Jerusalem’s cultural diversity revealed through manuscripts
WHAT MIGHT IT look like to imagine Jerusalem — known as a city of peoples with diverse faiths and cultures — as a city of the book? On March 29, a panel will tell the story of this extraordinary place, where some of the Western world’s most enduring ideas were developed through its Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Armenian literary treasures.
Panelists include Benjamin Balint, coauthor of “Jerusalem: City of the Book,” who will discuss unusual caretakers of Jewish library collections; Father Columba Stewart, executive director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, will talk about rare early Christian and Islamic manuscripts; and Bedross Der Matossian, associate director of the Harris Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and president of the Society for Armenian Studies, will explore literary treasures of Armenian Jerusalem. Also to be discussed is the digitization and preservation of endangered documents.
The program, presented by Rutgers University’s Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, is free. It will take place at 4 p.m. at the Douglass Student Center, New Brunswick. The event is the Toby and Herbert Stolzer Endowed Program and is cosponsored by the Rutgers-New Brunswick Libraries and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Advance registration is required. Email rsvpBildner@sas.rutgers.edu or register online at BildnerCenter.Rutgers.edu.
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