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Jewish Studies Resources

Last Updated: 8-May-2013

Jewish Studies Resources at Stanford: Judaica and Hebraica Collections

 

Subject Librarians

Zachary Baker, in the outdoor passageway between Green Library and the School of Education.
Zachary M Baker
Assistant University Librarian for Collection Development - Humanities and Social Sciences, Reinhard Family Curator of Judaica and Hebraica Collections
Cecil H. Green Library
(650) 724-2736 (650) 725-1054
Anna M Levia
Assistant Curator, Judaica & Hebraica Collections
Cecil H. Green Library
(650) 736-1306

Subjects

Images
Manuscripts and archives
Rare books
History
Language and linguistics
Religious studies
Jewish studies
Hebraica
Judaica

Related guides

Holocaust Studies
Israeli Art
Jewish Education
Religious Studies
Tel Aviv History
Visual History Archive: Testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses
Yiddish

Around Stanford

Judaica and Hebraica Collections (from the previous Stanford University Libraries website)
Taube Center for Jewish Studies

Overview

The Judaica and Hebraica Collections in the Stanford University Libraries support research and instruction in all aspects of Jewish Studies:  history; literature; linguistics; cultural studies; and contemporary social, political and cultural developments in the United States, Israel and throughout the world.


Hebraica refers to materials in the Hebrew alphabet (in the Hebrew, Yiddish or Ladino languages, for example), while Judaica encompasses materials on Jews and Judaism, written in other languages. The Judaica and Hebraica collections at Stanford include particularly extensive coverage of the following areas:



  • Hebrew and Yiddish literature,

  • Hebrew language and linguistics,

  • Jewish cultural, economic, political, social, religious history and material culture.

Chronological Periods:


Ancient and Medieval: Core resources in all relevant fields: Biblical, Rabbinic, and medieval treatises, commentaries, and exegesis.


Eighteenth to twenty-first century collections focus on religious, social, economic, and cultural aspects of Jewish life; political and social emancipation of Jews in Western and Eastern Europe; and the emergence of Zionism and the founding of the State of Israel.

Jewish Studies databases

Encyclopedias; dictionaries; periodicals; and more.

› See all 35 results
  1. Oxford bibliographies online. Jewish studies [electronic resource]

    editor in chief: David Biale. 2009

    Offers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on Jewish studies. Bibliographies are browseable by subject area and keyword searchable.

  2. Reshimat ma'amarim be-madaʻe ha-yahadut

    SAL3 (off-campus storage) » Stacks » Z6367 .R43 ...

  3. Jewish women [electronic resource] : a comprehensive historical encyclopedia

    Jewish Women's Archive. 2009

    "This encyclopedia seeks to make available to all who are interested in Jewish history and culture the varied accomplishments of Jewish w...

  4. Historical Jewish press [electronic resource].

    "This site contains a collection of Jewish newspapers published in various countries, languages, and time periods."

  5. Index to Jewish periodicals

    Green Library » InfoCenter (non-circulating) » Z6367 .I5 ...

Hebrew language

Selected resources for Hebrew learners

Shaʻar la-matḥil.
[Yerushalayim] : ha-Maḥlaḳah le-ḥinukh mevugarim be-Miʹsrad ha-ḥinukh ṿeha-tarbut.
Green Library » InfoCenter: newspapers (non-circulating) » NEWSPAPER

A weekly newspaper in simplified Hebrew.

Milon rav-milim [electronic resource].
[Tel Aviv, Israel] : Melingo

A comprehensive Hebrew-English/English-Hebrew dictionary that covers all strata of the Hebrew language, from Biblical to current Israeli slang. Includes linguistic tools that can find and retrieve any of Hebrew's 70 million inflected forms, in addition to other grammatical functions.

A reference grammar of modern Hebrew / Edna Amir Coffin, Shmuel Bolozky.
Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Green Library » Stacks » PJ4567.3 .C63 2005
Modern Hebrew : an essential grammar.
3rd ed. New York : Routledge, 2005.
Green Library » Stacks » PJ4567.3 .G58 2005

Hebrew fiction

The Stanford University Libraries acquire virtually all of the Hebrew fiction published in Israel.  Here's a list of titles received during the past year.

