Flowers: Leafing Through the Collections

Wildflowers have accompanied the Zionist movement and the teaching of love for the Land of Israel since its beginnings. Flowers can be found in journeys to the Holy Land in the late 19th century, in the early days of Hebrew science, and in the development of the Hebrew language. Today, there are countless expressions of flowers in Israeli culture, in poetry, literature, and Hebrew song.

The exhibition Flowers: Leafing Through the Collections of the National Library presents rare items from the Library’s collections that reflect the role of flowers in the history of Israel, in story and song, in decoration and illustration, in music and sound, in research, and in reference and scholarly works.

Hadassa Goldvicht: To the Internal Libraries

The invisible network of trajectories, which for over 60 years carried millions of books from the basement of the National Library on Givat Ram to those awaiting them in the reading rooms, is revealed in the video installation by artist Hadassa Goldvicht, which captures the overall experience of the Library. Like a Russian nesting doll that contains within it a series of increasingly smaller dolls, “To the Internal Libraries” contains not only the previous incarnation of the National Library of Israel, but also its personal, physical and spiritual incarnation in the present, and even those awaiting us in the future.

A Journey to the Hājj

Every year, millions of people from around the world gather in the holy city of Mecca for the hājj, the annual five-day pilgrimage that every Muslim is obligated to complete during their lifetime. At the end of the hājj period, Muslims in Mecca and around the world celebrate Eid al-Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice or the Great Festival. Since its founding in 1924, the Islam and Middle East Collection of the National Library of Israel has gathered manuscripts, books, newspapers, photographs, and recorded interviews that tell the story of the hājj and the sacred sites in Mecca and Medina in the past and present, among numerous other topics related to Islam and the history and cultures of the Middle East. This exhibition highlights a selection of the Library’s hājj treasures to coincide with this year’s pilgrimage, which begins on June 1, and to mark the centennial of the Collection.