Librarian Cherie Davis noted that the Dec. 11 deadline to bid on each of eight original paintings provided for an online auction benefiting the Ronceverte Public Library is fast approaching.

Focusing on Ronceverte area scenes, the paintings are the work of Ellen Fischer, a highly respected artist working in the southern and midwestern regions of the United States. Fischer donated the artwork, which feature minimum bids ranging from $150 to $300, depending on size. All proceeds from the auction will go to the library.

Fischers ancestry is from the Ronceverte area, and she comes frequently for reunions on Rockland Road and in the Teaberry Road area, Davis said in a press release.

The eight paintings are on display at the library in Ronceverte on U.S. 219 at W.Va. 63 West. They can also be viewed on the librarys Facebook page.

To bid, simply telephone or visit the library, telling the library attendant the amount of the bid and contact information, Davis said. Then, the bidder can check daily until 5 p.m. Dec. 11 to see what the high bids are and, if they need, make another bid. The winning bidder for each will be notified that evening.

Serving the Fort Spring and Irish Corner districts of Greenbrier County, along with adjoining portions of Monroe and Greenbrier counties, the Ronceverte Library is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.

Auction bids may be made by calling 304-647-7400.

Email: talvey@register-herald.com

Excerpt from:
Online art auction to benefit Ronceverte Library | State & Region - Beckley Register-Herald

War on terror or Islamophobia? Business Standard Across cities, these institutes are either struggling to cope or looking to slowly reinvent themselves

Topics Library|Coronavirus|Lockdown

The National Library in Kolkata started allowing readers in from November 23 after a gap of almost eight months, albeit in small numbers. No more than 40 are being allowed in the main reading room against a capacity of 400, that too after they book their place online the previous day.

In the last few days, pressure from senior citizens has prompted the library to finally let them in. In the financial capital, the Asiatic Society of Mumbai's 216-year-old library is still closed to members or casual readers. A stocktaking exercise started here in March, with sorters and technicians ...

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Digital Editor

First Published: Thu, December 03 2020. 01:30 IST

Original post:
Hit by pandemic, libraries across cities are turning to a digital chapter - Business Standard

Community

Dec 2, 2020

WELLSBURG The Brooke County Public Library will show the PG rated film Rise of the Guardians at 5 p.m. Dec. 10.

Seating will be limited. Call (304) 737-1551 or visit wellsburg.lib.wv.us/newsletter2.htm to reserve a seat for the free screening.

Virtual evening Christmas

story hour set for Dec. 9

WELLSBURG Brooke County Public Libraries will hold a virtual evening Christmas story time on Zoom at 5 p.m. Dec. 9.

It will include a recorded reading of Piper the Elfs Big Surprise by author Colleen Driscoll. A bag with materials for an accompanying craft can be picked up at either library. For login information and to order the craft bag, call (304) 737-1551 or (304) 527-0860 or visit wellsburg.lib.wv.us.newsletter2.htm.

Ag department releases

West Virginia Grown directory

CHARLESTON The West Virginia Department of Agriculture has released the 2020 West Virginia Grown Member Directory, a list of West Virginia agribusinesses and supporting organizations that are a part of the program.

Developed in 1986, West Virginia Grown was designed to market West Virginia grown and made products to consumers.

A total of 191 state-based businesses place the West Virginia Grown logo on products they have grown or processed in the state.

For the complete guide, visit: https://agriculture.wv.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/WV-GROWN-DIRECTORYELECTRONIC.pdf. For information or to join the program, email WVGrown@wvda.us or call (304) 558-2210.

Gun drawing fundraiser

to benefit Boy Scouts Council

WINTERSVILLE A gun drawing benefiting the Ohio River Valley Council Boy Scouts of America is being sponsored by Professional Tire and Alignment, located at 91 Maplewood Ave, Wintersville.

The business will hold a live drawing Dec. 18. Tickets are a $20 donation and can be purchased at Precision Tire. Call (740) 264-7944 or the BSA Council Office at (304) 277-2660 and tickets will be mailed or e-mailed to the purchaser. There are five guns being offered. Each ticket has the possibility to win all guns.

Letters to Santa offered

WELLSBURG The Friends of Brooke County Libraries have arranged to send letters from Santa Claus to children.

The cost is $2.50, and the letters, which are addressed to each child and will be available until Dec. 14 by visiting either location or https://lettersfromsantabcpl.weebly.com.

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Harrisville UMC is producing two online Christmas specials HARRISVILLE Harrisville United Methodist Church ...

