Chanukah: The Festival of Lights

A Chanukah Menorah, or Chanukia (CC0 image via Wikipedia)

Chanukah, also known as the Festival of Rededication, or the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day holiday that generally falls sometime in December (in the Hebrew calendar, the 25th of Kislev). This year it starts on Sunday evening, December 2 and ends in the evening of December 10th. It celebrates the rededication of the Holy Temple after the successful revolt of the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire. To rededicate the Temple, oil was needed to relight the menorah inside, and there was very little left – only enough to burn for one day.  However, the oil that was used burned for eight days, and to celebrate this, a festival was created – Chanukah.

Research Guides: More than just books

Scholar in study, 1700, by Johann Michael Bretschneider (National Museum of Wrocław)

The Lander College for Women has been one of our most enthusiastic adopters of our Research Guides available through LibGuides. A blog post in 2014 linked 10 of the unique power points available on these guides, but there’s even more great information available.

Most libraries around the world post library guides or pathfinders on their websites that contain the standard gathering of relevant websites, particularly helpful specialized databases, bibliographies of related books, and links to chat or email reference. However what makes Touro’s library guides unique are not only the tailor-made PowerPoint presentations for classes offered at LCW, but the narrative introductions and unique informative essays, charts, outlines and exercises included on our large collection of Jewish studies guides.

Over One Million Hits

Over 1 million page views for Touro’s Encyclopedia of the Founders and Builders of Israel

Four years ago Touro College Libraries debuted its digitization of David Tidhar’s 19-volume Encyclopedia of the Founders and Builders of Israel, which can be found at www.tidhar.tourolib.org. This valuable resource is used by scholars and historians worldwide as well as by the Touro community. Recently, the Encyclopedia reached 1 million hits, and the views continue to grow.

The Iraqi Jewish Archive: The Story and its Implications

Bible: Writings, Venice, 1568 (From the Iraqi Jewish Archive)

On May 6, 2003, American troops were searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Their search led them to Saddam Hussein’s secret police headquarters in Baghdad. Troops had been informed that the building contained a copy of the oldest known Talmud in existence, possibly dating from the 7^th century. The decision was made to try to save this document.

Kristallnacht: Reflection and Remembrance

Synagogue Eisenach burning, November 1938 (CC0 image via Wikimedia Commons)

Kristallnacht means the “Night of Crystal” or “Night of Broken Glass” ¹). It refers to the anti-Jewish attack instigated by the Nazis that took place throughout Germany and Austria from November 9^th-10^th, 1938. The name comes from the broken glass that resulted from smashed-in windows in Jewish-owned shops, buildings, homes, and synagogues ².

Presentations from the LCW Jewish Studies program

“Dead Sea Scroll Scholar Examination” by Habermann, Abraham Meir, 1901– (CC0 image via Wikimedia Commons)

The LibGuides system has given Touro Libraries a one-stop location to highlight a handful of the best bets for researching a variety of subjects, but it also allows us to provide more in-depth coverage in our areas of expertise.