Executive Communications

Executive Communications  -- New President Interview -- Part 12

Q> It’s been a little more than a year since you took office.  Now that you made experience one full academic year, are you ready to give some advice to other new executives?

A> Thank you for asking.  In the past year we have had some challenges to colleges in our city that were totally unrelated to academics.  One college had a flood, another had a vermin infestation,  a third had a sink hole open in the street in front of the school’s entrance and the mayor announced plans to build a new campus for a fourth college.

I continue in my effort to keep the lines of communication open to my fellow college presidents.  We meet monthly and other groups such as vice-presidents, department chairs, and deans meet monthly.  These meetings enable us to share best practices and wisdom from people who share similar job responsibilities.

Q> What happened to cause a flood?  I never heard that the city experienced a flood.  Was it in the neighborhood or just the College building?  Tell us more about the communication challenges.

A> The city had a thunderstorm that was very concentrated in the central area.  The north side barely had any rain.  The building had a flat roof and a drain got clogged.  The water went down the walls and later a pipe broke in the walls.  The college sent out a message via their emergency notification communications system.  One or two inches of water were on the floors of most of the first floor offices and the basement areas had several feet of water.

The challenge was two-fold removing the water and insuring the classes and business of the College. The College communicated with the students, faculty, staff and public as well as the restoration vendors who would help.   The next morning, the administration talked with everyone and reassured all will be repaired and the College would remain open.  

Q> It sounds like it was a very difficult time.  What does this have to do with communications?

A> Communications with students, staff and faculty were very important.  The process of telling people the story and what to expect helped make them feel valued.  Thomas J. Peters in his 1982 book, In Search of Excellence, tells us the customer is first.  A wise leader knows that every organization has both internal and external customers.  The wise leader knows that at any given moment the roles of customer or supplier can flip for anyone in the organization.  The supplier has to understand the needs of the customers. Too many organizations ignore or consider customers a nuisance. The truly excellent organization treats everyone as a team member.

Q> Do you mean everyone is a customer even the faculty and staff?

In some businesses internal departments compete with outside organizations. Colleges don’t work that way; we don’t outsource instruction.  We are all information suppliers and consumers.  We prepare studies and reports for our co-workers and superiors.  Each report is a type of communications.  Keeping the communications accurate and abundant is the way to keep the “customer” close people part of the team.

Q> Thank you very much.

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*Part twelve of an imaginary interview with a president of the College appointed in 2010. Note this is just for your information and edification. Any connection to a real college president is strictly coincidental.

Visit to Three Libraries in Israel

 

Report on the Visit to Libraries in Israel  August 6-8, 2012

 

When I was planning a trip to Israel for a family bar mitzvah, I want to do something that tourists wouldn’t do.  As a librarian I love to visit libraries.  On a visit to New York three years ago, I visited a school librarian who was having difficulty with her administration.  Amazingly  after my visit things changed for the better.  I was given a task by my fellow librarians to learn about how systems work in large research libraries and to gather information to support the purchase of a new library management system. The CCC district librarians were concerned about the relationships the libraries have with the vendors of library management systems and sources of continuing training.   All three libraries I visited use the Aleph system was originally written by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Now it is part of the ExLibris family of products which include Voyager and Alma.    All the Israeli Universities and the National Library use Aleph, though they are not all on the same version.

 The Israel National Library 

The National Library [fn 1] and University libraries act as a group for the purchase of database services and they co-operate in other areas of common interest. During my visit I did not investigate all the areas of co-operation.  Each university is free to choose its own classification system is very autonomous in most administrative areas.  There are college libraries in Israel  that have their own system separate from the universities.

The entrance plaza to the building.  This looks exactly like it did when I was a student at the Hebrew University, except the sign “Hebrew University” was removed.