Mingo Womans club meets, hears variety of reports MINGO JUNCTION The GFWC Womans Club of Mingo held ...

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Brooke Library to show 'Rise of the Guardians' - The Steubenville Herald-Star

The Ferndale Public Library has taken its youth programming to a new level.

While the library has been offering story time events online since the pandemic struck, they were often pre-recorded. They recently began utilizing the Zoom app to make their COVID-19 era story time events more interactive and enjoyable for everyone involved.

And more valuable.

So much of what determines the kind of student a child is going to be are the pre-reading and reading skills that they learn,says Jordan Wright, head of Youth Services for the library.

Scheduled on Zoom for each Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. is Toddler Storytime, which is intended for children ranging in ages from 1 to 4 years old. Parent participation is required.

Also hosted on Zoom is Quarantine Corner, an interactive event for new parents. That event is held weekly each Tuesday at 2 p.m.

Well demonstrate best practices for reading to kids but we also wanted to give new parents some face time with each other. They can vent to each other about being new parents, Wright says.

One special event coming up is the Draw Your Own Monster workshop, scheduled on Zoom for Thursday, Dec. 10, at 6:30 p.m.

Friends and Michigan natives Kevin Singer, Joel Gullickson, and Brent Mosser recently launched the Monsters Rule! series of childrens books. Writers Singer and Gullickson will read their first book, The Legend of Long Leg Larry, followed by a question-and-answer session. Illustrator Mosser will then lead a Draw Your Own Monster session with the children.

This gets kids interested and active in reading but also gives us an opportunity to demonstrate to parents the best way to read to their children, Wright says.

Registration is required for the Ferndale Librarys Zoom events and can be accessed via their Facebook page.

Got a development news story to share? Email MJ Galbraith here or send him a tweet @mikegalbraith.

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Ferndale Library has new slate of online programs for kids and their parents - Concentrate

Whether you're spelling it out by hand or typing it out on your computer: Garland's library system offers online courses to help writers hone their chops.

Have you always dreamed of writing a book? Or maybe writing a few short stories? You could try your hand at writing by taking one of the online creative writing courses offered through Garlands library system.

The Nicholson Memorial Library System, which includes all four of Garlands public library branches, offers eight online creative writing courses focused on making participants better fiction writers.

In a social media post, the library said the courses are available 24/7 through Universal Class, an online learning platform.

Universal Class offers introductory creative writing courses, workshops, a historical fiction class and a mystery writing lesson, among other opportunities for writers, according to its website.

The library promoted the courses to mark National Novel Writing Month, but the coronavirus pandemic has also seen the library system bulk up its online offerings, including story time sessions for youngsters, adult learning classes and other e-activities.

Through the library system, users can also take language lessons, courses designed to prepare participants for citizenship tests and trade-related classes, among others.

With COVID-19 cases spiking again, Garlands libraries have recently reduced their hours and scaled back their capacity. But residents can apply for a temporary, 60-day library card online in the meantime.

For more information, see the Nicholson Memorial Library Systems online learning webpage.

See more here:
Do you have a book in you? Garland librarys online creative writing courses could help - The Dallas Morning News

The Lewis Library and Technology Center will be celebrating the holidays with several digital events during the upcoming weeks.

Visits with Santa on Zoom will be available on Tuesday, Dec. 8; Wednesday, Dec. 9; and Thursday, Dec. 10. Persons can call in advance to sign up at (909) 790-3146 (time is limited to five minutes per family).

Programming for "Little Artists" (ages 0-5) will be on Tuesdays at 5 p.m. on Facebook; "Craft Corner" (ages 6-11) will be on Thursdays at 5 p.m. on Facebook; and virtual Storytime live on Zoom will be Tuesdays at 4 p.m. (ages 6-11) and Wednesdays at 11 a.m. (ages 0-5). A library card is required in order to participate. Program kits are available to pick up weekly. For more information or to register, call the library at (909) 574-4500.

Storytime with Santa on Zoom will take place on Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. Starting Tuesday, Dec. 8, registration information can be picked up at the library.

"Sing-A-Long with Santa" will be held on Facebook Live on Thursday, Dec. 17 at 5:30 p.m.

The Lewis Library is located at 8437 Sierra Avenue.

In addition to those digital events (which are coordinated by San Bernardino County):

----- A DRIVE THRU HOLIDAY EXPERIENCE will take place on Saturday, Dec. 12 from 5 to 9 p.m. in front of the Lewis Library and Technology Center, 8437 Sierra Avenue.

