DSS exhibit in Paris

A DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION IN PARIS:

Dead Sea Scrolls Pose Enigmas in Rare Paris Exhibit of Fragments: Review

By Jorg von Uthmann - May 31, 2010 (Bloomberg)

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 was, along with the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, the greatest archaeological sensation of the 20th century. An exhibition at Paris’s National Library puts the scrolls in their historical and theological context and questions the mainstream hypothesis about their origin.

It’s the first show of this kind in France. That’s all the more amazing as French scholars were deeply involved in the deciphering of the scrolls and the tens of thousands of fragments on papyrus or parchment.

Most of the work was done at the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique in Jerusalem under the direction of the Dominican archaeologist Father Roland de Vaux.

To fund excavations at Khirbet Qumran on the western shore of the Dead Sea, De Vaux sold, in 1953, 377 fragments to the French government. Presented in airtight cases, they occupy the center of the theatrically staged show.

[...]

There are no specifics on the contents of these fragments.

And this is interesting:

Following Father de Vaux, most experts believe that the scrolls were composed by the Essenes, an austere Jewish sect praised by historian Flavius Josephus and located by Pliny the Elder in the desert near the Dead Sea.

The organizers of the show don’t buy that interpretation. Josephus and Pliny, they argue, are unreliable and contradictory sources; the Essenes appear neither in the New Testament nor in the vast rabbinical literature nor are they mentioned in the scrolls themselves.

The curators seem to agree with the Israeli historian Eyal Regev, who denies the existence of a Qumran community: It is, he says in his book “Sectarianism in Qumran” (2007), “an invention of scholars.”

UPDATE (2 June) More here (next post).

Milwaukee DSS exhibit closing

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION in Milwaukee closes on Sunday:

Public Museum's Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit closes Sunday

Gary Porter (Journal-Sentinel)

Posted: May 30, 2010 |(0) Comments

The Milwaukee Public Museum's special exhibition, "Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible: Ancient Artifacts, Timeless Treasures," closes Sunday.

Nearly 150,000 visitors have taken in the exhibit of authentic Dead Sea scroll fragments, illustrated manuscripts, rare Bibles and Holy Land artifacts dating from more than 2,000 years ago. "Dead Sea Scrolls" is the largest temporary exhibit ever produced by the museum staff.

[...]

Another brief note from WUWM Public Radio puts this in context:

The Scrolls exhibit is the largest temporary show ever done by the museum. It's sold 152,000 tickets since January and it's on track to be the fourth most popular show at the museum.

Dead Sea Scrolls exhibits always seem to be very successful.

Background here and follow the links.

Glenn Beck does the Dead Sea Scrolls

GLENN BECK DOES THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS: Lots of bloggers are getting very excited over Mr. Beck's recent foray into Qumranology. For those who haven't heard it yet, here is the audio file (via MediaMatters):



You can read the transcript over at Robert Cargill's blog. (The Fox News transcript seems to have left most of Mr. Beck's comments out - either that or this is a second mention of the Dead Sea Scrolls, making what I take to be the same point.) As Robert suggests, it looks as though Mr. Beck has confused the Nag Hammadi library with the Dead Sea Scrolls. He also, incidentally, has confused the Nicene Creed with the Apostles' Creed.

Many bloggers seem to have a visceral reaction to Glenn Beck himself, one that I suppose I might share if I had ever listened to him before this. I'd seen him invoked or excoriated by political bloggers from time to time but I actually wasn't quite sure who he was until I saw this story. Whoever he is, he provides another example of the fact that when journalists, pundits, or politicians try to talk about something I know about, they frequently get it seriously garbled. But you've noticed that too about whatever it is you know about, right? The obvious inference is that when journalists, pundits, or politicians talk about anything, there's a good chance it is seriously garbled in their minds. A cheery thought for a Monday morning.

UPDATE (7 June): More here.

Herculaneum scrolls still unreadable

THE CARBONIZED HERCULANEUM SCROLLS have turned out to be more of a challenge than was hoped:

UK scientists stymied in effort to read ancient scrolls

By Jim Warren - jwarren@herald-leader.com (kentucky.com)

Some 2,000-year-old Roman scrolls are stubbornly hanging onto their ancient secrets, defying the best efforts of computer scientists at the University of Kentucky to unlock them.

