the cities. The Histadtrut (the National Workers’ Union) used to organize Shavuot parades in the streets of Haifa. Similar parades took place in Jaffa and in smaller towns. Shavuot was an opportunity to identify with the agricultural and ideological backbone of the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. There were even organized tours of kibbutzim and moshavim which allowed the city folk, for a fee, to watch the colorful parades of the proud Zionist farmers as they exhibited their fresh produce and shiny metal tractors to rapturous applause.

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How to Buy a Jewish Manuscript in Four (Not So) Easy Steps

This story of the purchase of this Spanish Kabbalistic manuscript encapsulates much of the work done here at the National Library.

Dr. Yoel Finkelman | 15.05.19

סודות כתבי היד העבריים

The manuscript in question

Dr. Yoel Finkelman, the curator of the Library’s Judaica Collection, reveals the four steps that are taken before deciding to add (or not to add) a new item to the Library’s collections.

Some time ago, an individual in the Hebrew book trade approached a worker in the National Library with a manuscript of Jewish interest that had been put up for sale. Today, that very manuscript sits among the many treasures of the Library, so that researchers and future generations might benefit from its preservation. Manuscripts appear for sale constantly, and despite a desire to do so, we cannot purchase everything. Given that budgets are limited, how did we arrive at a decision to purchase it and why did we make that decision?

We knew from the seller that the manuscript was written in Spanish in the late sixteenth or in the early seventeenth century and that it deals with Kabbalistic issues, particularly transmigration of souls and reincarnation. This already sparked our interest. The Spanish-language suggested a community not fluent in the Hebrew or Aramaic of standard Kabbalistic texts, and pointed broadly in the direction of Spanish exiles and crypto-Jews, perhaps in Italy or Amsterdam. But, the seller himself knew almost nothing else. Fortunately, he agreed to allow us to hold onto the manuscript temporarily while we looked into it.

Step one: determining the condition of the manuscript

The manuscript was not in good shape. The binding was torn, at least one entire quire (kuntres, in Hebrew) was missing from the beginning and end, many individual pages were torn, and there were a handful of wormholes and stains here and there. This required a trip to the National Library’s restoration lab, where the staff of book restorers examined the document closely.

Yes, the binding needs work, as do many pages, but the most serious problem was the feared fungus growing on several pages near the binding. Clearly, the book had gotten moist at some point or had been stored in damp surroundings, and fungi on books and manuscripts cannot be killed. At most, they can be cleaned before the books are stored in conditions where the fungi will not develop further (or infect other books). Still, we were told, if the manuscript is important enough, we can handle it.

We needed an expert’s advice, someone with a deep knowledge of the Spanish-speaking Jewish communities after the expulsion, expertise in Kabbalah, and experience with the work of manuscript identification. A leading scholar — who spends some of his time in Spain, some in Oxford, and some in our reading room – offered to help out. Was this the work of crypto Jews still in the Spanish peninsula working in secret, or was it the work of Spanish-speaking Jews, descendants of those expelled, in Amsterdam, Italy, or even South America?

Step two: figuring out what the manuscript is

The scholar spent several hours in my office examining the handwriting, searching the paper for watermarks that might identify the time and place, and trying to understand the content. The handwriting pointed, as we suspected, to the late sixteenth century, and on-site he recognized one of the papers that had been used in the binding as a popular Spanish translation of the Bible from the sixteenth and seventeenth century. And while the content certainly seemed to be about Kabbalah and reincarnation, he could not determine what text it might be. Could it be related to the school surrounding Abraham de Herrera, a sixteenth and seventeenth century Kabbalist who wrote in Spanish for communities of anusim in Italy and Amsterdam? Hard to tell, but our expert was skeptical, based on the style and content of the book. He wanted some time to think about it and get back to us.

A few weeks later he and a friend, another scholar working in various aspects of early modern Kabbalah, arrived in my office with computers in hand, prepared to dedicate several hours to solving the mystery. The second scholar concurred that the physical evidence of the codex pointed to what we already thought. But what, exactly, is the text, and how could we find out? Is it an original work or a translation, and if a translation, of what? If original, by whom, and with whom did he study Kabbalah and learn? Who is the intended audience?