This one-of-a-kind free event, coordinated by the City of Fontana, will feature roving entertainment, light displays, festive entries and more.

Participants must pre-register for one of the four one-hour time slots at FontanaCa.PerfectMind.com. One registration per vehicle; no walk throughs will be allowed.

Originally posted here:
Lewis Library in Fontana is offering several digital events - Fontana Herald-News

A virtual reality field trip. A lesson on how to create a podcast. A tutorial on how to create a paper circuit board that uses LED lights. For a new generation of educators, these pursuits have something in common: Theyre all appropriate learning exercises that can take place in the school library. Makerspaces, or library media centers that encourage collaboration and support student invention, are on the rise across the United States.

This has always been the case, but in a prevailing learning culture that promotes outside-the-box problem solving, these activities are growing more common in the 21st-century school library. At the intersection of analog and digital learning opportunities, the value of school libraries has increased at all levels of education. And at the helm of these spaces, school librarians must negotiate how best to support students with library resources, adapt to new technological advancements in education and pass on the fundamental tenets of digital and information literacy to students.

As the U.S. public education system has evolved throughout its history, school libraries have also developed with a consistent central goal: to give students the best opportunity to succeed academically.

The Evolution of the School Library

Before school libraries would begin to morph into multimedia digital information centers, they supported student literacy-building practices by providing access to their on-site book collections. From the first plans for a school library in the United States drafted in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, school district libraries would continue to sprout across the nation during the next two centuries. By the mid-1950s, schools would adopt localized, attached libraries in which librarians are considered qualified teachers, educating both students and instructors.

The face of public education has fundamentally changed since then, through the nationwide integration of schools, the rapid progress of education technology and the academic opportunities offered to students, to name a few. Because of these dramatic changes to the world of education, the expectations and responsibilities of school library faculty have understandably seen a dramatic shift as well.

Today, school librarians are not only responsible for administering and collating their collections. Instead, librarians promote creativity and discovery in student learning by offering multimedia resources. With school libraries beginning to function as digital media centers, these tools enable students to explore new modes of thought and include:

Modern Librarian Roles and Responsibilities

With these new responsibilities, librarians now occupy a multitude of additional roles, too. The Association of College and Research Libraries, which is an organization of college educators and librarians and a division of the American Library Association, lays out the seven rolesof librarians in school systems today. The goal with highlighting these different titles librarians must take on is to conceptualize and describe the broad nature and variety of the work that teaching librarians undertake as well as the related characteristics which enable librarians to thrive within those roles.

While these roles were drafted to appeal specifically to university and college librarians, they are universal enough to be relevant to school librarians working in primary and secondary school media centers, too.

At the University of West Alabama Online, youll pursue your personal and career goals in a culturally and intellectually diverse environment, all in a flexible environment designed to fit your lifestyle. Youll also benefit from a generous credit transfer policy, affordable degrees and personal support from application to graduation.

See the article here:
The Making of the Modern Librarian: The Value of School Libraries - eSchool News

CHATHAM In conjunction with the Chatham Synagogue, the Chatham Public Library will host the online presentation FDR and the Jewish Question: Did the President Do Enough? at 2 p.m. Dec. 6.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is deemed by many to be the greatest President of the 20th Century for his leadership during the Great Depression and WWII. With regard to the Holocaust, FDRs goal was to win the war as quickly as possible and to save as many people as was consistent with that priority. Most historians from the time of the Presidents death until the mid-1980s agreed that Roosevelt did all he could to help save Jews in a time of strong anti-Semitism here at home. Some contemporary historians, however, have found FDRs foreign policy leadership lacking when it comes to dealing with Hitlers genocide of six million Jews. Did Roosevelt achieve as much for humanity as he might have in dealing with the Jewish Question?

Roosevelt researchers and Hudson Valley historians Linda Bouchey and Al Vinck have spent time studying both sides of this question and will attempt to clarify this conundrum on Dec. 6. As Roosevelt educators at Hyde Park, FDRs presidential retreat, they will offer background information on this countrys isolationism and right-winged conservatism, which restricted President Roosevelts ability to deal with Americas own version of Nazism as well as Europes fascism. Bouchey and Vinck will discuss how the U.S. State Department restricted efforts to save those fleeing Nazi horrors. Eleanor Roosevelts views will be examined, as the First Lady had a decidedly different perspective from the Presidents. Lastly, parallels will be drawn to the modern-day question of immigration to this country, which is once again dividing Americans.