The researchers have learned much about the scrolls, which were reduced to lumps of carbon in the heat of an eruption by Italy's Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. But they can't read what's written on them.

"What we've found is that the problem is even more challenging than we thought going in," said Brent Seales, Gill professor of engineering in UK's computer science department and leader of the team working on the scrolls.

The UK team spent a month last summer making numerous X-ray scans of two of the scrolls that are stored at the French National Academy in Paris. They hoped that computer processing would convert the scans into digital images showing the interiors of the scrolls and revealing the ancient writing. The main fear, however, was that the Roman writers might have used carbon-based inks, which would be essentially invisible to the scans.

That fear has turned out to be fact.

[...]

But they are not giving up!

Seales says he now hopes that re-scanning the scrolls with more powerful X-ray equipment will reveal the text, which scholars are anxious to read.

Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

Background here.

Day of Slavonic Alphabet

THE SLAVONIC ALPHABET was celebrated last Monday in Russia and Bulgaria. The Cyrillic alphabet and the translation work from Greek initiated by Sts. Cyril and Methodius was crucial for the preservation of some important Old Testament pseudepigrapha.

Gamla synagogue spared

GAMLA FIRE UPDATE:

Synagogue escapes massive fire at Golan nature reserve

The fire, reportedly started by a spark from a tank, consumed some 20,000 dunams of the nature reserve; the antiquities in the park were saved from destruction and only lightly damaged.

By Fadi Eyadat Tags: Israel news Golan Heights (Haaretz)

Large crowds visited the Gamla nature reserve in the Golan Heights on Saturday to see the massive damage caused by a fire that followed an Israel Defense Forces training exercise there last week. The fire, reportedly started by a spark from a tank, consumed some 20,000 dunams (about 5,000 acres ) of the nature reserve. The Israel Nature and Parks Authority called on the public to come to Gamla as an act of "identification" with the site.

Although the charred remains of dozens of animals have been found where the fire raged last week, the antiquities in the park were saved from destruction and only lightly damaged.

[...]

Archaeological remains on the site, including an ancient synagogue and mikveh (ritual Jewish purification bath ) covered with fragile plaster, were spared. The ancient artifacts are in a relatively unaffected location surrounded by blackened terrain. Zeev Margalit, an architect who is the director of the preservation and development division at the Parks Authority, said the antiquities may have been saved because of maintenance and the clearing of undergrowth. He also said the many paths for visitors at the archaeological site might have served as a firewall of sorts to halt the flames' spread.

[...]

I'm relieved to hear it, but I hope this doesn't happen again. Also, I would like to know exactly what "only lightly damaged" means.

Background here.

Review of Pullman, The Good Man Jesus ...

THE GOOD MAN JESUS and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman is reviewed by Edward Keenan in Eyeweekly.com and gets five stars. Excerpt:

Jesus, may be the good man, but he’s also the troublemaker, a revolutionary with a conflicted conscience motivated by purity and love but prone to tempestuous emotional outbursts. Christ, meanwhile, is well-behaved; a quiet, often invisible scribe who is inspired by his brother but cannot stomach disorder. The scoundrel writes the good man’s story for posterity, shaping it to the needs not of a rebellion but of an institution that will last millennia.

Through the two, we see how revolutions of freedom lead to well-intentioned tyranny, how the aims of goodness are at odds with both popularity and longevity — above all, Pullman shows how stories are made, how narrative is (and, perhaps, must be) imposed to declare meaning, how the competing demands of “the facts” and “the truth” corrupt.

Earlier coverage is here.

Guy Stroumsa takes up Chair of Abrahamic Faiths at Oxford

CONGRATULATIONS TO GUY STROUMSA, who has taken up a new Chair in Abrahamic Faiths at Oxford University:

The Israeli who's taken Abraham to Oxford
We talk to Oxford University’s first Professor of Abrahamic Faiths

By Simon Rocker, May 27, 2010 (The Jewish Chronicle)

Oxford may have lost to Cambridge in this year's boat race, but in one pursuit Oxford has pipped its old rival to the post. Oxford's first Professor of Abrahamic Studies has been teaching there almost a year, while Cambridge is still in the process of recruiting one.

