A discovery: the Venice Minhogimbukh.(Yiddish book published in Europe)

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, WHILE LOOKING FOR ILLUSTRATIONS to use in my first Judaica project, The Harvard Hillel Sabbath Songbook, I came across reproductions of several Renaissance woodcuts in an old Jewish encyclopedia. Their source was given as "Sefer minhagim, Amsterdam, 1645." At the time I had reclaimed only enough of my Hebrew school education to know that sefer means "book"; the other word was familiar, but I couldn't quite remember its meaning. To learn more, I would have to see the book. The Harvard libraries had several books with that name or similar names, and still more on…