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Rare Books

Der Vollkommene Pferdekenner
Among the rare books in the LBI Library is this richly illustrated treatise on horses, which contains a remarkable 36-page glossary of Western-Yiddish terms used by Jewish horsetraders in the 18th century in Southern Germany.
*Wolf Ehrenfried Freiherr von Reitzenstein (1712-1778), Der Vollkommene Pferdekenner, Uffenheim, 1764. LBI Library, r 227.
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Jüdisches Ceremoniel
This illustrated description of Jewish religious ceremonies, rites of passage, and feast days, was published by the Christian Hebraist Paul Christian Kirchner. Like other converts who helped transmit knowledge of Judaism to Christian society in this era, Kirchner was critical of Judaism. The detailed plates by Georg Puschner are of great documentary value.
*Paul Christian Kirchner, Jüdisches Ceremoniel, Nürnberg, 1726. LBI Library, r BM 700 K57 1726.
Jüdisches Ceremoniel
Paul Christian Kirchner, Jüdisches Ceremoniel, oder Beschreibung derjenigen Gebräuche welche die Juden ... in acht zu nehmen pflegen, Nürnberg, 1726. This illustrated description of Jewish religious ceremonies, rites of passage, and feast days, was first published by the Christian Hebraist Paul Christian Kirchner 1716. Like other converts who helped transmit knowledge of Judaism to Christian society in this era, Kirchner was extremely critical of Judaism, but the extremely detailed plates, by Georg Puschner are of great documentary value. LBI Library, r BM 700 K57 1724.
Die Memoiren der Glückel von Hameln
The famous memoirs of the Hamburg businesswoman Glückel of Hameln are the only known pre-modern Yiddish memoirs written by a woman. They were originally written for her children in the 17th century. This German translation by Bertha Pappenheim, another pioneering German-Jewish woman and a distant descendant, features Pappenheim's dedication to fellow League of Jewish Women founder Henriette May.
*Glückel of Hameln, Die Memoiren der Glückel von Hameln geboren in Hamburg 1645, gestorben in Metz 19. September 1724, Wien, 1910. LBI Library, r(q) DS 135 G5 H3 1910
Phaedon
Phaedon is one of Mendelssohn's major religio-philosophical works which made him famous throughout Europe as the "German Socrates." It was a novel effort at translation and commentary on Plato's Phaedo. The work begins as a strict translation of the Platonic dialogue, but rapidly becomes its own independent work, as Mendelssohn seeks to demonstrate the rationality of the belief in the existence of God.
*Moses Mendelssohn, Phaedon, oder, über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele in drey Gesprächen, Berlin und Stettin, Bey Friedrich Nicolai, 1767. LBI Library, r B 2691 P3 1767.
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The 1687 Haggadah is a beautiful example of a family Haggadah with elaborate woodcuts and signs of usage throughout the centuries. It belonged to the family of Rabbi Heinrich Lemle (1909-1978) of Rio de Janeiro, originally from Baden. Rabbi Lemle was a “Jugendrabbiner,” or Rabbi for young people, in Frankfurt am Main before fleeing to Rio during the Nazi period.
*Mah nishtanah : Hagadah shel Pesah = מה נשתנה : הגדה של פסח , Prague, 1687. LBI Library, r (q) 18.

The LBI's Rare Book Collection consists of ca. 3,000 volumes primarily in the field of German Judaica, dating from the earliest period of printing in the 15th century through the annihilation of European Jewry under the Third Reich. These rarities include dozens of Hebrew religious texts from the 17th-19th centuries, Martin Luther’s infamous anti-Semitic tract “Von den Juden und iren Luegen” (1543), and first editions of Moses Mendelssohn’s and Heinrich Heine’s works, as well as those by more recent prominent German-Jewish writers.

Many of these volumes were salvaged from famous Jewish libraries that were confiscated and dispersed by the Nazis and, thus, cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The LBI has digitized more than 1600 of these works.

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Alfred Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz , 1930, cover designed by George Salter.
George Salter (1897-1967): The Library of Book Designs
Augenspiegel
The Battle of the Books: The Reuchlin-Pfefferkorn debate
The months of the Jewish calendar and the corresponding Zodiac sign
Jewish Calendars

Art & Illustrated Books

E. M. Lilien - Jewish May
E. M. Lilien