The holder of Oxford's new chair is a Parisian-born Jewish Israeli with a special interest in early Christian mysticism. Guy Stroumsa had been Martin Buber Professor of Comparative Religion at the Jerusalem's Hebrew University until his arrival here last autumn.

A decade ago the concept of "Abraham faiths", the comparative study of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, would have seemed fairly novel even in academic circles. "I don't think it starts before the late 20th century," said Professor Stroumsa, who cannot think of a similar chair at another institution.

[...]

This is an exciting area that is crying out for more research.

Site of Gamla scorched in a wildfire.

THE SITE OF GAMLA has been scorched by a wildfire that was started accidentally in an army exercise.

Ezekiel and Enoch in modern sculpture

THE VISIONS OF EZEKIEL AND ENOCH have met sculpture bizarre enough to be worthy of them:

Howard Lerner's Universe

Richard McBee (The Jewish Press)
Posted May 26 2010

Sculpture and the Bible

howardlernerart.com

Walking into Howard Lerner's studio is like falling headfirst into a Tanach made of sculpture. Right near the door is a 10-foot high Tower of Babel. Partially hidden behind this behemoth is a thoroughly idiosyncratic Vision of Ezekiel. Further along into the somewhat cluttered, but not chaotic, studio is a vista of massive sculptures; The Ark of the Covenant looms ahead while Elijah's Ascension is on the left, just past a 10 foot depiction of Enoch. To be totally honest, it's all a bit frightening. Every piece is a diverse assemblage of found objects hammering home a specific passage with a literal determination. It is as if one is inhabiting a Biblical Hall of Mirrors, each holy book or personage examined scrupulously, exaggerated and then lovingly depicted.

[...]

Ezekiel's Vision (2006) is a bit sparer, with more emphasis on text. The first chapter of Ezekiel is a natural inspiration for Lerner as he plunges into a multitude of visual metaphors and signs for prominent textual passages. The sculpture is a wobbly jumble atop a skinny-legged base, effectively building to the very top with a pair of hands in Priestly Blessing that support the Tetragrammaton. The blessing initially reflects the fact that Ezekiel is herein named a Cohen. But there is more.

According to the artist the entire vision is meant to elevate the viewer towards seeing the Throne of God and thereby literally ascending to Hashem, The Name, at the very top of the sculpture. Moving downward we encounter a blue cut-glass light fixture that sits atop an inverted lampshade, its panels used as a makeshift parchment scroll for the first dozen verses of the prophet's famous Vision of the Chariot. Further down into the body of the sculpture an old fashioned bellows is aptly labeled "ruach," and is balanced by a box of auto lamps attached to a disk labeled "Hashmal - Electrum." Just above them gerbil cages abound inset with myriad depictions of eyes reflecting the divine creatures Ezekiel saw. Lerner's choice of utilizing extremely mundane objects, preferably old objects, is part of his strategy of asserting the spiritual potential in everything through an ancient vision.

[...]

Enoch - Heaven is clearly a sculpture of a figure standing. His head is one of the most charming depictions in the studio, golden crystal eyes glowing above his bottle cap beard, the very image of an ancient Middle Easterner. His face is framed by two profiles of perhaps his own visage, hinting at his self-consciousness at being favored by the Divine. "And Enoch walked with God, and he was not: for God took him." As Enoch begins his ascent to heaven his skinny legs sprout flames, he holds a golden orb (actually a toilet tank float) that sprouts a miraculous bush. A winged angel, Uriel, floats above and channels Divine secrets to Enoch in the form of two scrolls over the sage's head.

[...]

Follow the link for photos. Lerner is clearly aware of the extra-biblical mystical traditions about Enoch, not just the biblical passage.

I especially like the Hashmal as a box of auto lamps.

Non-destructive analysis of Judean coins

TECHNOLOGY WATCH:

NDE Methods for Evaluating Ancient Coins Could be Worth Their Weight in Gold

Demonstrating that chemistry sometimes can inform history, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Colorado College and Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Md., have shown that sensitive nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques can be used to determine the elemental composition of ancient coins, even coins that generally have been considered too corroded for such methods*. Along the way, the researchers’ analysis of coins minted in ancient Judea has raised new questions about who ruled the area while giving insight into trading patterns and industry in the region.

