Adventures on the 1 train

Hello from the Old-New computer. Our first trip (mine and the new harddrive's) was to the Jewish Theological Seminary's library, to read up on a not-so-famous French convert. The JTS library could not be more different from NYU's. Rather than being filled with mostly-female undergrads in leggings or skinny jeans, the place is chock full of orthodox Jewish men. For whatever entirely unfair and prejudicial reason, the JTS thus struck me as a better, more serious place to work. Of course, people chat loudly in both libraries, answer cell phones, and otherwise fail to respect the sanctity of the place, but a momentary respite from the Urban Outfitters spring collection can't hurt when one is researching the early 19th century.

I would switch study spots entirely were it not for several factors: 1) The JTS is on 122nd Street, and thus not remotely near school or home. 2) As a non-JTS student, I cannot use the internet, and what with my passion for emailing everything I write to myself as backup, this is a problem. 3) To go read an obscure book about the "Jewish Question" in Old Regime France requires a security check greater than what's needed to get on an airplane in Israel. Because it's a Jewish building, and thus a possible target for attack since (all together now) everyone hates the Jews, not only does a security guard glance at you suspiciously and go through your backpack, but, once this is done, he asks you to empty your pockets and waves a metal detector all around your torso. Seeing as someone (possibly in 1954) already spilled a beverage on the book in question, I don't know quite what problems they thought I would cause. Seeing as school shootings happen all the time at colleges across the nation these days, I doubt if Jewish sites are even that much more statistically at risk. Anyhow, that, plus the Early Modern dress of my fellow researchers, combined to make for a very authentic experience reading about anti-Semitism in pre-Revolutionary Europe.