In Honour of a Friend and Mentor

In two weeks, Tuesday, October 11th 2005, the JNUL will be hosting a morning of lectures in honour of Mr. Benjamin Richler, who is retiring. Richler has been the director of the IMHM for the past decade, and has worked in the Institute since at least the early 1970s. Though his absence from the library will be sorely felt, I hope it will be for the best, giving him the leisure to prepare a new edition of his Guide and of his article (Assufot 1) on manuscripts that have been divided, as well as new articles from his wealth of knowledge.

Among the speeches to be delivered over the course of the morning are:
Dr. Edna Engel of the Hebrew Paleography Project, speaking about Abraham Farissol (on whom she wrote her MLS thesis) at 9.30 am.
Dr. Simcha Emanuel, on whether the advent of printing had a negative or positive effect on the Hebrew book, at 10.30 am.
Ms. Yael Okun of the IMHM, on one of her specialties, books of lots (goralot). There is a whole mess of works on this topic, which present tables, instructions and recipes for predicting the future or gaining hidden knowledge. Yael will be speaking at noon.