[...]

The lead isotope analysis, performed at NIST, showed that the coins that had been attributed to Agrippa I were indeed from that era. More interestingly, however, the group found that the copper from which the coins were made most likely came from mines that scholars thought hadn’t been opened until a century later.

“All the archaeological evidence has thus far suggested that the Romans had moved into Arabia in the 2nd century CE,” says Nathan Bower of Colorado College. “What this analysis shows is that the Romans may have reached the region earlier or found that these mines had already been opened. Either way, our findings suggest that the Romans had a much closer relationship with this particular region than scholars had previously thought.”

[...]

As I've said before, any number of times (e.g., here and here, cf. here), non-invasive and non-destructive analysis is the long-term future for archaeology.

Hebrew Bible job at University of Wisconsin, Madison

A HEBREW BIBLE JOB at the University of Madison, Wisconsin:

CLASSICAL HEBREW LANGUAGE AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE. The Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison invites applications for a tenure-track position at the assistant professor level, starting August, 2011. Ph.D. required. Area of specialization: classical Hebrew in its Northwest Semitic context. Teaching duties include advanced and graduate level courses in Hebrew and Semitic languages, epigraphy, and texts (including biblical literature), undergrad courses in Hebrew Bible (in translation), and supervision of the undergrad Biblical Hebrew program. Evidence of teaching excellence and scholarly production are crucial. Unless confidentiality is requested in writing, information regarding the applicants must be released upon request. Finalists cannot be guaranteed confidentiality. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. UW-Madison is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. A background check may be required prior to employment. Send two hard copies of a cover letter, a CV, three letters of recommendation, official undergraduate and graduate school transcripts to: Search Committee Chair/1346 Van Hise Hall/ 1220 Linden Dr./ Madison, WI 53706. Candidates may also submit a writing sample of up to 30 pages. Deadline for applications is August 15, 2010. For inquiries, please contact brenner@wisc.edu.

From the H-Judaic list.

A rotation of scrolls in Minnesota

A ROTATION OF SCROLLS at the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition in Minnesota:

New set of Dead Sea Scrolls comes to Science Museum

By Joe Kimball | Published Tue, May 25 2010 3:15 pm (MinnPost.com)

A new set of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls will be displayed Wednesday at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

The exhibit -- which opened in March and runs through Oct. 24 -- will have three different sets of five scrolls rotated in during the run, because of their "fragile nature and sensitivity to light and humidity." The five scrolls that opened the exhibit will be carefully shipped back to Israel.

Two of the five scrolls coming online tomorrow have never before been taken out of Israel.

[...]

Irritatingly, the article does not say which five scrolls are coming in.

Gabriel Barkai on Israeli television

GABRIEL BARKAI will be filmed on Israeli television today:

TNL Finale to Feature Renowned Jerusalem Archaeologist

by Derek Cling (Arutz Sheva)

Ari Abramovitz and Jeremy Gimpel's Tuesday Night Live in Jerusalem, the popular live Israeli English language television show, will be filming its season finale on May 25, 2010 /13 Sivan, 5770.

World-renowned archaeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkai will be the featured speaker. Dr. Barkai established the Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation, dedicated to recovering archaeological artifacts from the Temple Mount. Among his discoveries are several ancient silver plaques containing the priestly benediction (birkat kohanim).

[...]

For the Temple Mount sifting project go here and for the Ketef Hinnom silver amulets go here and for both follow the links.

A manuscript exhibition at the Jewish Museum London

A MANUSCRIPT EXHIBITION at the Jewish Museum London:

Rare manuscripts at Jewish Museum chart centuries of interfaith dialogue

Posted: Monday, May 24, 2010 10:12 pm (Independent Catholic News)

The Jewish Museum London is launching its first major temporary exhibition since its reopening in March with an exhibition of Hebrew treasures from the Vatican and major British collections.

