Infofiles Index

How to Locate Rabbinic Information Sources in Libraries and Archives

• Canada
• Israel
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Additional Libraries and Archives
• Additional Resources and Links

Since rabbinic genealogy is based primarily on books, it is important to know which repositories contain rabbinic information sources and how to access them. The following is a listing of libraries and archives containing significant Judaic resources. Check for specific items in your local public or academic library's catalogs or ask your librarian about inter-library loan policies.

The Israeli university libraries, Jewish Theological Seminary, Ohio State University, and University of Pennsylvania use a system called ALEPH. This system, from an Israeli company, is a powerful library management system that can catalog and offer public access to books in Latin, Hebrew, Arabic and Cyrillic characters. The systems used by the Library of Congress and OCLC enter Hebrew books in transliteration only. Brandeis University's system over the Internet is in transliteration only. Their local system displays Hebrew characters. (F1) See also: Installing Hebrew fonts on your computer (MS Windows).

Canada

• University of Toronto Libraries | Online Catalog
  • Largest Judaica collection in Canada.

Israel

• Bar-Ilan University Library, Ramat Gan | Online Catalog
  • The computerized catalog includes over 400,000 records. The Library has electronic journals and both full-text and bibliographic databases on CD-ROM, in various languages. The electronic database includes some of the classical texts in the Judaic Classics Library. In addition, one may search the text of Jacob ben Asher's code the Tur; Joseph Caro's Bet Yosef; and 253 books of Responsa covering a period from the 8th century to the present. See also: The Responsa Project.
• Jewish National and University Library, Hebrew University, Givat Ram, Jerusalem | Online Catalog (Web)
  • There are some 3,000,000 volumes of books and periodicals in the Library's holdings, constituting the largest collection of printed Judaica in the world. Thousands of items in special collections include: 1) Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts, and personal archives of outstanding Jewish persons, 2) microfilms of over 90% of known Hebrew manuscripts from libraries throughout the world, and 3) master microfilms of Israeli and Jewish newspapers and periodicals. See also: RAMBI, Index of Articles on Jewish Studies.
• The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem
  • The Archives has rescued and preserved the archival remnants of hundreds of Jewish communities, organizations and public figures from all over the world. The Archives carries out systematic surveys in non-Jewish archives to locate material relating to Jews, so far uncovering millions of documents, some dating back to the 12th century.
• Yad Vashem Library and Archives, Jerusalem
  • Yad Vashem is a repository for all published material about the Holocaust and related subjects. Millions of Pages of Testimony are now available online. The Library contains the largest collection of yizkor books. The Library catalog is computerized but not accessible via Internet. The Israel Genealogical Society has compiled an index to their holdings

United Kingdom

• British Library - Hebrew Collections, London, England | Online Catalog
  • The Hebrew collections comprise the Library's holdings of material written and printed in Hebrew characters, ranging from manuscripts copied over a millennium ago to the present. The collections include around 3,000 manuscript volumes and about 73,000 printed book titles mostly in Hebrew and related languages. There are nearly 1,000 Hebrew and Yiddish periodical and newspaper titles, and considerable numbers of manuscripts, printed books, and periodicals in microforms.
• Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Leopold Muller Memorial Library | Online Catalog
  • One of the best collections of books and periodicals in Jewish studies in Europe.