› See all 146 results
  1. מחצית היום : נגיב מחפ'וז, יצירה, מפגשים, תרגומים

    ששון סומך. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » PJ7846 A46 Z85 2012

  2. ניתוץ מיתוסים בסיפורת הישראלית

    יוסף אורן. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » PJ5021.2 .O74 2012

  3. גחליליות

    גילית חומסקי. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » PJ5055.23 .O48 G34 2012

  4. פליטת הפה של מירי דהן

    שמואל פרץ. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » PJ5055.37 .E7 P45 2012

  5. רצפת חול

    אורית גרוס. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » PJ5055.22 .R823 R5 2012

  6. אש במדרון

    ישראל המאירי. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » PJ5054 .H272 E76 2012

  7. בית על הגב

    צילה שלם. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » PJ5055.41 .A415 B39 2012

  8. עיניים כחולות מדי

    מירה מגן. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » PJ5055.34 .A36 E558 2012

Israeli cinema

Most patrons can check out 3 items at a time, for 3 days each. 

› See all 203 results
  1. The great book robbery [videorecording]

    a co-production [of] 2911 Foundation [and] Xela Films in association with Al Jazeera English. 2012

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 29809

  2. הערת שוליים

    סרטו של יוסף בידר. 2012

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 28551

  3. נמס בגשם

    סרטו של דורון ערן. 2012

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 28673

  4. הסיפור של יוסי

    סרטו של איתן פוקס. 2012

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 29701

  5. Human resources manager [videorecording]

    produced with the suppport of The Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts-Cinema Project, The Jerusalem Film and Television Fund, Mittledeutsche Medienforderung, CNC Romania; in co-production with ZDF/Arte; co-produced by Pallas Film, EZ Films, Hai Hui Entertainment, Pie Films; a 2-Team Productions production; an Eran Riklis film. 2011

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 26066

  6. לא רואים כלום =‏ ‏Invisible /‏

    ‏A production of Plan B and Michal Aviad. 2011

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 28677

  7. A matter of size [videorecording]

    directors, Sharon Maymon, Erez Tadmor ; writers, Sharon Maymon, Danny Cohen-Solal. 2011

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 27342

Rare books and manuscripts: Collections of note

The Taube-Baron Collection of Jewish History and Culture


The Taube-Baron Collection is the cornerstone of the Stanford University Libraries’ Jewish Studies holdings. Comprising 20,000 volumes from the personal library of Professor Salo Wittmayer Baron (1895-1989) of Columbia University, the collection was purchased in December 1985. In 1990, shortly after Prof. Baron’s death, the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Foundation donated his extensive personal papers to Stanford (M0580). Salo Baron was the author, among other things, of the 18-volume Social and Religious History of the Jews. He held the first Jewish History chair established in a major American university (1930-1963). His library includes Hebrew editions of the Bible dating from the 15th century, rare volumes of Jewish literature and history from Eastern Europe and around the world, works on Jewish Americana, Jewish anthropology and sociology, and thousands of pamphlets and journals. It also includes Baron's own publications. Approximately 1,000 printed volumes and manuscripts in the Taube-Baron Collection are housed in Special Collections together with other rare books; the rest of the books belong to the circulating collections of the Stanford University Libraries.


The Baron collection was acquired with the generous support of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Marin and Sonoma Counties, and the family of Tad Taube.


To find online records for these items in SearchWorks, use the keywords “Taube Baron.”

The Samson / Copenhagen Judaica Collection


The Samson / Copenhagen Collection includes close to 2,000 works printed in over 115 locations from 1517 to 1939. The books in the Samson Collection belonged to the Jewish Community of Copenhagen, Denmark, until the early 1980s, when they were purchased by Herman R. Samson, a native of Copenhagen. The collection was acquired by Stanford in 2003, with a lead grant from the Koret Foundation and funding assistance from the Jewish Community Endowment Fund and private donors.


Books in the Samson / Copenhagen Collection cover a wide range of topics, including Bible and Talmud texts and commentaries, Jewish law and ritual, Jewish liturgy, rabbinical responsa, treatises on Jewish law (halakhah), scientific works in Hebrew, kabbalah, apologetics, bibliography, the sciences, ephemeral publications relating to the Jewish communities of Denmark and other Northern European countries, and even poetry. About half of the books were printed before 1800 in places as far flung as Amsterdam and Calcutta. Enhancing their value for research, many of the volumes contain handwritten, marginal notations by rabbis and other scholars. The collection also contains a small number of manuscripts documenting religious life in Denmark’s small but influential Jewish community.


