Midrasha Abrabanel

The uses of Sefarad, part 2: Midrash Abrabanel

I am spending the day at the Jewish National Library at Givat Ram in Jerusalem. Thankfully the high-ceiling reading rooms with their tall, straight windows and neat desks with individual lamps have not changed at all since I was last here about eighteen years ago. The main entrance, however has had a nice makeover, more open, more light and on both sides one can enjoy interesting visual presentations- to the left a collection of captivating photographs entitled the "Readers" based on the photographer Aliza Aurbach's photos of readers -scholars, students, librarians- at the national library and to the right there is a  time line of the history of the National Library with some evocative photographs. The first photograph shows a snapshot of the buzzing activity at the "jsjsajsj midrasha abrabanel". The right bottom corner of the frame is filled with a newspaper on a rod, in the style of the grand old world hotels; as one moves up the image there are rows of tables with books, men of differing religious persuasions reading and often talking about what they are reading and moving about. This curiously named library would soon enough be the basis for the National Library, so named at the :: Zionist Congress.

In this instance I would like to know more about the name- Beit Sefarim Midrash Abrabanel. Why Midrash? and why name it after the 15th century Iberian exegete, philosopher, courtier, financier and Jewish communal leader? Were there already too many related institutions named after the Rambam?
Again- we are always searching for models- even when we break down the old we want to remake it as the best of our past! Abrabanel would embody the ideal of sophistication, reason and worldliness coupled with a deep commitment to the jewish people. Although he could have arranged a safe space for his family to stay in Spain he chose the path of exile and left with his people. He had to remake himself several times after his arrival in Italy but he never gave up on the power of the Jewish people ot persevere. For those European Jews who were at once committed to science, progress and cosmopolitanism and at the  same time felt a sense of Jewish peoplehood and pride in the Jewish cutltural tradition Zionism provided an uneasy but potent synthesis if the universal, the secular and the Jewish.  Could it be tha this small library on shshsh street needed to reflect this synthesis- or dialectic and thus they needed a invoke a figure whose worldliness coexisted with his loyalty and dedication to his people.