The program is open to the public and will be followed by a Q & A. Log in at 1:45 p.m. for pre-discussion. To sign up, contact the library, or sign up online at the librarys website http://chatham.lib.ny.us.

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Library hosts online presentation 'FDR and the Jewish Question' - Hudson Valley 360

Fort Bend County Libraries (FBCL) will present a series of introductory online demonstrations in December to introduce people to various aspects of computer use and technology.

These how-to tutorials can be viewed on the Fort Bend County Libraries website http://www.fortbend.lib.tx.us by clicking on the Classes and Events tab, selecting Virtual Programs, and finding the virtual class on the dates listed.

Some of the topics includes multiple sub-topics, and participants can choose to view the whole series or the individual parts of their choice.

The schedule for December is as follows:

MS Publisher 2016: Greeting Cards Thursday, December 3

Discover how to use this desktop-publishing software to create greeting cards. Learn how to insert different images and text to create personalized greeting cards for any occasion.

MS Word: Table of Contents Thursday, December 3

Learn how to format a table of contents in this word-processing software program.

MS PowerPoint: Creative Holiday Cards Saturday, December 5, 3:00-5:00 pm.

In this livestreamed videoconference, members of Unite and Inspire will demonstrate how to use MS PowerPoint to make holiday-themed cards and colorful invitations. These personalized cards can be shared with family and friends. Registration is required; a link to the videoconference will be sent to all who register.

Intro to MS Word -- Monday, December 7

Learn the basics of using this word-processing software program to create letters, resums, forms, and other types of documents. Different segments in this multi-part series will demonstrate various features, such as text effects, changing font style and size, adding images, footnotes and endnotes, page numbers, tables, mail merge, and more.

MS PowerPoint: Transitions & Animations Thursday, December 10

Learn how to include transitions and animations in a PowerPoint presentation.

MS Excel Survival Basics Monday, December 14

Learn the basics of using this spreadsheet software program, which features calculation tools that are helpful for financial and statistical needs. In this multi-part series, learn how to use different features of MS Excel, such as formulas, filters, tables and graphs, pivot tables, VLOOKUP function, and more.

MS PowerPoint Survival Basics Monday, December 21

Learn the basics of using this slideshow-presentation software program. In this multi-part series, learn how to use different features of MS PowerPoint, such as creating slides, inserting text and pictures, and adding transitions and animations.

Cyber Security Monday, December 28

In this multi-part series, learn about steps to take to ensure your online accounts remain safe and secure from virtual attacks and breaches. Get tips on how to create strong passwords, recognize and avoid email scams, verify fake news, avoid malware and viruses, and protect ones privacy on social media.

The sessions are free and open to the public. Registration is required for the livestreamed Zoom/WebEx events ONLY; a link to the Zoom/WebEx session will be emailed to participants who register. To register online at the librarys website (www.fortbend.lib.tx.us), click on Classes & Events, select Virtual Programs, and find the program on the date indicated. For more information, call the library systems Communications Office (281-633-4734).

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LIBRARIES PRESENT INTRODUCTORY TECHNOLOGY HOW-TO VIDEOS ONLINE - Fort Bend Herald

LONDON An Italian rabbis letter to King Henry VIII concerning the Tudor monarchs effort to annul the first of his six marriages, a 16th-century spellbook, and what is believed to be the earliest dated copy of the Guide for the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides are among the Jewish treasures featured in a Hebrew manuscripts exhibition at the British Library.

The exhibition, which is available online for virtual visitors around the globe and will open for in-person viewing beginning December 3, showcases around 40 of the roughly 3,000 Hebrew manuscripts held by the UKs national library. Running through April 11, 2021, it aims, among other themes, to highlight the interaction between Diaspora Jewish communities and their non-Jewish neighbors.

The librarys collection which has been put together over the past 250 years has recently been digitized. Ilana Tahan, the exhibitions curator, describes it as a sort of celebration of the completion of the six-year project.

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By digitizing these manuscripts we ultimately expose them to a global audience and people wherever they live in every corner of the world, can access them freely, she says.

Spanning across science, religion, law, music, philosophy, magic, alchemy and kabbalah, the displays feature items from Europe and North Africa, the Middle East, India and China.

Alongside iconic documents and manuscripts that people know, we wanted to place things that people have never seen before, says Tahan.

Biblical fragments, First Gaster Bible, 10th century. (Credit: British Library Board)

The earliest object on display is a 10th-century Hebrew Bible which is thought to be one of the oldest-surviving Hebrew biblical codices. The manuscript, which hails from Egypt, shows the influence of Islamic art with its geometric and floral-patterned illustrations. Among several other religious texts in the exhibition are a Catalan Bible whose vivid colors belie its 14th century origins and a Torah scroll which belonged to the Jewish community in Kaifeng, China, some three centuries later.

