The Many Lives of the Synagogue El Transito

When Samuel Ha-Levi illegally built a synagogue in the provincial Spanish town of Toledo, no one could have known that it would one day become a church, then a military barracks in the Napoleonic war, a national monument, and finally a museum… but that’s just the beginning!

Mia Amran | 14.05.23

The synagogue of Transit in Toledo, the Josef and Margit Hoffman Judaica Postcard Collection, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Folklore Research Center, the National Library of Israel

Toledo, the capital city of Old Castilla, is a beautiful town just south of Madrid. It is home to medieval buildings, fresh Spanish air rippling off the quaint river that runs through town, and breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside. The history of Toledo dates back all the way to the Romans, and the place is endowed with a deep feeling of being loaded with antiquity and significance. As you meander through the winding streets, you can’t help but understand that there is no way to grasp the vastness of Toledo’s history, no matter how much time you have to spend in the area. A whole world lurks beneath the intricate architecture and map-wielding tourists, and you wonder to yourself how so much could have happened in so small an area? Perhaps this is why the women of Toledo gathered to protect its history and defend the precious town during the Spanish Civil War of 1936, refusing to let its magnificent history be destroyed. Perhaps this is why the Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega used Toledo to inspire so much of his work, promising Toledo in dramatic prose that “the strength of your beauty would be sung.”

And perhaps this is why the Synagogue El Transito, sitting right inside the historic town, is endowed with such a full and theatrical history.

We don’t know exactly how far back Jewish history in Toledo dates, but we can be sure that Jews have lived there since at least the 6^th century, for in the year 589 CE the Council of Toledo created a decree prohibiting Jews from marrying Christians, holding public office or owning Christian servants. As you can imagine from the intonation of those decrees, the Jews suffered greatly under Christianity in Toledo, especially when the 8^th Toledo Council created even more extreme antisemitic legislation in the year 652CE. They say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and this was never truer than when the rift between the Christians and the Jews led the Jewish community to aid in the Muslim conquest of Toledo in the year 715 CE. The Jews made fast friends with the new conquerors and even spoke Arabic in this period, as evidenced by the fact that Jewish documents from this time were written in Arabic (Asher b. Jehiel, Responsa, No. 56; Solomon ben Adret, Responsa, iii. 427.)

In 1252, King Alfonso the 10^th (9 Alfonsos weren’t enough apparently) captured the city of Toledo and declared it Christian once again, yet this time he made sure that the Jews were treated as equals.

*Photograph of Samuel Halevi Abulafia Private Synagogue (Nuestra Señora del Tránsito) in Toledo*, 2016, Photographer: Vladimir Levin, Center for Jewish Art Collection, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the National Library of Israel

By this point many Jews had migrated to Toledo, as Muslim persecution in other parts of Spain drove them to seek refuge. These Jews rose to prominence, holding important roles in politics and government. At one point the King of Toledo even graced the Jews with the biggest compliment of all by taking a Jewish mistress (Fermosa) and a Jewish royal physician (Hayyuj Alfata)!

In the mid-1200s, the Archbishop of Toledo grew concerned by the financial and political prominence of the Jewish community and decided to curb it by imposing a tax and housing tithe on every Jew over the age of 20 (Jacobs, “Sources,” No. 1265.) This seems not to have worked out so well, considering the fact that by 1290, nearly half of the town’s considerable wealth was still owned by Jews!

During this time period, the Nasi or leader of the Jewish community doubled up as the spiritual leader of the community, and in 1305 the Jews of Toledo chose the learned nobleman Asher Ben Jehiel Abulafia (d. 1328) to lead their congregation. It was under his political and religious guidance that our story begins.

