Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some of the same dignitaries will attend a cornerstone laying ceremony for the construction now under way opposite the Knesset.
By GIL STERN STERN ZOHARUpdated: MARCH 30, 2016 17:08The National Library’s new complex will face the Knesset(photo credit: HERZOG AND DE MEURON ARCHITECTS)
In 2007 the Knesset enacted the National Library Law. Four years later (on March 27, 2011), a ceremony took place in Jerusalem in the presence of the president and prime minister, the Supreme Court president, the education minister, and Bank of Israel governor marking the beginning of the renewal of the country’s National Library.Flash forward to this coming Tuesday: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some of the same dignitaries will attend a cornerstone laying ceremony for the construction now under way opposite the Knesset. In another four(ish) years readers will finally be able to enjoy the state-of-the-art complex.But the wait will be worth it, enthuses National Library director Oren Weinberg – a man who can be called the chief librarian of the People of the Book. At a press preview this week, Weinberg showed off his $200-million baby, designed by the Basel “starchitect” firm Herzog & de Meuron.If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the Swiss architects designed the acclaimed bird’s-nest stadium for Beijing’s 2008 Olympics.The Jerusalem library promises to be an equally recognizable instant landmark.Herzog & de Meuron gave the following statement: “Our project reflects the open and transparent ambitions of the National Library of Israel. The strong, sculptural form of the stone, related to the specific topography and context of the site, is elevated off the ground, and situated above vitrine-like elements.“The stone contains a large open space for the library’s visitors and users to interact while the vitrines expose the collection, reading room and public functions to the street and adjacent surroundings.”In plain English, it will be as if a glass-and-stone rocket ship landed on Givat Ram, and winked at the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book across the street.More than a home for books and digital documents, the 34,000 sq.m. library building will be a multi-purpose research center and venue for cultural and educational activities, as well as a meeting place to converse over coffee. The six floors above ground and four basement levels will be crowned by an enormous glass dome. Illuminated at night, it promises to be a light unto the nations beckoning with the collective knowledge of the Jewish people.Thanks to funding from the Rothschild family’s Yad Hanadiv foundation and the Gottesman Fund of New York, the Jewish people’s literary treasures will finally have a worthy state-of-the-art home.Aviad Stollman, the library’s head of collections, was on hand to show off a few of those treasures – and no, you won’t be able to borrow them with your library card. With loving care, he gingerly displayed the Crown of Damascus, a 1,000-year-old Hebrew Bible smuggled out of Syria 20 years ago in a Mossad operation so classified that the manuscript’s existence in Israel was kept secret for decades.Another priceless volume is a commentary on the Mishna handwritten by medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides. Stollman refers to the first written document in the Yiddish language. He also shows off Franz Kafka’s notebook where he records Hebrew words and their German meaning.While the National Library collects everything related to the State of Israel and Judaica, the collection contextualizes that core with general books on the Humanities, Islam and religion in general, and anti-Semitica.Thus Sir Isaac Newton’s manuscripts about theology and the apocalypse, including his notations in cursive English and Hebrew, have a home at the National Library.Newton predicted the end of the world will come in 2060. That should leave readers 40 years to savor Israel’s new National Library.
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