To find online records for these items in SearchWorks, use the keywords “Samson Copenhagen."

Rifat N. Bali ephemera collection relating to Jews in Turkey, circa 1942-2008.
Special Collections » Manuscript Collection » M1455
Wedding and Bar Mitzvah invitations, holiday greeting cards, commemorative religious objects, posters, calendars, files of memorabilia and documents. Accession 2005-369 includes photograph albums, advertisement leaflets, magazines, posters, passports, and ephemera. Accession 2006-114 contains photocopies of papers relating to Hopital National Israelite Or-Ahaim. Accession 2006-116: "Yarinin vizyonu projesi, " 2005. Accession 2006-123: Limmud Kultur Festivali. Accession 2006-124: Kirim Karai Turkleri : typed reprint of Turk Yili, 1928, 24 p.. Cartons 10, 11, 12, and 15 contain correspondence, documents, and photographs belonging to members of the Gershon family. Sisters Germaine Gershon and Marcelle Schindler, along with their brother Rene Gershon, were part owners of the Camondo Han, a landmark apartment building in the predominantly Jewish Galata neighborhood of Istanbul. Many of the documents relate to this rental property. Of particular interest are documents and correspondence from the period during and directly after the Second World War. There are multiple documents asserting that Marcelle Schindler, her husband, and Germaine Gershon were Christian, and that Rene Gershon was Muslim. Rene Gershon spent the war years in Paris and was arrested by the Germans just three weeks before the liberation of France. Germaine Gershon's correspondence from the period 1944-1948 documents her efforts to locate her brother. Rene Gershon was not heard from after being sent to the Drancy concentration camp; he apparently perished in Bergen Belsen.
Philip Spiegel research papers relating to the campaign for free emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union, circa 1950-2008.
Special Collections » Manuscript Collection » M1649
Primarily research notes and interviews made in conjunction with the book project, TRIUMPH OVER TYPRANNY; THE HEROIC CAMPAIGNS THAT SAVED 2,000,000 SOVIET JEWS. Included are files relating to the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews, mid-1980s and later.
Salo Wittmayer Baron papers, ca. 1900-1980.
Special Collections » Manuscript Collection » M0580
The professional papers of the twentieth century's preeminent scholar of Jewish History.
Secular Yiddish Schools in North America collection, 1919-2007.
Special Collections » Manuscript Collection » M0732
A collection formed by the efforts of Gella Schweid Fishman with support from The Friends of the Secular Yiddish Schools in North America (SYSNA). Materials include curricula, newsletters, instruction books, song books, school board minutes, photographs, newsclippings, memoirs, ephemera and correspondence. Accession 2011-166 (8.5 manuscript boxes) contains correspondence about the collection.
Ira Nowinski photograph collection, ca. 1965-2004
Special Collections » Manuscript Collection » MSS PHOTO 440
Ira Nowinski is an American photographer of Polish and Hungarian Jewish descent. Born ca. 1942 and raised in New York, he was the first person in his family born in the United States. At the age of 42, he was prodded by opera singer Regina Resnick to do a photo essay around the Jewish milieu. He had previously done photo essays of the North Beach, San Francisco, area, of the evacuation of elderly citizens from hotels in the South of Market area of San Francisco, and of the Southeast Asian Community in the same city. In addition, he had been the staff photographer of the San Francisco Opera since 1978. Working first with Resnick and then with Seymour Fromer of the Judah L. Magnes Museum, Rhonda Abrams of the Anti-Defamation League, Anita Friedman of Jewish Family & Children's Services, and the Northern California Board of Rabbis, Nowinski began documenting the Jewish experience in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of his first projects was to document Soviet Jews who had immigrated during the 1970's and 1980's. He also photographed the Karaite Jewish Community in Foster City. The Karaites were a Jewish community that had lived for nearly 500 years in Egypt. The Arab-Israeli war resulted in the expulsion of the Jews from Egypt at the conclusion of that conflict. Many subsequently immigrated first to Israel and then to Northern California. Nowinski retraced their migration route in reverse, first photographing Karaites in Foster City, California, then in Israel, and finally in Egypt. Nowinski and Sybil Milton of the U.S. Holocaust Museum did a joint work on the Holocaust Memorials throughout Europe, Israel, and in the United States. This work, entitled "In fitting memory : the art and politics of Holocaust memorials" combined text provided by Milton with Nowinski's photographic essay of the monuments documenting the millions of Jews who lost their lives under the Nazi regime.
Jewish life in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1981-2010.
Special Collections » Manuscript Collection » M0939
The collection documents non-traditional Jewish life in the Bay Area, especially newsletters and announcements from various organizations. There are also liturgical creations around life-cycle events. For example, there are AIDS memorial ceremonies, adult bar-mitzvot, gay and lesbian ceremonies and celebrations. There are also three folders from Susie Kisber who collected gay and lesbian material from a wider geographical sphere. Some related material is cataloged separately and may be found by searching subject words "Jewish life in the San Francisco Bay Area."
Haim Perl papers relating to Bene Berak, circa 1920-1945.
Special Collections » Manuscript Collection » M1576
Most of the documents relate to Haim Perl, one of the founders of Bene Berak, and the rest to his son, Eliezer Perl, who was the Council Secretary of Bene Berak in the 1940s. His great-grandson, the late journalist, Daniel Pearl, was a graduate of Stanford University. Bnei Brak was founded as an agricultural settlement in 1924 by Rabbi Yitzchok Gerstenkorn and a group of Polish Hasidim. Due to a lack of land many of its founders turned to other occupations and the village began to develop an urban character. It gained official recognition in 1950. In 2006 the city had a population of about 147,100 residents, the majority of whom are Haredi Jews. It now has the largest population density of any city in Israel, with 20,076 inhabitants per square kilometer. Documents regarding land acquisition, financial affairs of the House and Landowners Society during Mr. Perl's presidency, political meetings, member lists, election platform drafts and several parties' campaign placards (probably from 1939), disassembly documents of "Bayit ve-Nachala" society (around 1945), some newspaper issues and brochures regarding Bene Berak affairs, invoices, receipts, share certificates, loan and mortgage papers, debt doumentations, financial contracts and rental agreements.
Eisig Silberschlag papers, c. 1910-1989.
Special Collections » Manuscript Collection » M1479 BOX 3
Eisig Silberschlag was born in 1903 in the city of Stryy, located in what is now Ukraine. In 1925 he received a doctorate from the University of Vienna, and, over the course of his long career, was considered an authority in the field of Hebrew literary criticism. Silberschlag was an accomplished poet who translated Aristophanes and Menander from Greek into Hebrew. In 1944 he joined the faculty of Hebrew College of Boston and was named dean in 1947. In the late 1960s, his title was changed to president. In 1951, Silberschlag won the Tschernichowsky Prize of the Municipality of Tel Aviv for his translations of the comedies of Aristophanes. He also received the Florence Kovner Memorial Award in 1971 for a book of poems, LETTERS TO OTHER GENERATIONS. After his retirement from Hebrew College in 1970, he moved to Austin, Texas, where he was appointed professor of Judaic studies at the University of Texas. He died in Austin in 1988.

