A cel­e­bra­tion of the beau­ty of the Hebrew aleph-bet from sacred scrolls to graf­fi­ti.
 
The Beau­ty of the Hebrew Let­ter is unique: there are many art books on Chi­nese let­ter­ing, Roman let­ter­ing, and so on, but this is one of just a few books on the Hebrew let­ter, and what a beau­ti­ful book it is. Cal­lig­ra­ph­er and scribe Izzy Plud­win­s­ki is in love with let­ters, and this love shines through in this extra­or­di­nary, ground­break­ing book. Here you will find exam­ples of Hebrew writ­ing and design from Bib­li­cal times to the present day that show­case the art of let­ter­ing as well as the beau­ty inher­ent in the forms them­selves. Only one who deeply under­stands the for­ma­tion and mean­ing of these char­ac­ters could assem­ble a book of such depth, breadth, and beau­ty. Though firm­ly entrenched in the world of tra­di­tion­al Judaica, Pludwinski’s cal­li­graph­ic pas­sion lies in find­ing ever-new expres­sive forms for the Hebrew aleph-bet — a path that has led him to any­where from font devel­op­ment to Zen-influ­enced abstract Hebrew cal­lig­ra­phy, from sacred scrolls to graf­fi­ti.
 
Why Beau­ty?
 
Beau­ty is not just a sta­t­ic pre­sen­ta­tion of form. Cal­lig­ra­phy is like dance — the strokes that form the let­ters are the embod­ied ges­tures of the mov­ing hand and body. One sens­es the vital­i­ty in the move­ments that under­lie these forms. They make the let­ters come alive, and it is this life­force that res­onates with the view­er.
 
Why Hebrew?
 
In the Midrashic tra­di­tion, the Hebrew let­ter is not sim­ply an arbi­trary sym­bol meant to express a cer­tain sound. There is mean­ing in the shapes them­selves. One devel­ops a rela­tion­ship with each of the let­ters. When one writes them, one respects their indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, on the one hand, and their sense of com­mu­ni­ty, on the oth­er. They belong togeth­er. One way to show this respect is to write them as beau­ti­ful­ly as pos­si­ble, to enliv­en them, to make them shine.
 
With more than two hun­dred illus­tra­tions that span the his­to­ry of the Hebrew aleph-bet over three mil­len­nia, this book will engage, delight, and surprise.