Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Joseph Rosen (1858 – Vienna, 5 March 1936), known as the Rogatchover, (“Genius of Rogachev”), and also often referred to by the title of his main work Tzofnath Paneach (“Decipherer of Secrets”), was the rabbi of the Hasidic community in Dvinsk, Latvia for almost 50 years and one of the most prominent Talmudic scholars of the early 20th-century. He is known as a genius because of his photographic memory and ability to connect sources from the Talmud to seemingly unrelated situations. His manuscripts were smuggled out of Latvia in the form of microphotographs sent via mail to the Safern family in the Bronx NY at the outbreak of the World War II by his daughter Rachel Citron, who had come to Dvinsk to help preserve her father’s manuscripts. She died at the hands of the Nazis as a result. Today, with the help of advanced technology, his writings are photographed in the National Library of Israel, in order to be accessible for research. I want to share with you the process of creating a new digital object that will shed light, from old photographs.