But the exhibition is not primarily focused on religious texts. The relationship between Diaspora communities and their non-Jewish neighbors sometimes harmonious but often also marked by discrimination and persecution is a major theme of the exhibition. The curators wanted to show the interplay, the interaction, the mutual influences between the two, says Tahan.

A 13th-century deed of sale for a house in Norwich in the east of England shows Miriam, the wife of Rabbi Oshaya, giving up her rights to the property before it could be sold. Its a rarity in more ways than one, and depicts a Medieval Jewish woman owning property and engaging in business dealings. The deed is one of a small and, argues Tahan, extremely important historically collection of charters among the librarys Hebrew manuscripts.

British Librarys Hebrew manuscripts exhibition curator Ilana Tahan. (Courtesy)

What fascinated me about these documents some of them are in Latin with a little bit of Hebrew but there are some that were written entirely in Hebrew is that it appears that these kind of documents were accepted in England at that period, says Tahan.

Henry VIII (Wikimedia Commons)

But, although the deed indicated that Jewish legal documents written in Hebrew were in use in Medieval England, it is dated just 10 years before King Edward Is infamous expulsion of the Jews from the country in 1290.

A consequence of that decision was felt by one of Edwards successors, Henry VIII, nearly 250 years later. Desperate for biblical grounds on which his marriage to Catherine of Aragon who had failed to bear him a male heir might be annulled, the king canvassed the opinion of religious scholars.

Having previously obtained a special dispensation from the Pope to marry Catherine, who was the widow of Henrys brother, the validity of the levirate marriage was a focus of attention and a rabbis opinion was among those sought. But, given the expulsion of the Jews, the kings advisers had to cast a wider net and obtained the view of Italian rabbi Jacob Rafael.

Catherine of Aragon (public domain via Wikipedia)

The rabbis response shown in a letter contained in a ledger of correspondence in the exhibition didnt provide the answer Henry wanted. The rabbi stated that the justification for the levirate marriage in Deuteronomy overrode the prohibition in Leviticus (which bars sexual relations with a brothers wife), which Henrys advisers were attempting to use as a loophole to annul the marriage.

Undeterred, the king separated from Catherine in 1531, and had the marriage annulled by the Archbishop of Canterbury in May 1533 (five months after hed secretly married his new wife, the ill-fated Anne Boleyn). At the same time, a burst of legislation in parliament including the 1534 Act of Supremacy which declared the king to be Supreme Head of the Church of England ushered in the Reformation and the break with Rome.

Response of Jacob Rafael of Modena, to a question relating to Jewish marriage law that might apply in the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. Italy, 1530. Arundel MS 151, ff. 190-191v. (British Library Board)

More often, though, Jewish opinion was stifled rather than sought. A rare copy of a Babylonian Talmud, which dates back to the 13th century, illustrates the manner in which Medieval Christian authorities destroyed many Jewish texts they considered to be blasphemous.

But such manuscripts were not always destroyed. A 17th-century edition of the 1596 Book of Expurgation, which is also on display, lists in alphabetical order some 450 Hebrew texts which the Catholic Church viewed as theologically dangerous or blasphemous. Censors then set to work deleting suspect passages.

An intricately decorated marriage contract from Calcutta (1881). (Credit: British Library Board)

The books author, Dominico Irosolimitano, censored more than 20,000 copies of Hebrew books and manuscripts. One of the manuscripts scanned for potential anti-Christian content is a 700-year-old text on Jewish law by German Jewish scholars. The constant checks that were undertaken are indicated by the signatures it contains of four different Italian censors three of them Jewish converts to Catholicism who examined the text between the years 1599 and 1640.

Of course, many Jews suffered a fate far worse than censorship. A copy of Rabbi Ishmael Haninas account of the interrogation and torture he suffered at the hands of the Papal Inquisition in Bologna in 1568 details how he was forced to explain the meaning of certain passages in the Talmud.

He was on trial as a representative of his religion and he had to defend the religion, says Tahan.

The rabbis ordeal occurred just months before the Jewish community was expelled from the Italian city. Another description of persecution comes from a 17th-century manuscript which tells of the aftermath of an Arab revolt in the Maghreb in 1589 in which Yahya ibn Yahya, a local religious leader, temporarily seized control of territory ruled by the Ottomans.