On August 6 I visited the National Library1 in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem [fn 2].  The National Library (http://web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/english/Pages/default.aspx) used to be part of the Hebrew University.  In 2008 they started the process of separation.    The National Library Law of Jan 02, 2008 defined the new role of the library and regulates its status and objectives.   This law granted the National Library independent legal status as of January 1, 2011, and extended the National Library's responsibilities to include the documentation of Israel's cultural oeuvre.  By 2016 the Library will have a new building outside of the Hebrew University Campus, but in the same neighborhood.  A generous donor has agreed to pay for the building under the condition that the government maintains and pays for the staff and other continuing expenses.   (see: The National Library of Israel: Master Plan for Renewal 2010-2016: http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/library/aboutus/future/Documents/Tochnit_Av_Final.pdf)

The major collections of the National Library include Judaica, Islam and the Middle East, Israel, science, geography, and the Humanities.  As the nation’s library, the Book Law of 2000 stipulates they get deposit copies of all materials print and non-print published in Israel. The program is under the supervision of Legal Deposit Department. Legal deposit is required whether or not there is a formal copyright application3. For more information see their web site: http://www.jnul.huji.ac.il/eng/lgd.html.  As with Library of Congress and other national libraries this is a way to preserve the nation’s literary output.  The collection has about 5 million items.  They are working hard to digitize their music, rare book, and manuscript collections.   As a national library they are showing leadership for the libraries of Israel.  They prepare digital exhibits for browsing on the web and exhibits on the premises.  Like the Library of Congress, the National Library promotes the use of original sources in the classroom, sponsor lectures and other cultural events, and has an active preservation program.  Some of the materials are stored off site for cost saving and security purposes.  The National Library creates several databases including RAMBI (http://jnul.huji.ac.il/rambi/ for Jewish studies articles) and Kiryat Sefer, (http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/infochannels/Catalogs/bibliographic-databases/Pages/qsefer.aspx)  the national bibliography of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.  These are free databases searchable on the Internet.

I met with the head of cataloging, Rini Goldsmith and Esther Guggenheim, the Bibliographic Systems Librarian.  We had a very nice discussion about their library and how they work with systems.  Esther has been working with Aleph for about 9 years and has an intimate knowledge of the how the systems work.  Rini is very knowledgeable about all aspects of cataloging and technical processing.  The Hebrew University/National Library was among the first Aleph libraries.

They are currently in the implementation phase of Ex Libris' discovery tool Primo, which will is also an integral component of Alma. They have been using Digitool for digital resources for the past few years but will replace it in the near future. All of these programs are on library servers and fully maintained by their staff.  They have SFX as link resolver; however it is hosted by ExLibris.

All the libraries in Israel have to deal with multiple scripts, Hebrew, Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic.  Subject searching is still mostly in English using Library of Congress Subject Headings.  However, Bar Ilan has a Hebrew Language version of Library of Congress Subject headings that they use for Hebrew books and may eventually use it for parallel headings for materials other languages.    Since Alma does not yet support Hebrew and Arabic, Israeli libraries have not yet started to test it.  They are in contact with ExLibris concerning the development of Hebrew support.

I toured the building which is an interesting combination of new up-to-date rooms, areas under renovation, and rooms that haven’t changed in 40 years.

Part of the reference collection in the Jewish Studies Reading Room.

Large books in the cartographic collection

The reading room for the history of science collection.

Rare Book room closed shelves

One concern of our committee was training and ongoing support.  The National Library has their own IT department.  They were able to hire a couple of former ExLibris technical people for their staff.  They can use some of this intimate knowledge of the system.   That means they can get the system to do pretty much what they want.  ExLibris is responsive to the needs of its customers and if a feature is helpful to many customers, they will create it.  If the feature has only a local need, the library may need to pay for development.   Since Aleph has more than 700 customers the voice of Israeli libraries is smaller the time they were the only customers.   ExLibris offers several kinds of support including initial training, newsletters, users groups, conferences, etc.  While our committee is concerned about initial training and training for new users,  Rini and Esther pointed out that because of the significant amount of options and choices a library makes, each library will have to train their staff in local practices and procedures.

