Adding Insult to Injury: Zionist Cultural Colonialism. In response to Gish Amit’s Eḳs libris: hisṭoryah shel gezel, shimur ṿe-nikus ba-Sifriyah ha-leʼumit bi-Yerushalayim (Ex Libris: Chronicles of Theft, Preservation, and Appropriating at the Jewish National Library). Yerushalayim: Mekhon Ṿan Lir bi-Yerushalayim, 2014. 220 p., 79 New Israeli Shekel. ISBN 9789650207069. [Hebrew]

Abstract

The review essay claims that no books plunder was initiated by the National and University Library in Jerusalem, neither with regard to the books of European Jewry found after World War II, nor with regard to the Palestinian books abandoned during the 1948 war, or the Yemenite Jewish books not claimed after their arrival as cargo without owners to Israel.

The essay is a translated and annotated version of Zeev Gries's talk, given in Hebrew at a literary evening in the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute (February 12, 2015), on the occasion of the publication of Gish Amit's book.