Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

Well, fear not! We found a way for you to spend it. Sotheby’s is auc­tion­ing off what schol­ars in the field have described as ​“the finest pri­vate library of Hebrew books and man­u­scripts in the world.”

From The New York Times:

These 13,000 books and man­u­scripts were pri­mar­i­ly col­lect­ed by one man, Jack V. Lun­z­er, who was born in Antwerp in 1924, lives in Lon­don and made his for­tune as a mer­chant of indus­tri­al dia­monds. The collection’s geo­graph­i­cal scale is matched by its tem­po­ral breadth, which extends over a mil­len­ni­um. But this endeav­or is not just an exer­cise in bib­lio­phil­ia. These are all books writ­ten in Hebrew or using Hebrew script, many of them rare or even unique. Most come from the ear­li­est cen­turies of Hebrew print­ing in their places of ori­gins and thus map out a his­to­ry of the flour­ish­ing of Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties around the world… Sotheby’s has put it on sale as a sin­gle col­lec­tion. Through next Thurs­day it is being hand­some­ly dis­played to the public.

To read whole Times arti­cle, click here.

And, if you’re inter­est­ed in view­ing this col­lec­tion, check out Sotheby’s view­ing sched­ule.

The exhi­bi­tion of the Val­madon­na Trust Library is on view through next Thurs­day at Sotheby’s, 1334 York Avenue, at 72nd Street, Man­hat­tan; (212) 606‑7000.

Above Pho­to: Rob Ben­nett for The New York Times