Bar Ilan University  August 7

On the morning of August 7 I took a bus from Jerusalem to the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan to visit the Wurzweiler Central Library, of Bar Ilan University.  (http://lib.biu.ac.il/en/page/3) Bar Ilan is a comprehensive university with a main campus in in Ramat Gan and regional colleges in Jerusalem,  Safad, Ashkelon, Acre, and Bnei Brak.  They have more than 32,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 2700 faculty members, and 24 libraries.. I met with Chaim Seymour, the head of cataloging.  Bar Ilan University departmental libraries and research centers have all their collections cataloged in the central library.  The law library is cataloged and operates independently of the central library.   Security for the University is very strict.  At the gate I had to show my passport.  My Illinois State ID and Malcolm X College ID were not sufficient for Bar Ilan, but ok for The Hebrew University campus. Briefcases, purses and other bags are also subject to search.   I had to show ID again to enter the library.

Since Bar Ilan is a major research university their purpose is different than the National Library.  They have about 1 million items in their collections in every discipline taught by the University.  Bar Ilan is deemed a religious oriented university and so they have a special interest in Jewish studies [fn 4] materials and how they are used.   Bar Ilan uses a variation of Dewey Decimal Classification Dewey called Scholem (which was named after the first Head Librarian of The Hebrew University/National Library,  (Gresham Scholem).    This system revised the 296 numbers to accommodate the Jewish studies materials [fn 5].  In contrast the National Library once used  Scholem  classification and now uses Library of Congress classification.

Half the visit was smoozing about library procedures and sharing some common interests.  Bar Ilan as a university shares some of the same fiscal limitations that we have.  They can’t afford to buy all the books they want.  Their costs are much higher because they are outside of the United States.  Science books are particularily costly.   One problem they share is computer access.  Their department got new computers.  The labeling program was on an old computer.  A month later they are still waiting for the IT department to transfer the program to a new computer.  I was also taken on a tour of the building and met with the head of the library, Rochelle Kedar.  She, like other administrators, is concerned with staffing, resources, and other juggling acts to keep the library running.

Back in Jerusalem I talked with a retired Bar Ilan professor.  He said the library is not open enough hours.  Commuter students who want to study late, avoid heavy traffic, and go home after doing their home work were out of luck  The professor said that after the  tremendous investment in the collecting and cataloging of materials, the staffing to keep the central and departmental libraries open should be minimal.   Since he told me that after my visit I did not ask the people at Bar Ilan about this.  The web site: http://lib.biu.ac.il/en/libraries has their hours.  Notice most libraries close before 7 pm.  I asked another current profession and he said no one ever complained to him about the limited hours.

After eating lunch I headed to the campus of Tel Aviv University to visit the Museum of the Jewish People  (http://www.bh.org.il/)  I didn’t meet with any of their staff, but I want to share this picture.  It is Torah scroll unrolled.  I don’t know why they did this, but this is not the best way to preserve a parchment scroll. You can see the wrinkles.

After the Museum I headed to the train station to travel to Haifa. 

  

University of Haifa Library August 8

In 2006 the University of Haifa Library (http://lib.haifa.ac.il/english/index.php/about-the-library)

was awarded a grant by the Ima Foundation  to renovate the existing library and to build a new three-story wing.  The building was completed in 2011. The new wing now houses offices and study rooms.  This enabled the previous office space to be repurposed for information common areas and to move around the stack areas.  The library took on the name of the donors, Younes and Soraya Nazarian [fn 6].  The library has more than 3 million items, the largest holdings of any academic library in Israel and serves a diverse population of Jews, Christians, and Arabs.  The University of Haifa is much more secular and diverse than other universities in Israel. 

The way they use space is beautiful.  The library looks very open and inviting.  Staff office areas include meeting rooms with computers and digital projectors, kitchen/break rooms, and study rooms for faculty and students.  They use Library of Congress Classification except for Hebrew periodicals.  They add an “X” before the letters of the class for Hebrew periodicals so that all the Hebrew periodicals are separated from other languages.

I met with Yosef Branse, Database and Programming Coordinator and two others in the cataloging department. 

Information commons area.

Stack area

General comments

One of the significant challenges they face is getting new librarians.   The library school of The Hebrew University closed.  Bar Ilan University has a department of Information Studies that grants, BA, MA and PhD degrees [fn 7].  There are programs for school librarians at David Yellin College of Education and Bet Berl (http://www.beitberl.ac.il/english/Pages/TheAcademicProgram.aspx).  If someone from Israel wants other kinds of library education they would either have to enroll in an online program or travel abroad. 