On a fine Spanish day in 1320, a boy named Samuel Ben Meir Ha-Levi Abulafia was born into the influential Abulafia family. The Abulafias, including the aforementioned Asher, had been leading the Jewish community in both Toledo and in fact all of Castilla for over 100 years. However, Samuel’s parents died of the plague while he was still a boy, and because Samuel was too young to take over their legacy, he was instead apprenticed to the Knight Juan Alfonso. Owing to a nice bit of nepotism, his political dynasty serving the kings of Castilla for several generations, Samuel rose quickly through the ranks of the court until he found his own meaningful employment in the court of King Pedro the 1^st of Castilla, also known as King Pedro the Cruel (which we won’t go into – let bygones be bygones, and all that). Samuel was first crowned the Mayor of the town, then the Treasurer, and finally the High Judge of Toledo. It was during his stint as Treasurer that he decided to build a synagogue. It was by no means the first synagogue in the area – Toledo was already home to the largest synagogue in Spain as well as 9 others, but this one was Samuel’s own house of worship.

In 1357 the synagogue was opened. It was connected to Samuel Ha-Levi Abulafia’s house and he presided over the services. Generously paying it back to the community who had so exalted him, Samuel also opened the synagogue as a hub for Jewish education, and a Yeshiva house of study.

One of the many things that made this synagogue interesting was the fact that in the 14^th century, Spain had actually decreed a ban on all construction of Jewish educational institutes and synagogues. However, Samuel’s close relationship with King Pedro (cruel or otherwise), meant that he was able to find some legal loopholes, and more importantly, get away with them. The ban on synagogues did not extend to private homes, and bribes were sometimes accepted for the construction of Yeshivot, which King Pedro turned a blind eye towards. Maybe this was a nod to their close friendship, or maybe it was a royal token of apology for the persecution that the Jews had just faced in Toledo during the Black Death of the 1340s. Either way, the synagogue was allowed to stand, and for that we can be grateful.

Samuel Ha-Levi quite deliberately disobeyed the regulations requiring synagogues to be plainly decorated, smaller, and lower than churches, and once again King Pedro looked the other way. The rectangular prayer hall has a 12-meter-high ceiling and is decorated lavishly in a mix of styles. Hebrew inscriptions can be seen even till this day which extol both King Pedro and Samuel Ha-Levi. Arabic inscriptions and Psalm passages are also apparent on the walls, next to the Ha-Levi coat of arms and lots of magnificent windows.

During services, a second-floor gallery was set aside for the women, which was pretty forward thinking for the time! Contrary to the highly decorated interior, the façade of the synagogue was constructed of brick and stone, and was relatively unadorned, in order to draw less attention to the illegal structure, despite the fact that its towering roof raised the whole synagogue somewhat above all the nearby structures.

This house of prayer was a vibrant and animated place of worship for many years, but then tragedy struck. As the 14^th and 15^th centuries wore on, antisemitism had been back on the rise yet again. Samuel Ha-Levi obviously set out to protect Jewish rights and freedoms, but due to this, King Pedro was unable to keep defending him. Eventually the rift between the two men grew into an all-out war – Samuel was arrested on charges of corruption and eventually tortured to death. His house remained, as did the synagogue, and despite repeated and growing attacks on the Jewish community in Toledo as the 1300s came to an end, the synagogue was saved. This was not an act of good faith, but rather one of self-interest, for the synagogue was soon to be converted into a church.

In 1492, amidst a further uptake of antisemitism, the Jews were finally given an ultimatum: the Catholic monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, issued the Alhambra Decree, which gave Spanish Jews the choice to either convert to Catholicism, leave the country, or face expulsion. The decree was supposedly motivated by the belief that Jews had not fully assimilated into Spanish society and that their presence was a threat to the country’s religious and cultural identity, but no justification can be made for the horrors which befell the Jewish community during these terrible years of persecution. The Spanish expulsion marked the apparent end to centuries of Jewish presence in Spain, and led to the forced migration of thousands of Jews to other parts of Europe, North Africa, and the Ottoman Empire.

