Sotheby’s auction house is offering what experts consider the world’s most important private library of Hebrew books and manuscripts.

And Sotheby’s Vice chairman David Redden says the “glory” of the New York auction is the first printing of the Talmud, from the 1520’s in Venice.

11,000 items are going on sale, collected by a London diamond dealer.

They document life in the Jewish diaspora from Europe and Africa to Asia, spanning a millennium.

A dozen treasures from the collection will go on the auction block December 22nd, including a Hebrew Bible from 1189, said to be the only surviving “dated” Hebrew manuscript written before the Jews were expelled from England in 1290.