Join us for a Scholar-in-Residence Shabbat with David Selis on June 21st!
 

Post Kiddush Shiur, 11:45 AM
"The Making of a Classic: the Curious History of the Mikraot Gedolot"

This talk explores the development of the Mikraot Gedolot, the origins of its layout, and the role of Christian Hebraist printer Daniel Bomberg in shaping the text and layout of the Jewish textual canon. We will examine an original copy of the influential 1526 Second Rabbinic Bible and pages from other early Hebrew bibles.
 

Pre-Mincha Shiur, 7:00 PM
"Tales from a “Battlefield of Books:” the Genizah and the Reshaping of Jewish History" 

This talk will briefly trace the discovery story of the Cairo Genizah, the most important trove of Jewish manuscripts ever discovered. We will consider key discoveries including autographs of Rambam, Yehuda Halevi, a lost liturgical epic and a forgotten apocryphal book to understand how the past 125+ years of genizah research have shed new light on the Jewish past.

David Selis is the Leon Charney Doctoral Fellow at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies of Yeshiva University. He was the Assistant Curator of the international exhibition, The Samaritans: a Biblical People. David is writing his dissertation, “Courtiers of Culture for a Gilded Age: Jewish Libraries and the Creation of American Culture, 1872-1954,” under the direction of Jonathan Sarna and Steven Fine.