As no practicing Jews remained in Toledo, the synagogue was turned into a church. As if they had not inflicted enough harm already, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella donated the building to the Order of Calatrava who turned the structure into a church housing a Benedictine priory. The name “El Transito,” which honors the Virgin Mary’s Assumption, was given to the building during its stretch as a church, but ironically the synagogue has still kept this name until today, which is why it is known as the “Synagogue El Transito.” Juan Correa de Vivar painted a mural of Mary’s Virgin Transit over the original Jewish engravings on the walls, but thankfully the canvases he used were eventually removed and preserved without ruining the Jewish prayers so lovingly inscribed below.

The Synagogue El Transito was to remain a church until the early 1800s, when, during the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon in 1808, Toledo was forced to play a leading role. Toledo is very strategically located in the center of the peninsula of Spain and close to Madrid, so it became one of the central hostile points in the country. Despite heavy resistance, over 10,000 French troops along with their 400 horses took up residence in Toledo, under guidance from General Dupont. The Spanish fought back, and the ever-changing defensive lines of both armies often fell smack-bang in the middle of Toledo, causing much damage and unrest to the town. During that time, the Spanish revolutionaries and fighters needed barracks, and the vast space of the Church of El Transito provided just the right shelter.

We can be grateful for this strategic placing of the Spanish army barracks, as the synagogue would almost certainly have been destroyed if it wasn’t being used to house their troops. Many notable buildings and heritage sites were lost during these fierce battles, and during the Civil War, more of Toledo was destroyed than ever before. Despite the piles of horse manure and stray bullets, the synagogue persevered, and by the end of the war, the synagogue-turned-church-turned-military barracks had become a symbol of Spain’s success, and the independence that they had fought for.

Having lost its status as a church, the Synagogue El Transito was turned briefly into a national monument. The decline of Christianity in the late 1800s combined with the building’s military prowess meant that it was easily turned into a heritage site, and it was only after gaining this national monument status that its history was slowly excavated, one layer at a time.

During the 19^th century, Spanish Jewish communities began to rebuild themselves, slowly at first, as Jews tentatively returned to their homes and found a more welcoming society than the one their ancestors had fled from. Despite that, no Jews returned to settle in Toledo. But as historians and world heritage staff explored the grounds of the building, they recognized just how important it had once been for the Jewish community, and pledged to return it to their possession.

A restoration effort began. The first part of the restoration was to the Torah ark, often considered to be the holiest site in a synagogue. The original ark still stood, but needed a good deal of repair and cleaning. At least 14 lattices needed to be fixed and the Hebrew inscriptions had to be painstakingly restored, letter by letter.

Arturo Mélida y Alinari became the head architect of this immense restoration project and he worked tirelessly, firstly on the roof and outside walls, and then as he grew to notice all the many safety hazards present in the structure, he turned his attention to reinforcing the ancient building. In 1911, the building was given to the Museum Fund of Spain, who pledged to gift it back to the Jewish community as a Museum of Sephardi Culture and History. They doubled down on the restoration efforts, and started on the interior walls and the women’s gallery. A debate soon raged over whether to also restore the church features, and eventually it was decided that it would only be fair to pay homage to the building’s years as a church, so the choir stage and a few other Christian features were also restored to their former glory. Finally, some new features were added to the building, including a large Jewish library and a new Center for Hebrew Studies.

Of the five grandest medieval synagogues in Toledo, only two have survived: the Synagogue El Transito, now the Sephardic Museum, and Santa María la Blanca which also, as the name suggests, spent some time as a church. Toledo is sometimes known as the “Sephardic Jerusalem” due to its beautiful Jewish heritage buildings and synagogues, and its historic Jewish quarter which can still be visited today.

*Photograph of Don Samuel Halevi Abulafia Private Synagogue (Nuestra Señora del Tránsito) in Toledo – Model 1/20*, 2016, Photographer: Vladimir Levin, Center for Jewish Art Collection, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the National Library of Israel

The Synagogue El Transito no longer hosts prayer services, and the only Jews in the town today are visitors, snapping pictures and tracing the vast Jewish history of the area, seeking to view some of Spain’s most precious medieval Jewish architecture. From a synagogue to a church, to a military barracks, then a national monument, and finally a museum and synagogue once again, the Synagogue El Transito tells the riveting and tragic story of Spanish Jewry all the way from the Middle Ages, until today.