The libraries are tuned into all the concerns that we have here such as space, fiscal limitations, and support.  Their computer infrastructure is very robust.  They have Wi-Fi throughout the campuses and offer on-campus and off-campus access to databases.    Security is very strict on all campuses.  If you remember on July 21, 2002, nine people (four from the United States) were killed and 85 injured in an attack on the cafeteria of Hebrew University http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2002/7/Terrorist+bombing+at+Hebrew+University+cafeteria+-.htm) .   Hopefully we never have any problems like that.  We do have to be concerned about other kinds of security. 

The people I met with were very friendly and willing to share their knowledge and expertise.  It helped to visit during the summer when the pressure of students and faculty was low.  I met these people through the listserv HaSafran.  While this is the first time I met them in person, I have met them “online” and felt I was meeting with friends.  This is the kind of exchange of ideas that cannot take the place of a convention or conference.   I hope that I am able to return the favor if we have international guests.  It was very worthwhile to visit these libraries and I hope we continue to share our knowledge and expertise.  

This is the library in the Museum of Underground Fighters.  During the British Mandatory period this was the Central Jerusalem Prison.  This was the prisoner’s library.   The sign says that if you want to open the door, return to the museum office. I was not able to visit this library.

This is a view from 10 miles to the north of Haifa.  The arrow points to the 30 story tower on the University of Haifa Campus. The distance by highway is about 23 miles.

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Footnotes 

1 The current building dates from 1960.  The library was established by Eliezer Ben Yehudah in 1892. 

2  Many other cultural and government institutions are in this neighborhood including: The Knesset, Israeli government offices, Israeli Supreme Court , Israel Museum,  Bible Lands Museum,   and Bloomfield Science Museum,  .

3 The Israeli copyright law of 2007 (http://www.tau.ac.il/law/members/birnhack/IsraeliCopyrightAct2007.pdf)  is almost the same as the American copyright law because of international treaties. 

4 They claim to have the most Jewish studies faculty of any academic institution. 

5 For more information about the Sholem 296 extensions visit:  http://jec2.chez.com/librarie.htm#Scholem

6 They are Jews from Iran who moved to Los Angeles in 1976. 

7  See http://is.biu.ac.il/en/node/1149 for more information.  The program teach several kinds of information professionals including librarians and knowledge managers.

All pictures were taken by the author.

A Trip to Beit El

View from the observation area of Beit El looking toward Jerusalem.

I should have read my Tanah (Bible) before my visit to modern Beit El because this journey begins with the story of Jacob’s dream.  On August 15, 2012 I visited the Beit El[1] Winery in the town of Beit El, Israel.  

The modern town is about 10 miles from Jerusalem and has a large military base just outside of town. Many soldiers were on the bus with me and I conversed with the one who sat next to me. The bus journey took about 2 hours because of the wait for connections and a circuitous route.

When Ya’akov went from Beer-sheva toward Haran he rested for the night and that was where he had his dream of angels going up and down a ladder.  When he awoke he called the place, Beit-El (Genesis 28:11-21).  Beit-El is mentioned 67 times in the Tanach.[2] My tour began at a place called, “Jacob’s Dream.”   The area was occupied before the time of Jacob.  Today there is evidence of threshing floors, homes, a commercial olive press, and commercial winery.  Based on the size of the vessels in ruins, farmers from a large area brought their produce for processing.

The olive oil factory.  The ceiling has a black stain which could be soot or mold. 

This area was a crossroads for travelers from Nablus on their way to Jerusalem.  The modern town of Beit El started in 1977[3] and in September 1997 was granted local council status.  In 2009 they had 5300 residents. Beit El is just east of the Arab town Al-Bireh (population 39,000)

In 1838 Edward Robinson a Bible scholar from Union Theological Seminary identified the village of Beitin as the Biblical Beit El.[4]  Robinson had no doubt that Beitin and Beit El are the same place. He said that distance from Beitin to Al-Bereh was about 45 minutes and to Jerusalem about 3 hours on horseback.[5]   Robin claimed the site was 12 Roman miles (11.04 U.S. miles) from Jerusalem. Until Robinson reported this site, the tradition of the connection to the ancient Beit El and the current site was lost to residents and scholars.