The exhibition will bring together a collection of 27 rare manuscripts, many exquisitely illuminated, including three from the Vatican Library, eight from the British Library, three from Lambeth Palace Library and eleven from the Bodleian Library which reveal a story of cultural exchange, practical cooperation and religious tolerance between Jews and non-Jews in the Muslim and Christian worlds during the Middle Ages and beyond.

[...]

The manuscripts and printed books in this exhibition date from the 9th to the 17th century and many are beautifully illuminated and decorated. The Jews who commissioned manuscripts frequently turned to highly skilled Christian artists for the illustration of the text, and the decorative styles of the works exhibited reflect local cultures and design, whether in the Moorish style of medieval Spain, the Italianate style, or the Gothic style of Northern Europe. The works attest to a shared culture and display coexistence and social interaction between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbours, as well as enhancing our understanding of the intellectual exchange and transmission of knowledge between Jews, Muslims and Christians.

[...]

From the early end of that spectrum:

- A 9th century midrash (commentary) on the book of Leviticus, thought to be the earliest Hebrew document in codex (book) form (also from the Vatican Library)

Iraqi Jewish archive being returned to Iraq

THE IRAQI JEWISH ARCHIVE is being returned to Iraq. Dorothy Lobel King is not happy. No word on a timetable.

For my part, as always, I regard these artifacts first and foremost as part of the heritage of humanity and my main concern is that they be preserved under the best possible conditions. I have no objections to their being returned to Iraq, although given that nearly all Jews have left Iraq, often under the most horrible duress, the case for return there does not strike me as compelling. I would be just as happy with Dorothy's suggestion that they go to Israel. But the chief point is that these documents should go or remain where they can best be cared for so that future generations have them too. Does Iraq have the very specialized facilities necessary to deal with texts that have been severely water (and mold) damaged and then frozen and freeze-dried? If they do, how high a priority would the conservation be? Iraq's recent record on caring for Jewish antiquities has been encouraging, if somewhat ambiguous, and the message does seem to be getting across that the world is watching and holding them to the highest standards. We can only hope for the best.

For background on the Iraqi Jewish archive go here (where I see I've already made the same point more briefly) and follow the links all the way back to 2003.

Hermann Gunkel's birthday

HERMANN GUNKEL'S BIRTHDAY was yesterday (d.o.b. 23 May 1862) and Tyler Williams is celebrating with A Form-Critical Classification of the Psalms according to Hermann Gunkel.

Philologos on Pentecost

PHILOLOGOS discusses Pentecost (the Christian festival introduced in Acts chapter 2) in The Forward and discovers an ancient midrash that illuminates the story:

Shavuot is associated in Jewish tradition with the giving of the Torah, and, as I once observed long ago in this column, the New Testament’s story of the “holy spirit” — the ru’aḥ ha-kodesh, as it is called in Hebrew — coming to rest on Jesus’ followers on Pentecost, is an account of a second revelation, paralleling the first at Mount Sinai. Yet even while pointing this out, I failed to notice that the parallel is far closer than just that.

The midrash, parts of which were already in oral circulation in the time of Jesus, has many interpretive stories about what happened at Mount Sinai and about the “thunderings and lightnings,” the kolot u’vrakim, that the Bible tells us were heard and seen by the Israelites assembled at the foot of the mountain. One of these stories has to do with the fact that the biblical word for “thunderings,” kolot, also means “voices” in Hebrew. The midrash states:

And all the people perceived the thunderings.” Since there was only one voice, why ‘thunderings’ in the plural? Because God’s voice mutated into seven voices, and the seven voices into seventy languages, so that all the nations might hear it.

Similarly, we read elsewhere:

Just as a hammer that strikes a rock causes sparks to fly off in all directions, so each and every word that issued from the mouth of the Holy One Blessed Be He divided itself into seventy languages.

This is a profound commentary, one that, taken metaphorically, has sometimes been read as a statement that the Torah speaks to every individual differently and that each of us has the right to interpret it by his or her own standards. Generally, however, it has been taken more literally by rabbinic tradition to mean that although the Torah was revealed in Hebrew, it was translated aloud at Mount Sinai into all the languages of the world, believed to be 70 in number, and thus made available to the entire human race.