They found a few dates written here and there, which helped confirm the 16th-17th-century range. But the work was made difficult by the fact that the opening quire was gone and there were not any clear chapter headings. They tried some educated guesswork, opening several fifteenth and sixteenth-century Kabbalistic texts and trying to find parallels here and there, but without success. Finally, we were able to find a foothold: a handful of places in the manuscript where the scribe had written some words in Hebrew, even a quote or two from a biblical verse. Let’s find digital copies of contemporaneous Kabbalistic texts, they suggested, and search for those particular words in Hebrew. After half an hour of trial and error, they hit a jackpot. Those same Hebrew words appeared in R. Hayyim Vital’s Sha’ar Hagilgulim. Within minutes it was clear, this text, or at least much of it, contains, among other things, a Spanish translation of parts of Vital’s major work on reincarnation.

Step three: determining the importance of the manuscript

The discovery of the nature of much of the work was critical, but how important is this translation? Certainly, the two scholars said, this translation is interesting, but only a full-fledged study of the manuscript could fully determine its significance in the history of Kabbalah. Is it worth performing such a study? Absolutely, they said, and therefore the manuscript could make an important contribution to the National Library’s collection.

Just to be sure, though, we turned to one other leading scholar of Kabbalah and asked his opinion. He looked at photos of about ten pages of the document, and I met with him to discuss it. He concurred with what the other scholars had said but added something else significant. He felt certain that it is not connected to Herrera, in which case it might be even more interesting than we thought since it could point to students of Kabbalah that we do not yet know of. (In passing, he mentioned two other Kabbalistic manuscripts in his possession, which he lent us to digitize for the Library’s collection, including a translation of the same Sha’ar Hagilgulim into Romanian.)

Step four: provenance and haggling over the price

The person who brought the manuscript to the Library suggested a particular price. It struck us as a bit high, particularly given the bad physical state of the manuscript and the necessity to invest funds in repairing it. More than that, our manuscript budget remains limited. We turned to the middleman with two important issues. First, we wanted to contact the owner directly and speak to him about the provenance (origin) of the manuscript. How did he come to own it, how long has he owned it, and why is he selling it? We needed to receive written guarantees that the manuscript belonged to him and that we were not dealing in goods that might be stolen. Second, we indicated that we simply could not afford the asking price. After several rounds back and forth, we reached an agreement much closer to what we wanted to pay, and a contract was signed.

After the purchase was completed, the manuscript underwent a thorough process of disinfection, in order to kill any bookworms or other lifeforms that might have been living in its pages. Then, the restoration lab did whatever was necessary to fix the binding and the torn pages and to clean as much of the fungus is possible. A unique box was constructed to protect the manuscript, and it has now been photographed in high-quality so that scholars can work on it without damaging the manuscript or risking the spread of the fungi to other books. You can view the manuscript here.

If you know a Spanish-speaking Kabbalah-scholar or graduate student looking for a challenging research project, put them in touch with us.

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When the Child Prisoners of Cyprus Dreamt of Israel

Stone carvings, made by Jewish children in detention camps on Cyprus, depict their longing to finally reach the Land of Israel

Nati Gabbay | 14.05.19

As waves of refugees from World War II made their way to the Land of Israel, the British were forced to find a solution for the influx of immigrants. The detention camp in Atlit was filled to capacity. As a result, additional camps were built in Cyprus, also under British control at the time, in 1946 and 1949. There, tens of thousands of Jews awaited government approval to enter the Land of Israel. A dream, which would eventually come true.

The British understood that they could not treat the Jewish refugees as ordinary prisoners and, therefore, allowed the detainees a certain level of autonomy. With the help of large donations from the Land of Israel and Jews across the world, the Jewish leaders in the camps tried to create a semblance of normal life for the refugees. Part of setting up this new order was the creation of jobs and societal roles within the camps.

An image of an illegal immigrant ship made by a child in the camp

Within the confines of the barbed-wire fences, cultural, welfare, educational and religious activities were established and organized in an attempt to recreate routine, daily life. Naturally, nurturing the children of the camp was at the center of community priorities and values.

A map of Israel engraved in stone. The opposite side shows an engraving of the name Haim Itzkovich, who was in the fifth grade.

An expression of what life was like in the camp for the children which also tells us something about their mindset, can be seen in an unusual collection preserved at the National Library. There was no shortage of stone available in the Cyprus camps, and it was soon utilized in the children’s educational frameworks, which included the art of stone carving.

Inkwell with the words "Cyprus 1948" and the initials of the carver, S.L (ס.ל.). — Inkwell with the words “Cyprus 1948” and the initials of the carver, S.L (ס.ל.).