“Half of My Soul Is Made of Longing”: One Man’s Mission to Preserve the Jewish Heritage of Debdou

If not for the efforts of "Rabbi Eli", much of what we know about this particular Moroccan Jewish community would likely have been lost forever…

Dr. Yoel Finkelman | 07.05.23

Jewish Communities Jewish Culture Moroccan Jewry North African Jewry

Jewish girls in Debdou, Morocco, early 20th-century, the Joseph and Margit Hoffman Judaica Postcard Collection, the Folklore Research Center, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

For much of its history, the town of Debdou was home to more Jews than Muslims. The Jewish community in the town in Northeast Morocco traced its roots back to Jewish refugees, many Cohanim (priests), from the Spanish city of Seville, who fled the Iberian Peninsula after the anti-Jewish violence of 1391. The town hosted tens of synagogues, well-known ritual scribes, and several scholars. The Jewish community was active and had all the institutions needed to thrive, including (if an early 20^th century French postcard is any indication), a traditional school for young Jewish girls, who came to their studies in elaborate headscarves.

“A young Jewish woman“, Debdou, Morocco, early 20th-century, the Joseph and Margit Hoffman Judaica Postcard Collection, the Folklore Research Center, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Like other locales with significant Jewish presence, we learn about its history from books, photos, legends, documents, and even gravestones. As time passes, many documents are lost, and history becomes harder and harder to document and reconstruct. Regarding Debdou, however, we have a surprising quantity of documentation, thanks to the tireless efforts of one modest man with an unassuming attitude and easy smile. Rabbi Eli dedicated much of his long life to preserving the memory of Jewish Debdou, publishing dozens of books, ranging from the genealogy of the towns’ Jews, to lists of the communities’ local and unique religious practices (minhagim) and folklore, and even a bibliography of Hebrew printing in North Africa.

The grin that spreads quickly from his mouth to his eyes does not fully hide a light sadness that appears when he speaks of his birthplace. As Rabbi Eli tells it, his passion for the memory of Debdou stems from yearning and loss, from the half of his soul made of longing. His mother passed away in the early 1940s, within a year of his birth, and he grew up with his grandparents, father, and later stepmother. But Debdou had little to offer a young man as bright and religiously motivated as Eli. In his early teens, he travelled alone to Paris to study in a Yeshiva for mostly North African young men. After marrying and serving as a young rabbi through the local French Jewish community (the Consistoire), the fears leading up to the Six-Day War inspired him and his wife to move to Israel.

There, he reconnected with his dear grandfather, who had since moved from Morocco to Jerusalem, and whom Rabbi Eli described as a walking encyclopedia of the lore of Jewish Debdou. But within a few short years of their reunion, his grandfather had passed away, and in a moment of profound regret, Rabbi Eli realized that the man’s accumulated knowledge had been lost.

Eli dedicated the rest of his years to collecting memories and documents. At first, he knocked on the doors of Jerusalem residents who had moved from Debdou, asking them to share stories, memories, and lore. Many laughed at him, wondering why he was bothering. Others cooperated, whether enthusiastically or reluctantly. In the course of these conversations, many former residents gifted him with documents, letters, marriage contracts, and communal record books. These interviews and pages served as the basis for his lifelong research and publishing. During the 1990s, a philanthropist asked him to travel to Morocco, and he spent several months gathering information and documents. Over the years, he worked with related sources housed in the National Library of Israel and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, where he developed a relationship with the staff. Every few years since 1997, he would donate some of his collected documents to the NLI. One morning in April 2023, he woke up knowing that the rest of his collection should be donated on that very day to the Library. He took the remaining materials and, unannounced, knocked on the door of the archives department at the NLI.

The documents say less about learned topics, and much more about the daily life of the community as reflected in letters, business deals, or marriage contracts. One manuscript records the impressions – and criticisms! – of Moroccan Jewish life made by Meir bar Sheshet, a Shadar (charity collector) who had come from the Land of Israel to Morocco to raise funds for the Jews of Tzefat in the Holy Land.

