Michelle Margolis: What Do Librarians Do? [Books 2/3]

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to our favorite librarian, Michelle Margolis.

Michelle is no stranger to the 18Forty Podcast — she was one of our first guests, and today, she returns to debut our new Show & Tale series, and talk with us about the role of a librarian and the hidden world of Judaica and rare books.

Show & Tale is a new 18Forty video series that will take you inside some of the great libraries—both public and private—to explore books and treasures from Jewish history.
Michelle Margolis is the Norman E. Alexander Librarian for Jewish Studies at Columbia University. We spoke with her at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library, located in Butler Library.

- Where’s the best place to buy rare Jewish books?
- Why would a siddur need to be politically correct?
- Where should rare Judaica live?

Tune in to hear a conversation about edible glue, fake ivory, and death masks.

Interview begins at 15:04

Michelle Margolis is the Norman E. Alexander Librarian for Jewish Studies at Columbia University; co-director of Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time and Place; and President of the Association of Jewish Libraries. Michelle is a favorite past guest at 18Forty and joins us to talk about the work of a librarian.

References:

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
The Story of Dovid Bashevkin by Meaningful People Podcast
Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution by Yehudah Mirsky
Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History by David Biale
Pursuit of Heresy, Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Controversy by Elisheva Carlebach
Pulp Fiction
Making of a Gadol by Nathan Kamenetsky
Columbia Hebrew Manuscripts
Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time and Place
The Sarajevo Haggadah
The Prince of the Press by Josh Teplitsky
Encyclopedia of Jewish Book Cultures edited by Emil Schrijver
The Hebrew Book in Early Italy edited by Joseph R. Hacker and Adam Shear
A Sign and a Witness: 2,000 Years of Hebrew Books and Illuminated Manuscripts by William Gross, Orly Tzion, and Falk Wiesemann
“Books Weeping for Someone to Visit and Admire Them: Jewish Library Culture in the United States, 1850–1910” by Robert Singerman
“Top Five” by Dovid Bashevkin
“Top 5 Stuff that Get Yeshiva Guys Into Jewish Studies”
Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966 by Marc B. Shapiro
“The Dual Role of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes: Traditionalist and Maskil” by Bruria Hutner David
“Rupture and Reconstruction” by Haym Soloveitchik
“Facing the Truths of History” by Jacob J. Schacter
Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century: Creating a Tradition of Learning by Shaul Stampfer
Jew Vs Jew: The Struggle For The Soul of American Jewry by Samuel G. Freedman
American Judaism: A History by Jonathan D. Sarna
The Shul without a Clock: Second Thoughts from a Rabbi's Notebook by Emanuel Feldman
Tales Out of Shul: The Unorthodox Journal of an Orthodox Rabbi by Emanuel Feldman
“The Haredim: A Defense” by Aharon Rose
By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God by Aharon Lichtenstein
The Book and the Sword: A Life of Learning in the Shadow of Destruction by David Weiss Halivni

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