Sephardica

Reference works

The Cambridge history of Judaism / edited by W.D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein.
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1984-
Green Library » Stacks » BM155.2 .C35 V.1
Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic world / executive editor, Norman A. Stillman; editors, Phillip I. Ackerman-Lieberman ... [et al.].
Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2010.
Green Library » HASRC (Lane Room) (non-circulating) » DS135 .L4 E53 2010 V.1
Jewish women [electronic resource] : a comprehensive historical encyclopedia / Jewish Women's Archive.
Brookline, MA : Jewish Women's Archive,
Maʻagar ʻade ha-nusaḥ shel ha-Talmud ha-Bavli : ʻa. sh. Sol ṿe-Eṿlen Henḳind = Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud text databank / ha-Makhon le-ḥeḳer ha-Talmud ʻa. sh. Shaʼul Libermanshel Bet ha-midrash le-rabanim be-Ameriḳah.
Yerushalayim : ha-Makhon le-ḥeḳer ha-Talmud ʻa. sh. Shaʼul Liberman shel Bet ha-midrash le-rabanim be-Ameriḳa, [2006-
This database consists of an extraordinary collection of virtually all original documents of the Babylonian Talmud. Such documents include all full surviving manuscripts of Oriental, Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Yemenite provenance; hundreds of complete manuscripts and first printed editions of the Babylonian Talmud; and more than a thousand fragments from the Cairo and European archives. Many of these documents are available both as texts and digital images.