The parallels with the story in Acts 2 are obvious. Philologos suggests that the story in Acts is based on an incident of glossolalia ("speaking in tongues"), which is possible. But it's also possible that the story is entirely made up on the basis of that midrash (combined with the well-documented early Christian penchant for glossolalia - see, e.g., 1 Corinthians 14). I suppose that would make it would be a midrash on a midrash (a meta-midrash?).

Pentecost Sunday is today. More on Pentecost and the recently concluded Jewish festival of Shavuot here. It would have been helpful if Philologos had given the exact references for the rabbinic midrashim. Does anyone know what they are?

(For some reason the current issue of The Forward is not yet showing up on Google, so thanks to Joseph I. Lauer for noting it.)

UPDATE (24 May): Reader Jim Darlack e-mails to say that the first reference is Exodus Rabbah V.9 (commenting on Exodus 4:27) and the second is t. Shabb 88b.

Review of new book on the Aleppo Codex

A NEW BOOK ON THE ALEPPO CODEX is reviewed in The Forward:

Wonder of Wonders
An Ancient Book’s Tale
By Tamar Yellin
Published May 19, 2010, issue of May 28, 2010.

There is something profoundly alluring about the manuscripts of great literary works. Whether the handwritten fair copy of “Ode to a Nightingale” or a stray page of Shakespeare, Kafka’s diary or the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, we are drawn to manuscripts as talismanic objects, revealers of secrets, at once precious and terribly fragile. They bear both a human and a miraculous imprint. In a secular age, such items can bring one closer to an understanding of the term “holy.”

How much more so when the work in question is a holy book. The idea of discovering the original manuscript of the Bible — even supposing such a thing ever existed — is an impossible fantasy, but the aura surrounding the Aleppo Codex has something of the same power. Completed around 930 C.E., the codex was, until the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest-known handwritten copy of the Hebrew Scriptures in existence. In their succinct exposition of the book’s history, “Crown of Aleppo,” Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider also make the case for its being the most authoritative.

[...]

There's also a nice photo of one of the leaves of the codex.

More on the Aleppo Codex here.

Review of Jewish magic exhibition

THE JEWISH MAGIC EXHIBITION at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem is reviewed in The Forward:

Jews Have Been Magic for Thousands of Years

A Brief Survey From The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem Whets the Appetite for More

By Dan Friedman
Published May 19, 2010, issue of May 28, 2010.

We all believe in magic. Despite 300 years of industrial and social revolution, as well as unparalleled explanation of the natural world through the scientific method, we still throw salt over our shoulders, put up hamsas in our homes, wear lucky shirts to job interviews and run through tested game-day rituals, whether we are playing or watching. The new exhibition at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, “Angels & Demons: Jewish Magic Through the Ages,” (open for a year from May 5) shows us how deep-rooted and complex those beliefs are.

The majority of the exhibition, which displays artifacts from North Africa, Byzantium and other locales more geographically appropriate for a museum based on the Bible lands, is of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” order of magic. Items and procedures that the rabbis might not condone, but would probably not go out of their way to condemn; spells to cure disease, charms to protect new mothers or newborn children and amulets to ward off evil or infestation were not religiously countenanced, but did little harm. In fact, the most recent amulet on display (placed next to the most ancient item, from the 8th century BCE at the exhibition’s entrance) is a text with specific instructions for use. This text, written in 1992, cured the owner who every day for a week drank water in which the parchment had been steeped and then wore it in a silver holder until the problem was resolved.

[...]

There's only one significant criticism:

In the end, the main drawback of “Angels & Demons” is its logistical limitations of space and scope. It’s a shame that such a suggestive exhibition couldn’t be spread out more. The surface of the prevalence, pattern and practice of Jewish magic and its context in the larger world of Mediterranean mythology is barely scratched by this worthy introduction. Samangalof and friends come from an entirely alternative mythical system that would surely enrich our understanding of midrashic traditions. The museum is running a series of events that allows collectors, users and current practitioners of the magical arts to shed light on this marginal but very Jewish narrative. Perhaps, with intervention from either side of the black curtain, such a show might become possible in the future!

The article also has lots of good photographs of exhibit items.

Previous reviews here. It is striking how many of the texts come from the last century or two. Magic practices have never died out and continue today in very many religious traditions.