In 1927 William F.Albright made his first archeological dig at Beth El and reported his findings in “A Trial Excavation in the Mound of Bethel” in  Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 29 (Feb., 1928), pp. 9-11.  Albright wanted to prove with archeological evidence that the Israelite town of Beit El was

indeed the site of the Arab town of Beitin.  Albright dates the first occupation of Beit El before 1800 B.C.E. (ibid.. p. 10)

In the summer of 1934 Albright returned to Beit El for a more comprehensive dig on the site.  He reports on this dig in “The First Month of Excavation at Bethel” in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 55 (Sep., 1934), pp. 23-25 and “The Kyle Memorial Excavation at Bethel quick view” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 56 (Dec., 1934), pp. 1-15.

It is clear from Abright’s pictures and descriptions that I did not see the site he excavated but I was very close.  Albright (ibid p. 11) states that Bethel and the city Ai fell into Israelite hands in the late 13^th century B.C.E. about the same time as Jericho.  This is very close to the dating from internal Biblical evidence and the excavations of Jericho reported by John Garstang[6] in 1941.  My guide showed me the native trees and said that the same trees existed in Biblical times.  I was viewing a site with a direct Biblical connection.

These are grape vines owned by the modern Beit El winery.  They are remainders that the grape industry is very old in this area.

Fermentation tanks.

The finished product of this journey is this bottle of wine from the Beth El Winery[7].  I thank my guide, the owner of Beit El Winery, Hillel Manne, for his hospitality and for showing me an aspect of Israel that intimately connects present day  to the Torah.

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[7] Visit their home page for more information:  http://www.beitelwinery.com.  This is a small winery that produces about 12,000 bottles per year.  They frequently sell out very quickly.  Bottles are sold in the New York/New Jersey area, but I don’t think they are sold in the Chicago area.

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[6]  “The Story of Jericho: Further Light on the Biblical Narrative” in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures , Vol. 58, No. 4 (Oct., 1941), pp. 371

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[3]  Since the town didn’t exist when the Encyclopedia Judaica (1971) was published, the article just deals with the archeology of the place.  This is a prime reason to keep old reference books.

[4] .Robinson’s trip was the basis for his book, Biblical Researches in Palestine and Adjacent Countries (London : Crocker and Brewster, 1841) for which he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1842. Robinson's Arch in the Old City of Jerusalem is named after him.

[5] Biblical Researches in Palestine and Adjacent Countries vol. 1 page 449.   (electronic copy: http://archive.org/details/biblicalresearc06smitgoog)

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[1] I use the English spelling that is on the town’s signs.  Bethel and Beth El are used by other authors.  All pictures were taken by the author.

[2] Only Jerusalem is mentioned more times.  However, Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Torah.

University of Chicago Library Visit

The University of Chicago Library Visit

Mansueto Library  view from behind circulation desk.

Recently a group of librarians visited the new storage facility of the University of Chicago Library called the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library (see their web site for more information. http://mansueto.lib.uchicago.edu/).  In a time when people are asking about the need for print collections, the University of Chicago is making a strong statement that both print and electronic digital collections have a place in the information seeking universe.  While many libraries need off-site storage for their little materials, none have the “near-site” solution that the U of C built.  Off site storage tends to be a self fulfilling prophecy.  Materials are removed from the main stack area and moved to a storage area that has a lower cost to operate.  This is not a new concept – 40 years ago when I was a student page, I visited the off-site warehouse to retrieve books. We had to walk there because it was New York City.  It was so difficult to visit that we only went once a week.

