"Oldest Hebrew book" on display at JTA NYC

EXHIBITION: The world’s oldest Jewish book is on display in New York City. Dating to the year 700 CE, the Afghan Liturgical Quire is on view at the Jewish Theological Seminary Library’s exhibit, “Sacred Words: Revealing the Earliest Hebrew Book.” (Lisa Keys, JTA).

A medieval manuscript, believed to be the oldest Jewish book in the world, is now on view in New York City.

The Afghan Liturgical Quire, which dates to approximately the year 700 CE, is on display at the Jewish Theological Seminary Library in Morningside Heights as part of an exhibit, “Sacred Words: Revealing the Earliest Hebrew Book” that opens Wednesday and runs until July 17.

Also known as the Afghan Siddur, the diminutive prayer book measures five inches by five inches and “is comprised of prayers, poems, and pages of the oldest discovered Passover Haggadah, which was mysteriously written upside down,” according to a JTS press release.

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The Jewish News Syndicate has additional details: An extraordinary rarity’: Exhibit of oldest Hebrew book opens at JTS library. “There is something magical about being in the presence of a historically significant object, the oldest Hebrew book ever discovered,” David Kraemer, director of the JTS Library told JNS. (Vita Felling).

The exhibition was previously at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C.

Recent PaleoJudaica posts on the Afgan Liturgical Codex are here, here, and here (and follow the links for more). The last of those posts gives my best understanding of the book.

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