A *pinkas* (ledger) maintained by Meir bar Sheshet, who recorded his impressions and criticisms of Moroccan Jewish life. The Eliyahu Refael Marciano Collection, the National Library of Israel

Another document that struck my eye was a recording of the local rabbinical court’s decisions regarding family life, while World War II raged in Europe. A couple had divorced, and the husband would not pay child support properly. The court took measures to ensure that he would. In another case, a wife refused to move with her husband to a new location, and the court ruled that she would thereby lose her divorce settlement (Ketubah). I asked Rabbi Eli if there was any document that stood out for him. He did not hesitate, answering that it was an 18^th century will that demonstrates the connection between the Debdou community and its roots in Seville. An elderly man wrote a will, giving his descendants his property, including the known piece of land that the family “owned” in Seville. Nobody expected to ever get that property back, but it was part of the family lore that they came from there and their ancestors had owned it.

As time passes, fewer people will have personal memories of Jewish Debdou, but the legacy of the community will live on in the hundreds of documents that Rabbi Eli gathered over his long life and in the research and writing that it enabled.

The Eliyahu Refael Marciano Collection is being cataloged and will be made accessible thanks to the kind donation of the Samis Foundation, Seattle, Washington, dedicated to the memory of Samuel Israel.

Breaking Bard: Uncovering Shakespeare’s True Identity

For centuries, the true identity of William Shakespeare has been shrouded in mystery. What if the famous playwright we all know and love was not who we thought him to be? The controversial theory that ‘Shakespeare’ was a group of women writing under one pseudonym has been gaining traction, raising fascinating questions about gender, authorship, and the nature of creativity. It's high time we examine the evidence behind this theory and explore its implications for our understanding of Shakespeare's legacy.

Mia Amran | 24.04.23

Archives Europe Manuscripts National Library of Israel

If I asked you to name the most famous playwright in history, you would almost certainly say Shakespeare. In fact, if I were to ask you to name the most famous people in history, Shakespeare would probably make the list! Whether you genuinely enjoy his writing, or you were simply forced to memorize his plays in English class at school, most people can confidently name at least a few Shakespeare works and their basic plotlines.

*Shakespeare*, *El Progresso-La Bos del Pueblo-La Epoca* –*איל פרוגריסו/לה בוז דיל פואיבלו/לה איפוקה די נו יורק*, 23 June 1916, Artist: Phinsan, via the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel

But the world of Shakespeare is not as innocuous as it may seem. Many prominent authors have actually posited the theory that Shakespeare was not just one man, but a group of multiple people acting under a common pseudonym.

Much evidence to support this invigorating theory has been uncovered over the last 50 years, and it’s easy to see why the idea has so much traction. For a start, the way Shakespeare describes both the life of royalty and the life of a serf in magnificent detail points to the fact that Shakespeare had access both to the upper floors and the lower basements of the noble British household – something absolutely unheard of in the 1500s. Maybe today we wouldn’t scoff at the concept of being able to truthfully describe the lives of both a sailor and a servant, a prince and a pauper, but if you consider the fact that during Shakespeare’s lifetime the majority of people never even left their own small hamlet, or met anyone more diverse than their own neighbors, it does seem odd that Shakespeare should have had such an intimate understanding of so many varied lifestyles. We’re talking about someone who didn’t have a car, a phone, the internet, or even access to very many books. We’re talking about someone who relied on excruciatingly slow snail mail to talk to anyone outside his immediate village. We’re talking about a time in which most people never set foot outside their own town, let alone their home country.

So how is Shakespeare able, in his plays, to describe all these diverse lives that he unquestionably should not have had access to? He depicts numerous countries in vast detail, despite the fact that during his lifetime he would have had neither the time nor resources to visit those places. Moreover, Shakespeare confidently describes the taste of an orange in Much Ado About Nothing, a fruit not found in his native England until decades after his death. It is unlikely that one person, even today, could have acquired such a wealth of experiences to write about, much less 500 years ago without access to the internet, or even, by modern standards, a well-stocked library!

