Art is 80

Random is too random a word to describe this

Usually, when I am on a Zoom call, I am sitting at my desk and the view behind me that of a bookcase. The books on that bookcase are about as random as possible. I can not begin to tell you why these particular books are there. It’s a mystery.

For example, from thr top shelf:

The Sights and Secrets of Our National Capital (1869)
The Revolt in Israel by Menachem Begin, trans. into French (1953)
A review of all the good things that happened in the 19th century
The Torah in Hebrew and Russian, published in Jerusalem
A large, illustrated Haggadah, published in Berlin before Hitler
A 1904 Almanac
After the death of President McKinley. Who was H.C. Brock?
From 1929cedition of Candide with  woodcuts by Howard Simon
The autobiography of boxer Joe Louis, signed by Joe Louis.

This is not everything on that one shelf. You will also find The Jew and His Duties by Hyman Goldin, The two volume The Jews in the Soviet Union by Nora Levin,  The Old Teatament Speaks by Samuel Schultz (3rd edition), Ancient Israel by Roland de Vaux, three volumes of Festival Prayer books published by Joseph Schlesinger in Vienna in 1900, Life in a Haitian Valley by Melville Hershkovitz (1937), Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism edited by Herschel Shanks, The American Story, edited and signed by David Rubinstein, The Westminster Atlas of the Bible, Dali, Dali, Dali (that is one picture book), and yes, even more.

I am not going to try to explain or understand why these books, some never opened by me, have such a prominent place.

artat80

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