A work on the calculation of the calendar from Tlemcen, Algeria 1804. (Credit: British Library Board)

Before the Sultans army reestablished control, the rebel leader gave the Jews who fell under his sway a stark choice between conversion or death. You know that God has helped me with his good hands to abolish the kingdom of the Turks, ibn Yahya is recorded in the manuscript as telling the Jews of Misrata. Thus, from today onwards do not remember the name Israel any more. And if you rebel, I will do to you what I did to the Turks.

But, as the exhibition shows, despite the threats, oppression and violence they so frequently suffered, Jews contributed mightily to furthering the spread of knowledge in the West.

Living scattered across the globe, many Jewish scholars were multilingual, the display explains. At the crossroads of different cultures, they translated works between Arabic, Latin and Hebrew. Their most important contribution was transmitting Greek and Arabic ideas from these works to Christian Europe.

One such example held by the library is a 15th-century copy of a Hebrew translation made some 200 years previously by an Italian Jew, Nathan ha-Mati, of the Canon of Medicine. Originally in Arabic, the 11th-century text by Ibn Sina became the most influential work of Medieval medicine. The richly illustrated page on display is from Book V which lists 650 medicine recipes.

An illustrated copy of Abraham bar Hiyyas shape of the Earth, 15th century, (Credit: British Library Board)

Other examples contained in the exhibition include a 16th or 17th century copy of the translation made some 300 years before by another Italian Jew, Jacob Anatoli, of al-Farghanis Compendium of Astronomy and Elements of Heavenly Movements. Anatoli was able to consult both the original Arabic and a Latin translation of the work which summarized Ptolemys Almagest, a 2nd-century treatise on the apparent motion of the stars and planetary paths. Such translations helped to spread Greek astronomical knowledge in Medieval Europe.

Maimonides Guide for the Perplexed, circa 1325-1374, Spain. (Credit: British Library Board)

Similarly, the 12th-century Jewish astronomer, mathematician and philosopher Abraham bar Hiyya translated Arab scientific work into both Hebrew and Latin, pioneering the use of the former for scientific purposes. The exhibition displays the librarys 15th-century copy of Hiyyas Hebrew work Shape of the Earth in which he wrote about the creation of the earth, heavens, moon and stars. Also exhibited is a copy of a book on calendrical calculations vital for working out the dates of religious festivals helpfully written in verse to make them easier to remember.

One of the most impressive items curators have included in the exhibition is a 1380 copy of the Guide for the Perplexed by Maimonides. The 12th-century Jewish philosopher born in Cordoba, Spain, was one of the most influential Talmudic scholars of the Middle Ages. The manuscript, owned by the Jewish community in the Yemen and written in Judeo-Arabic, is considered Maimonidess most authoritative philosophical work. Alongside it, the exhibition has a brightly colored 14th-century copy of a translation into Hebrew; its images of a lion, scholars believe, may suggest it was commissioned for a royal court.

Some of the items on display, however, are perhaps less rooted in scholarship and science. Elisha ben Gads 16th-century Tree of Knowledge contains 125 spells and medicines. Its very, very charming, says Tahan, a lovely, beautiful book.

A spell book containing 120 magical and medical recipes, Ancona 1535-1536. (Credit: British Library Board)

It was, Elisha writes in his introduction, compiled from his journeys to Venice where he gained access to the library of Rabbi Judah Alkabets and copied down the contents of a Hebrew book of magic he discovered in the collection and secret knowledge he acquired in Safed on the shores of the Galilee. The recipes cover a wide range of eventualities from catching thieves to warding off demons, as well as curing fevers and diarrhea. Theres even some useful wedding-night advice: To increase love between bridegroom and bride when the bride comes from the hupah [wedding canopy] after finishing saying the blessing, write their names in honey onto two sage leaves and give the leaves to each other to eat, the spellbook suggests.

But for the light-fingered thief detained thanks to Elishas spell, help is at hand from Mafteah Shelomoh, the Key of Solomon. A compilation of several magical works translated from Latin and Italian into Hebrew, it contains a drawing on how to escape from prison. Draw a boat on the floor and step into it, it indicates, and spirits will appear to carry you away.

After a year of lockdowns, curfews and restrictions, this Medieval magic manual might just have some contemporary resonance.

The British Librarys Hebrew Manuscripts exhibition available online now and in person from December 3, 2020 through April of 2021. (Courtesy/ David Jensen)

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Dont divorce her: Rabbis letter to Henry VIII at heart of British Library show - The Times of Israel