Exploring ‘The Archive’

In the series The Archive, Unorthodox explores the collection of the National Library of Israel. On each installment, Liel Leibovitz visits the library and talks with curators about some of their most prized items, letters, and manuscripts. We learn about Napoleon’s near conquests of the Middle East, Mahatma Gandhi’s correspondence with Hitler, and how Kafka’s manuscripts ended up in a Kafkaesque Israeli legal trial.

We kick things off with a look at Sir Isaac Newton’s Hebrew-inflected writings on … the end of days.

Next, we take a look at Maimonides’ 12th-century manuscripts and learn about the Jewish thinker’s nomadic adventures.

In our third episode we learn about Gandhi’s surprising letter to Hitler, and his correspondence with the Jews of Bombay.

In our fourth installment, we learn about the manuscripts of Ahmed Ibn Taymiyya, one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Islam.

In our next installment we dive into the library’s music collection and sound archive.

In our sixth segment, we learn how Napoleon left his comfort zone and ended up in Israel.

In this segment, we discover the Hebrew notebooks of one Franz Kafka, and tell the story of how those notebooks came to be ensnared in a Kafkaesque battle of ownership.

You can check out the National Library of Israel’s collection here.