How are we to believe that a middle-class man born in the provincial English town of Stratford gained the plethora of experiences needed to write the plays that we find in his anthology? Intimate knowledge of the Elizabethan court, the ability to write in multiple languages, understanding of law, astronomy, music, the military, other continents, and multiple cities across Europe? This is even more astounding when we realize that no proofs exist of him ever traveling outside England. Moreover, the language he used and vocabulary that he employed in his plays far exceeds what his abilities rightfully should have allowed, seeing as his only formal education ended at the age of 13.

*Ephemera – Hamlet*, author: Benjamin Pollock Limited, Shakespeare & Company, 1948-2006, the Roni Toren Archive, made accessible through the collaboration of the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, the University of Haifa and the National Library of Israel

If all that doesn’t convince you that something suspicious is happening here, maybe this fact will: After Shakespeare’s death, he left behind not one original writing or manuscript in his home, no proof that he had ever put a pen to paper, not one reference book, not one musical instrument (despite a seemingly innate familiarity of over 25 instruments cited throughout his works), and he also left nothing in his will to his daughter, despite the blatant feminism apparent in so many of his plays (a point worth bearing in mind for later!)

Most convincing in the quest to prove that Shakespeare was not actually a single entity, is the fact that the signature of Shakespeare appears throughout his manuscripts with seven completely different spellings, almost all of which were bizarrely found in unexpected locations or years after his passing with no way to trace them back to his hometown. Many forensic scientists have pored over the numerous differing signatures attached to his manuscripts and determined that they may not in fact all belong to the same person. Maybe Shakespeare simply forgot how to spell his own last name, or maybe something unexpected was happening…

Shakespeare’s signature on the cover of a first edition copy of the book – *Of the Vanitie and Uncertaintie of Artes and Sciences,* by Cornelius Agrippa, 1569, the National Library of Israel collections

Fragment from the first edition of *The First Folio*, a compilation of all Shakespeare’s plays, 1623, the National Library of Israel collections

The biggest question to ask upon receiving any new theory is always “why?” If you suddenly hear the sound of galloping, you can assume you’re hearing a zebra, but it is probably just a horse. There is, however, one obvious answer to the question of why multiple people may have wanted to write under a single presumed name.

Have you ever heard of the Bell brothers? Otherwise known as the Bronte sisters. What about George Eliot? Now known as Mary Ann Evans. Or A.M. Branard, who was actually Louisa May Alcott? I could go on and on, and by now you perhaps understand where we are going with all of this.

First edition of Shakespeare’s poems, 1640, the National Library of Israel

Women in the 1500s were scarcely permitted to speak their own truths, let alone write them down for public consumption! So, if there were hypothetically a group of female writers, seeking empowerment from their constrained existences, a collective name would be a great secret code to symbolize to those in the know that this work had actually been written by a woman. Shakespeare.

In case you’re still not convinced, let me explain. Perhaps today, a perceptive and well-educated man could write pretty decently from the perspective of a woman, as he is almost certainly surrounded by women who are willing to share their experiences and let him watch their feminine rituals. However, needless to say, this is a recent phenomenon entirely.

*Hamlet*, photographer: Isaiah Feinberg, courtesy of the Beit Lessin Theatre

Thus, how Lady Macbeth and her sisters describe their femininity so accurately in Macbeth, a play supposedly written by a man, is perhaps a tad suspicious. Beatrice, in Much Ado About Nothing, rages in a uniquely perceptive way at the limitations of being a woman; and Rosalind, in As You Like It, alters her demeanor to appear more masculine and thus progress further in life, an act that surely only aggrieved women usually identify with; Isabella, in Measure for Measure, understands, as women unfortunately often did, that her word was less trustworthy than a man’s and consequently fears that no one will hear her pleas; and Emilia, in Othello, argues passionately for women’s equality – I am sorry to say it, but these accounts which so acutely describe the inner-lives and struggles of women, do not seem to have been written by a man.