Robotic arm in action

A few years ago the University of Chicago Libraries, which acquires about 150,000 volumes per year, realized that the stacks were getting full.  They needed a solution that would support the need to browse and keep access to little used materials. Their web site (http://mansueto.lib.uchicago.edu/) and an article that appeared in the July 24, 2011 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education (https://chronicle.com/article/A-High-Tech-Library-Keeps/128370/   “A High-Tech Library Keeps Books at Faculty Fingertips—With Robot Help” by  Marc Parry.  The Mansueto Library was built with underground storage for about 3 million volumes. They expect the space will be filled in 18 years.  Businesses have been using robotic storage for many years to retrieve parts, books, or packaged goods.  Mansueto Library is the largest library installation of this kind of robotic searching.  Chicago State University has a smaller version.  While videos are posted of the search arms are posted, seeing the arm in operation is an almost unbelievable experience.  The elegance of a single arm moving up and down on a track that moves the arm along the floor is an amazing show of elegance.   This is a picture of one of the robotic arms in actions.  The elegance of operation makes one feels as if you are in the middle of a science fiction movie.  No video can compare the viewing the arm in action in the context of the rest of the library.

The U of C Library has made a commitment to both print and digital resources.  The new facility has labs for conservation and repair of materials along with scanners, cameras and a studio for digitizing materials.  Routine 8.5 x 11” papers are digitized with desktop scanners while large, valuable or fragile materials are photographed with more complex scanners or in the studio.  Some books will be available on the library’s web site to allow scholars from anywhere to examine them, while the original is stored in a protected environment.

When I told some of my non-librarian friends about this visit some asked, “Do people still use paper books? “  Others said, “I love the touch and feel of books.”  This summarizes the two extremes.  Electronic resources augment and complement paper resources.  We teach students to use both tools.  Another person asked about the future of libraries.  They should be asking about the future of information services. Libraries will have to continuously change to meet the needs of their users.  Hopefully the vendors will not force changes that are unneeded and unwanted.

This summer I have been cataloging an historical collection of LP records. At one time mono and stereo records could not be played on the same equipment.  Records were published in mono and stereo versions. Eventually the records producers learned how to manufacture records and playback equipment that would work on both media. I was amused to see many records have the comment: “Your record will never become obsolete.”  While most of the music published today is digital, a few people still like the warmth of the sound from vinyl records.  While most of the music recordings have been reissued in CD format, many of the spoken word and instructional records will never be reissued. Some of the records from small publishers and little known artists will never be reissued.  This collection will be a valuable asset to our historical collections.

The record industry had many challenges.  In the 1920’s Bell Laboratories experimented with the first stereo recordings.  Some orchestras and their conductors refused to participate in any kind of recordings because they thought records would diminish concert attendance.  Other conductors saw recordings as an opportunity to reach new audiences and have new forms of income. 

The future of libraries is to serve the reader with information in a timely manner – in print, non-print, and digital.  The near-term storage is one answer to keeping materials for future scholars.  Scholars can browse the regular stacks for the most recent or useable materials while some infrequently used materials are only a few minutes away in controlled storage.

The Story of the Two Brothers – Revisited

 

King Solomon wanted to find a place build the Temple. A heavenly voice directed him from Mount Zion to a field that was once owned by two brothers. One of the brothers was a bachelor and the other was blessed with a wife and children. After the harvest each brother was concerned about the other. Under the cover of night the father kept adding to his brother's pile because he reasoned because he thought the bachelor had no children to support him in his old age. The bachelor added to the father's pile because he thought that with so many children his brother needed more grain. The brothers met in the middle of the field and embraced. This field, a manifestation of brotherly love, King Solomon reasoned this was best site for the Temple.[1]

In 1997, before Google searches and the wide-spread of digitalization out-of-print, a faculty member came into the library with a question about the source of the story about two brothers.  He was very learned in Talmud and other rabbinic sources, but his couldn’t find the source of the story.  He said that the story is so old that it must be from the rabbis. He thought that he remembered it from the Talmud, but couldn't quite remember the source. He wanted my help to find the source.

This article is both an update to the original and an examination of sources I didn’t have available then. 

The 1997 article is one of my most popular because it illustrates how people use stories without understanding their origins. I have referred people to this article because the Two Brothers story is so widely known.  In a recent rabbi’s sermon, the rabbi presented this story as if it was an old Jewish story.  Indeed it is a great example of familial love, honor and respect and how a place can have the honor of commemorate that story. The use of stories is an important part of speeches and sermons.  However, one can not represent a story for something it is not.

