Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts

by Marc Michael Epstein (Editor), Eva Frojmovic (Contributor), Jenna Siman Jacobs (Contributor)

A superbly illustrated history of five centuries of Jewish manuscripts

The love of books in the Jewish tradition extends back over many centuries, and the ways of interpreting those books are as myriad as the traditions themselves. Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink offers the first full survey of Jewish illuminated manuscripts, ranging from their origins in the Middle Ages to the present day. Featuring some of the most beautiful examples of Jewish art of all time—including hand-illustrated versions of the Bible, the Haggadah, the prayer book, marriage documents, and other beloved Jewish texts—the book introduces readers to the history of these manuscripts and their interpretation.

Edited by Marc Michael Epstein with contributions from leading experts, this sumptuous volume features a lively and informative text, showing how Jewish aesthetic tastes and iconography overlapped with and diverged from those of Christianity, Islam, and other traditions. Featured manuscripts were commissioned by Jews and produced by Jews and non-Jews over many centuries, and represent Eastern and Western perspectives and the views of both pietistic and liberal communities across the Diaspora, including Europe, Israel, the Middle East, and Africa.

Magnificently illustrated with pages from hundreds of manuscripts, many previously unpublished or rarely seen, Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink offers surprising new perspectives on Jewish life, presenting the books of the People of the Book as never before.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Judaism, Jewish, Religion, Judaica

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 4, 2015

About the author

Marc Michael Epstein is Professor of Religion and Visual Culture on the Mackie M. Paschall (1899) & Norman Davis Chair at Vassar College.

Reviews

[Wendelle]

The author once used to work as an appraiser for the Judaica department of a rare books dealer, before he became a professor. Part of his role was exercising the diplomatic arts of fending off cold-called items from the public, who often had an inflated sense of the value of their heirloom. He relates how, once, in the middle of such a drop-in, he inquires rhetorically about the original value of sale of a book of psalms published in 1920s Warsaw. The potential vendor replies to him in full dignity: "For this, seven days' worth of Auschwitz bread", referring to the reprisal of deprivation that followed after his tormentors discovered him with his treasured devotional.. Reflecting back on this moment, the author shares how it has struck him ever since, to reconsider the pricelessness of books, the value of books due to its bonds to its makers and readers, the lives that books take on their own.

Thus, the illuminated manuscripts in the book are not just pretty pictures, although the gold leaf and baroque illustrations truly elevate them to beautiful masterpieces that speak of their artists' care. Rather, the author suggests, they also form a tapestry of rich Jewish history, with the illuminations matching and evolving with their lives and journeys through Europe, Spain, Persia and beyond. Their content, whether through hidden metaphor or overt revelation, also vary with the mood of the times and the resultant concerns of the artists making them. For the tapestry of record is broken-- oxcarts of Jewish manuscripts have been incinerated, and no singularly Jewish library has survived, according to the author, due to rife persecution in the lands its makers inhabit.

This is a very good introduction to Jewish manuscripts for ordinary readers like myself.

[Meryll Levine Page]

Exquisite!

[The Jewish Book Council]

Review by David Sclar for the Jewish Book Council.

[Mills College Library]

745.67089 S6281 2015