The musical performance captured in this video is something unique. In June 2024, Israeli musician Yagel Haroush and his Shir Yedidut Ensemble held a concert at the National Library of Israel's David Geffen Auditorium. On this occasion, they joined up with their friend and fellow musician Aviv Bahar to offer new interpretations of ancient "piyutim" (Jewish liturgical hymns). As Yagel explained that night, when we are at a loss for words, sometimes it is best to return to the words of our ancestors, written in dark periods of the distant past, to find comfort and hope in them, and to use them to paint a better world.
Micha Ullman discusses two of his sculptures with Yigal Zalmona: "The Empty Library" in Berlin, and his new work, "Letters of Light", which can be found on the grounds of the new National Library of Israel.
In 2022, the National Library of Israel received a magnificent bequest of rare books from the early modern period. Three of them are original editions of Shakespeare’s works, from the seventeenth century. Two more were printed in the eighteenth century, and relate to Samuel Johnson’s seminal Dictionary of the English Language, which was finally published in 1755. In this presentation Dr Micha Lazarus (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Dr Stefan Litt (National Library of Israel) talk about the story these five books tell. It is a story about how Shakespeare, and what Shakespeare meant, were transformed in the century and a half following his death through the medium of print. When he died in 1616 Shakespeare was a wealthy and respected playwright. By the publication of Johnson’s dictionary in 1755, he was England’s native genius, the foundation not only of its literature but of the English language itself. These books at the National Library of Israel tell the story of how Shakespeare became Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice is a "problem play" because of its internal contradictions, its historical and contemporary associations with anti- and philo-Semitism, and the changing depiction of Shylock in theater and film productions.
Two translators discuss different ways and approaches to render Shakespeare into Hebrew in the past and the present. Ronen Sonis, a prominent poetry translator, interviews Dori Parnes, who has translated 31 Shakespeare plays so far.
Sharing stories from personal diaries written at the time of the founding of the State of Israel and a discussion about the Library’s current work documenting and preserving accounts of October 7th and its aftermath.
Dr. Shimon Lev examines the development of photography in Jerusalem, from its orientalist beginnings in 1839 all the way to the 1970s, when photography was finally accepted as a true art form, with its own unique language.
Over two million Jews emigrated from Eastern Europe during this period. As Aleksandra Jakubczak explains, an exceptionally high proportion of them were women.
An event marking the first yahrtzeit of HaRav Professor David Weiss Halivni z”l. Dr. Zvi Leshem and Baruch Weiss, Prof. Halivni’s son, will share first-hand accounts and personal insights into his tremendous legacy as a mentor and one of the greatest Torah scholars of our time.