If a story is written as a parable to illustrate a point and if you claim the story has ancient, royal roots, it adds credence.   For example at the Yom Tov dinner table one guest told a story about a king who had a daughter who was so special that she was not allowed to have any contact with men before her wedding day. It took a long time for the king to find a groom who would marry the daughter without ever meeting her.  People at the table kept interrupting the storyteller saying, “That is terrible!”  “How can the king be so mean?”  The people listening were impatient.  The story was a parable.  It never happened, but was created to illustrate a point.  The king found a groom.  After the couple got to know each other, the groom asked for another wedding celebration, because at the first one he couldn’t fully understand the love of his life.  If the people listening to the story would have been patient, they would have learned the point to the story was that love is learned and does not happen by accident.

This story of brotherly love contrasts to the stories of brotherly rivalry such as the stories of: Cain and Abel, Yitzhak and Ishmael, Ya’akov and Esau, and Joseph and his brothers.  A story of brotherly love is rare.  There is a 2300 year old Egyptian tale of two brothers; the younger, conscientious one is accused by his older brother of a proposal of adultery against his wife.[2]

The story of the two brothers sounds like it is very old because it mentions King Solomon. (Remember royal and ancient add credence.) Since the events seemingly happened in Biblical times, one should first check the Bible.  The story is not in the Bible.  Since the story happened hundreds of years before the Talmud, one would next reason that the story should be found in the Talmud, Midrash, or other rabbinic literature.

A search of the Talmud and Midrash found nothing. We tried Hebrew and English terms such as “two brothers,” “Temple of Solomon,” and Beit Mikdash but found nothing. We wanted to verify the story to be sure that we weren't imagining the story. We tried Bialik's Sefer HaAgadah[3] and Micha Joseph Bin Gorion's Mimekor Yisrael. [4]

Micha Joseph Bin Gorion retells the story as, “A story of the Temple.”   There are no comments or notes. This story was hard to find because the title does not mention “two brothers.”

We looked in the index of The legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1873-1953). The story is found on page 154 of volume 4. Ginzberg quotes Israel Costa in Mikweh Israel,[5] no. 59 which says that Berthold Auerbach refers to this legend in his [Black Forest] Village Stories[6]. Ginzberg further speculates that the author may have been drawing upon an oral tradition from the Jews of Russia or Germany. The legend seems to be a midrashic exposition of Psalm 133:1 (How good and how pleasant that brothers dwell together.). Ginzberg is not sure of the source. I was unable to verify the reference that Ginzberg made to Black Forest Village Stories, however I found another reference in a book about Berthold Auerbach[7] (1812-1882)  written by Anton Bettelheim (1851-1930.)   He remembers his mother (died 1852) telling him the story saying that she learned if from a rabbi who was her father’s neighbor.

In Zev Vilnay's Legends of Jerusalem on page 77, he says that Israel Kosta (Mikwah Israel, 1851) relates a story of the two brothers. Vilnay says the legend first appears in the description of travels by Alphonse de Lamartine, Voyage en Orient, I, 1875.[8]

Both Vilnay and Ginzberg are unsure of the exact origin of the legend. The story is definitely not from Biblical or Rabbinic times. It may be a variant on a Russian or French non-Jewish legend. 

Compare this to the evidence in Tanakh (Bible). In II Chronicles 3:1 it says that Solomon built the Temple on Mount Moriah, which was revealed to David. Moriah is connected to Akedat Yitzhak (sacrifice of Isaac). Midrash Tehilim connects Adam and Noah to Mount Moriah. The site had kedushah [holiness] long before the time of King Solomon. This conflicts with the legend of two brothers.

Here are some additional published versions of the story.

Glass, Meredith A.  A tale of two brothers: a retelling of a Jewish folktale for young children.  New York, Bank Street College of Education, 1998.

Hebrew folklore from sidrach stories / edited by Steven M. Rosman. New York, UAHC Press, 1989 p. 19-20.
Smith, Cris, One city, two brothers. Cambridge, MA, Barefoot Books, 2007.