“Why was Shakespeare able to see the woman’s position, write entirely as if he were a woman, in a way that none of the other playwrights of the age were able to?” asks Tina Packer, Founding Director of Shakespeare & Company, in her book Women of Will. There is one obvious reason that a group of playwrights would need to use a pseudonym in Elizabethan England: being female. “One would think that Shakespeare had been metamorphosed from a man to a woman,” wrote Philosopher and Playwright Margaret Cavendish.

Cover of Isaac Edward Salkinsohn’s Hebrew translation of “Romeo & Juliet,” 1878, the National Library of Israel collections

It may seem slightly outlandish to posit the theory that ‘Shakespeare’ was the encoded pseudonym for an underground society of female playwrights, but this theory is actually becoming more and more widely accepted. In fact, it was discussed in detail at the International Shakespeare Convention last year, by some of the most renowned Shakespeare scholars in the world.

The writer John Ruskin fascinatingly pointed out that “Shakespeare has no heroes—he has only heroines.” And many of these heroines are seemingly quite feminist: At least ten Shakespearean women defied their fathers, eight disguised themselves as men, six led armies – this was far from the norm in male playwriting until probably the second half of the 1900s!

If more evidence is needed, an incredibly interesting little nugget is found in the works of Gabriel Harvey, a famous Elizabethan literary critic. In 1593, he mysteriously mentioned an “excellent Gentlewoman” who had composed three sonnets and a comedy play. “I dare not particularize her description,” he wrote. In 1593, Shakespeare wrote three sonnets and a comedy play.

*William Shakespeare Sq*. Chandos Portrait, Wikimedia Commons, Author: Buaidh

At least one of the women often supposed to belong to this group, Emilia Bassano, was Jewish – yet another reason, amidst the raging antisemitism of the 16th century, to hide her real identity. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry James, Sigmund Freud, Helen Keller, and Charlie Chaplin are amongst the many who propose lists of different women who may have belonged to the Shakespeare collective. Much of their theorizing is based on the fact that although Shakespeare’s life is well documented by any standards as an actor and theatre-owner, we have no proof that he ever actually put pen to paper: No letters mentioning him writing, no documents recording payments for commissions or plays, no journal entries proving that he ever wrote so much as a word. For example, despite his wife’s extensive journaling, she not once mentions that her husband was a playwright.

So, was Shakespeare a group of women from around the globe, writing under this pseudonym and thus displaying their literary brilliance far before society would allow them to do so? We may never know, but you can decide for yourself.

The National Library of Israel is one of only a select few institutions around the world who hold “The First Folio,” a collection of Shakespeare plays published in 1623. This unique piece, as well as other rare Shakespeare manuscripts, were anonymously donated to the NLI in the autumn of 2022. To mark the First Folio’s 400th anniversary, The National Library of Israel is organizing a series of lectures on William Shakespeare and his legacy, with leading Israeli cultural and academic figures. The series will be broadcast between May and July 2023.

Episode 1: Israeli Contemporary Theater and Shakespeare, with Yair Sherman and Dori Parnes. May 7, 2023.

Episode 2: Contemporary Translations of Shakespeare into Hebrew, with Dori Parnes and Ronen Sonis. May 28, 2023.

Episode 3: General overview on NLI’s Shakespeare collection and the Folio structure, with Dr. Stefan Litt and Dr. Micha Lazarus. Date to be announced.

Episode 4: The early modern English objections to Shakespeare, with Dr. Reut Barzilai. Date to be announced.