Films

› See all 13 results
  1. Island of roses [videorecording] : the Sephardic Jews of Rhodes in Los Angeles

    SAL1&2 (on-campus shelving) » Use restricted to Green Library » ZVC 18827

  2. Turkish Jews [videorecording] : 500 years of harmony

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 13717

  3. Jews of the Spanish homeland [videorecording]

    the National Center for Jewish Film and Filmoteca Española present, [produced by] Ernesto Giménez Caballero. 1999

    SAL1&2 (on-campus shelving) » Use restricted to Green Library » ZVC 14777

  4. Trees cry for rain [videorecording] : a sephardic journey

    SAL1&2 (on-campus shelving) » Use restricted to Green Library » ZVC 4932

  5. İspanya'dan İstanbul'a Sefarad şarkıları [videorecording] = Sephardic songs from Spain to Istanbul

    Yapımcı-Yönetmen, director ; Mihriban Tanık, producer. 2004

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 26801

Ladino

› See all 973 results
  1. Diksyonaryo Judeo Espanyol-Turko = Ladino-Türkçe sözlük

    Klara Perahya & Karen Gerson Şarhon, ed.. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » PC4813.4 .D55 2012

  2. Estambol Djudyo : una koleksyon de rekuerdos i ilustrasyones = Jewish İstanbul : a collection of memoirs and illustrations

    Roz Kohen. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » DS135 .T83 K65 2012

  3. אוצר הלשון הספניולית (לדינו) לדורותיה : מילון מקיף היסטורי = Trezoro de la lengua Djudeospanyola-Ladino durante todas las epokas

    מאת ד״ר אבנר פרץ. 2012

  4. Sephardic weddings in Izmir [videorecording] : past and present

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZDVD 30004

  5. סדר נשים : סידור תפילות בלאדינו, סלוניקי, המאה השש עשרה

    אורה (רודריג) שורצולד. עם מאמר ׳הלשון ב״סדר נשים״ מאת אלדינה קינטנה. 2012

    Green Library » Stacks » BM674.249 .L3 S26 2012

Music

› See all 102 results
  1. Sones de Sefarad [sound recording] : músicas judías en antiguos instrumentos

    Music Library » Recordings » MCD 10582

  2. Morena [sound recording]

    the Gerard Edery Ensemble. 1999

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » ZCD 1111

  3. The Sephardic experience. V. 2, Apples and honey [electronic resource]

    The Renaissance Players, Winsome Evans. 2004

  4. The Sephardic experience. Volume 1, Thorns of fire [electronic resource].
  5. The Sephardic experience. Volume 3, Gazelle and flea [electronic resource]

    the Renaissance Players, Winsome Evans. 2004

Newspapers

› See all 25 results
  1. La Union : jurnal sionista-sosialista, politiko i literario

    SAL3 (off-campus storage) » In process » DS133 .U55 F ANIO 1:NO.1-2,4-5 1954

  2. La luz de Israel

    SAL3 (off-campus storage) » In process » DS133 .L89 F ANIO 15:NO.1713 1987:MAY 7

  3. El tiempo

    SAL3 (off-campus storage) » In process » DS133 .T536 F 1952:JUL.30

  4. Atikva

    SAL3 (off-campus storage) » Use restricted to Special Collections » DS135 .T8 A85 FF 1947-1949 PHOTOCOPIES

  5. ‏לה לוז‏ ‏[microform] =‏ ‏La Luz

    Green Library » Media & Microtext Center (Lower level) » MFILM N.S. 16594

Turkish Jewry

› See all 274 results
  1. The Turkish Jews : 700 years of togetherness

    Naim Avigdor Güleryüz.. 2009

    Green Library » Stacks » DS135 .T8 G8638 2009

  2. קהילות היהודים בתורכיה

    [מאת] ראובן קשאני. 1978

    Green Library » Stacks » DS135 .T8 K37 1978

  3. La Turquie, les turcs et les juifs : histoire, représentations, discours et stratégies

    Laurent-Olivier Mallet. 2008

    Green Library » Stacks » DS135 .T8 M355 2008

  4. The Jews of the Ottoman Empire

    edited with an introduction by Avigdor Levy. 1994

    Green Library » Stacks » DS135 .T8 J49 1994

  5. The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic

    Stanford J. Shaw. 1991

    Green Library » Stacks » DS135 .T8 S46 1991