 “A tale of two brothers” in Stories Seldom Told: Biblical stories retold for children & adults / by Lois Miriam Wilson. Wood Lake Publishing Inc., 1997 p 55-56.  

“The two brothers” in The World Over story book / edited by Norton Belth.  New York, Bloch Publishing Company, c1952 p. 10-12. 

The answer to the bibliographic quest is the legend is not rabbinic and even goes against Biblical and rabbinic evidence. There is no recorded evidence of the story before 1835, however, by the time Ginzberg wrote his Legends of the Jews the story was well known. There is weak evidence that the legend is from Russian Jewish sources. We also learn that bibliographic references must be verified since Ginzberg and Vilnay made mistakes recording the titles of books. This is not the final word on the source of the legend because I have not yet located any sources of similar French, Russian or German legends. From this quest we learn that we should be careful about what we call ancient, Biblical, Talmudic or rabbinic.

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[1] Sources for fuller versions of this story are listed end the end of this article.  

[2] The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures / edited by  James Bennett Pritchard, Daniel E. Fleming.  Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2010 p. 11.  (Page 12 in the 1958 edition.)  The British Museum web site has a summary of the story.   British Museum site has a picture of the papyrus scroll with the story : http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/s/sheet_from_the_tale_of_two_bro.aspx

[3] Full reference:  Bialik, Ḥayyim Naḥman. ספר האגדה : מבחר האגדות שבתלמוד ובמדרשים == Sefer ha’Agadah : mivḥar ha’agadot shebi-Talmud. vibamidrashim.  Tel Aviv, Diver, 1967 (and other dates)  English translation: The book of legends : sefer ha-aggadah : legends from the Talmud and Midrash   New York : Schocken Books,  1992.

[4] Mimekor Yisrael : classical Jewish folktales. Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1976.  Vol. 1 page 491-492, no. 270.

[5] Vilnay spells the name as “Kosta”.  Full reference: Costa, Israel.  Sefer Mikveh Yisrael : ve-hu sefer sipure musar le-ḥanekh et ha-nearim …  Livorno : Belforte, 1851.

[6] The book has several stories about brothers.  In one story the brothers are feuding over the estate of their mother.  They reconcile and live in peace on harmony the rest of their lives.  In another the brothers always helped each other.  In the last scene of the story the majesty of God’s glory descends on them.

[7]  Bettelheim, Anton, Berthold Auerbach; der Mann, sein Werk, sein Nachlass.  Stuttgart, Cotta, 1907 p. 13-14.  May be read on the Internet  Archive:  http://archive.org/details/bertholdauerbac00bettgoog

[8] Vilnay says that the story is on page 329 of the 1875 edition, but I was unable to locate this edition.  The book is a report of an 1832 journey that included the land of Israel, first published in Paris in 1835. I found via the Internet Archive (http://archive.org/details/apilgrimagetoho00lamagoog)  an 1848 English translation published by D. Appleton and Company.  The title page is the picture at the beginning of this article. After the story de Lamartine comments on page 284:

 What a lovely tradition! How it breathes the unaffected benevolence of patriarchal morals! How simple, primeval  and natural is the inspiration leading men to consecrate to God a spot  on which virtue has germinated  upon earth!  I  have heard heard among the Arabs a hundred of such legends. The air of the Bible is breathed  in all parts of this Earth.

This was a widely circulated book in both the original French and translations.  Note that the story is identified as Arab, not Jewish.

In Studies in Jewish and World Folklore by Haim Schwartzbaum (Berlin, Walter DeGruyter, 1968)  on page 462 are listed more sources.  Schwartzbaum says that the story appeared in the Arabic book of legends, Kalib wa-Dimnah in the prologue attributed to Abdallah ibn Al-Muqaffa (died circa 760).   I was not able to find an English translation of this book online or in an accessible library.

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Note:  Nov. 1, 2015  

This article seems to have a lasting effect on people  I was at a lecture this morning and I introduced myself to the person next to me.  He said that he knew me because he has often referred people to this article.