To see more and register for the free events, visit: https://www.nli.org.il/en/visit/events/theater-and-shakespeare

Living the Good Life in a Nazi Death Camp: The SS at Sobibor

These photos reveal the leisure activities of the SS members who lived on the grounds of the Sobibor extermination camp

Dr. Judit Konya | 16.04.23

Nazi Germany Photographs The Holocaust

In front of the “new casino,” in the SS living quarters of the Lager I compound at Sobibor. From left to right, camp commander Franz Reichleiner, Erich Bauer, responsible for operation of the gas chambers (embracing a Polish woman servant of the SS), Erich Shultze and deputy camp commander Johann Niemann, 1943

A review of the book:

From “Euthanasia” to Sobibor: An SS Officer’s Photo Collection / edited by Martin Cüppers, Anne Lepper, and Jürgen Matthäus, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press

On January 20, 1942, the Wannsee Conference convened under the direction of Reinhard Heydrich in order to discuss practical matters relating to the extermination of European Jewry. A few months later, three extermination camps became operational in occupied Poland—Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor, where nearly two million Jews were murdered—as part of “Operation Reinhard”. The sole purpose of these camps was mass murder. In order to hide the extermination process, the Nazis strictly forbade photography in the camps. Nevertheless, a few photographs taken at Belzec and Sobibor when the camps were active have survived.

The Lager II compound at Sobibor, with the sign “*Erbhof*” (Estate). A German officer stands in the middle, with a Jewish female prisoner at left drawing water from a well and another Jewish male prisoner at the right holding a rake, both are dressed in civilian clothing. Jews were led into this courtyard and commanded to undress, before they were herded into the gas chambers. Afterwards, Jewish prisoners combed the area with rakes looking for any valuable items that may have fallen. Photographed in Summer 1943.]

After the uprising in Sobibor in October 1943, the Germans completely destroyed the camp and planted trees in order to cover up any evidence of mass murder. Archaeological excavations that began in the 2000s have revealed the exact location of the camp’s various compounds as well as some personal belongings of the Jews who were murdered there. The excavations also revealed the foundations of the gas chambers. Their dimensions make it possible to understand the magnitude of the extermination perpetrated at the site.

The camp’s Ukrainian guards (*Trawniki*) photographed on the parade ground of the Lager III compound. The man lying down in middle of the front row has often been identified as Ivan Demjanjuk. The gas chamber building is visible in the background. Spring, 1943

The discovery of two private photo albums belonging to Johann Niemann, the camp’s deputy commander, affords a look at the camp’s buildings and the SS men who ran it. The two albums, which had been kept by Niemann’s grandson, include some 350 photos. About fifty of the photos were taken in Sobibor, most of them in the area housing the German officers (Vorlager). The photos show the SS men engaged in leisure activities just a few hundred meters from the pits where bodies were cremated. Among the photos, one can see the Ukrainian guards (including a man who is likely Ivan Demjanjuk), Niemann on his horse, standing by a well, and holding a piglet recently born on the camp’s farm.

One photograph is of an SS officer playing an accordion, another shows a group of jolly SS soldiers in the company of two Polish women during an afternoon lunch break.

Meals would be followed by drinks, coffee, cigarettes and a game of chess. Interestingly, the SS men do not carry weapons, evidence of their sense of personal security in the camp.

In the album, Neimann documented various places and camps he served in as an SS officer. He began as an officer in the “Aktion T4” euthanasia project (in which tens of thousands of disabled and mentally ill German citizens were exterminated on German soil), continued as an officer in Belzec and at the end of his service was appointed deputy commander of the Sobibor extermination camp. A handsome man who paid much attention to his appearance, he loved taking photographs and having his photograph taken.

According to the book, it was this tendency towards vanity that led to his demise, with the start of the uprising at Sobibor on October 14, 1943. That same day, Niemann arrived at the shack used by the camp tailor on horseback. He had come to have measurements taken for a leather jacket that had caught his eye from among the looted items stolen from Jews. The tailor, who was himself a Jewish prisoner, asked Neimann to turn around with his back towards him so that he could take one last measurement for the length of the coat. This enabled another prisoner to enter, hit him with an axe and kill him. He was the first of eleven SS men killed that day in the revolt, which put an end to the camp’s extermination activities.

Both photo albums were donated to an educational center in Germany (Bildungswerk Stanisław Hantz), which published them as a book, in collaboration with the University of Stuttgart, along with scholarly essays. The albums are now in the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.