What did they choose to carve?

Perhaps the obvious choice. The children carved images of the ships that were supposed to bring them to Israel- and one day they would. They also carved maps of the Land of Israel in to the stones, anything that might serve as a reminder that the detention camps in which they were imprisoned were not their home, but a temporary station where they awaited the opportunity to reach the Promised Land.

A stone carving by fifth-grader, Dov Feldman, who also added the inscription "Long Live the People of Israel" — A stone carving by fifth-grader, Dov Feldman, who also added the inscription “Long Live the People of Israel”

In many cases, the children inscribed their names and school grade on the carvings. The artists who created these works as children may very well still be with us today, living in the State of Israel.

This collection was presented by the National Library in honor of the third Global Forum of the National Library of Israel held in March of 2019 and dedicated to the subjects of “Migration-Borders-Identity”.

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Naming the Soldiers: A Special Joint Project by the National Library and Facebook

A special project by the National Library in collaboration with Facebook Israel in honor of the country's 71st Independence Day - come identify and tag your loved ones, family members and friends in these rare and historic images of IDF soldiers from the National Library collections

The National Library of Israel | 07.05.19

Among the many treasures preserved in the National Library of Israel are thousands of photographs documenting the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces throughout the history of the State of Israel. As part of the massive digitization project undertaken by the Library in recent years, these old photographs are being brought back to life, with the yellowing negatives being converted into high resolution images.

However, in many cases the Library is lacking information relating to the identities of the soldiers appearing in the photographs – and that’s where you come in…

Last summer, the National Library and Facebook Israel launched a joint project dedicated to making Israel’s cultural treasures accessible to the general public. As part of this ongoing initiative, today we are uploading a series of photo albums featuring images of IDF soldiers taken during Israel’s various wars in the past. We hereby invite the public to identify and tag their loved ones, family members and friends who served in these wars. In this way, their names will be commemorated in the history pages of the State of Israel, their memories preserved for the benefit of future generations alongside other Israeli cultural treasures of at the National Library.

The National Library collection includes more than 2.5 million photographs documenting the history of the Land and State of Israel. This is the world’s largest collection of Israeli photographs spanning a period of over 150 years. This unique assortment of photographs in fact includes several different collections, most notably the Dan Hadani Collection – an archive of more than a million photographs documenting almost every event in the history of the country. For decades, Dan Hadani and his team of press photographers documented political and cultural events, as well as wars and periods of national mourning. The photographers accompanied IDF soldiers during the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem in the Six Day War, during the battles in Sinai and the Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War, and during Operation Peace for Galilee in Lebanon. Wherever soldiers were sent to fight and defend the State, these photographers would follow.

Dan Hadani donated the collection to the National Library, where it will be preserved for future generations, but the Library staff encountered a problem: the information accompanying the photographs was not always complete. In many cases, it includes only the location and date of the photograph – “1982, Peace for Galilee”, is a typical example. In light of this, the Library decided to turn to the general public, and with the help of Facebook Israel we are now distributing these photographs to as many people as possible – so that they can help provide the most important information of all – who are the soldiers who appear in the pictures and what are the stories behind them.

“We are happy to share with the Israeli public the important task of preserving the culture and heritage of the State of Israel,” says Yaron Deutscher, head of the National Library’s Digital Access Division. “We are confident that through this cooperation with Facebook, which enables us to extract these cultural treasures from the archives of the Library and make them accessible to large audiences, a great deal of information will be gathered, enabling students, researchers and the general public to know more about what has happened here since the establishment of the State.”

Ahead of Israel’s Independence Day, the photographs are being uploaded to the National Library’s Facebook page, while the information received from the public will be preserved in the Library’s catalog, alongside cultural treasures of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, so that the sons and daughters of future generations will be able to know and understand more about what has transpired here over the past 71 years. This is a long-term project, and in the coming months we will share more and more images with the public.

Adi Soffer-Teeni, GM of Facebook Israel: “Today in the digital age we see a change in the ability to tell the story of the establishment of the State. We can now tell that story in a profound way that makes the history and the people who were there tangible and accessible to the public. A state’s past is one of the greatest assets it has and it outlines what it is and what it will be. This treasure trove of images tells the story of the State throughout its various stages and connects us to the people who were there and thanks to whom we are now celebrating our 71^st Independence Day. I am very excited about this and I hope that we will be able to connect names to faces in these exceptionally rare photographs.”