United States

• American Jewish Historical Society, New York, NY, and Waltham, Massachusetts
  • Consists of approximately 50,000 volumes. The collections consist of encyclopedias, yearbooks, genealogical reference sources, bibliographies, biographical dictionaries, atlases, and finding aids to AJHS archival collections. Collections include family collections with genealogies, the papers of rabbis that include ritual records and mohel books, and records from synagogues from large and medium-sized cities. For detailed information, see: Researching Rabbis at the Center for Jewish History.
• American Sephardi Federation Library and Archives, New York, New York | Online Catalog 
  • The Library contains more than 2,200 books, periodicals, oral histories, and  archival records. It offers comprehensive documentation for the study of Jews tracing their ancestry back to the Iberian Peninsula, or alternatively who came from communities in North Africa, the Middle East, or the Orient.
• Brandeis University Libraries, Waltham, Massachusetts | LOUIS Online Catalog (Web) | LOUIS Online Catalog (Telnet)
  • Judaica Department
• Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah | Online Catalog
  • The collection includes over 2.2 million rolls of microfilmed genealogical records; 742,000 microfiche; 300,000 books, serials, and other formats; and 4,500 periodicals. Selected books, microfilms, and microfiche may be ordered at branch Family History Centers world-wide. See also: Jewish Records in the Family History Library Catalog (a searchable database).
• Harvard University, Widener Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts | Online Catalog
  • The Judaica Division collects materials covering all aspects of Jewish life and culture in every place and period, with particular comprehensive coverage of Jewish life and culture in the State of Israel. Special emphasis is placed on materials in Hebrew, which constitutes the single largest component of the Judaica Collection.
• Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religions Libraries | Online Catalog
  • Klau Library, Cincinnati, Ohio. The Library is the second largest collection of printed Judaica in the world - second only to the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. It contains over 700,000 volumes, among them 150 incunabula, more than 2,000 manuscript codices, and many thousands of pages of archival documents. It also houses the American Jewish Periodical Center, which preserves American Jewish periodicals and newspapers on microfilm. More than 875 titles, with over 12,000,000 pages, are available in the Center.
  • American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio. Includes hundreds of archival-manuscript collections.
• Jewish Theological Seminary Library, New York, New York | Online Catalog
  • The holdings consist of 375,000 volumes representing all areas of Judaica, Hebraica and related subjects. As the largest repository of Hebrew manuscripts in the Western Hemisphere, the Library serves as a worldwide center for scholarly research.
• Leo Baeck Institute, New York, New York | Online Catalog
  • The Institute is a research, study, and lecture center whose library and archives offer the most comprehensive documentation for the study of German Jewish history and includes more than 10,000 archival records, 1,250 memoirs, 60,000 books, and 750 periodicals. Search the Online Catalog by typing the family name or town name into the subject category or browse listings under the subject "rabbis."  For detailed information, see: Researching Rabbis at the Center for Jewish History.
• Library of Congress, The Hebraic Section, Washington, D.C. | Online Catalog
  • The Hebraic holdings include all books of research value in Hebrew and related languages, and a copy of virtually every book and journal of research value published in Israel. Almost 150,000 items are available for examination by researchers and scholars. The collection includes an extensive range of monographs; a broad selection of Hebrew periodicals; and a variety of Yiddish and Hebrew newspapers. Of particular interest to genealogists is the Library's comprehensive collection of Holocaust memorial volumes documenting Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the Second World War, as well as a large collection of rabbinic bio-bibliographical works in Hebrew.
  • NUCMC, or the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, is a free-of-charge cooperative cataloging program operated by the Library of Congress. This page contains a link to the searchable catalog.
• New York Public Library - Dorot Jewish Division, New York, New York | Online Catalog
  • About forty percent of the Division's holdings are in Hebrew characters and the remainder are in other languages, primarily English, German, Russian, and French. The Division is made up of bibliographies and reference works, Jewish Americana, history and social studies, Kabbalistic and Hasidic works, texts by Christian Hebraists, rabbinic responsa, Hebrew and Yiddish literature, and periodicals and newspapers. It contains over 250,000 books, microforms, manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals, and ephemera from all over the world.
• Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies Library Chicago, Illinois | Online Catalog
  • The Library contains more than 105,000 books on virtually every Jewish topic in nearly a dozen different languages.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Library and Archive, Washington, D.C. | Online Catalog
• University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia - Center for Judaic Studies Library | Online Catalog (Web) | Online Catalog (Telnet)
  • The Center for Judaic Studies is the former Annenberg Research Institute, which used to be Dropsie University and Dropsie College.
• Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut | Online Catalog
  • The focus of the 95,000 volume collection includes manuscripts and rare books, covering biblical, classical, medieval, and modern periods of Jewish literature and history.
• Yeshiva University Library, New York, New York | Online Catalog
  • The Mendel Gottesman Library of Hebraica/Judaica houses collections including the fields of Rabbinics, Bible, Jewish history, Jewish philosophy, and Hebrew language. The collection consists of more than 200,000 printed volumes in a variety of languages, dating from the 15th century to the present day. More than 11,000 microform units contain copies of journals, dissertations, rare books, volumes, and several collections of manuscripts on microfilm.
• YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Library and Archive, New York, New York | Online Catalog
  • The Library has information regarding specific cities and towns in Eastern Europe, including encyclopedias, gazetteers, and over 600 yizkor books. The Library owns many biographical directories and lexicons, which will be helpful if your ancestor was fairly well known. The Archives has a collection of thousands of Eastern European photographs on a videodisc, indexed by town and searchable on a computer. It also holds the records of hundreds of landsmanshaftn (Jewish immigrant mutual aid societies based on towns of origin).  For detailed information, see: Researching Rabbis at the Center for Jewish History.
  • Collections:
    • Rabbinical Manuscripts: The Library has a large collection of rabbinical manuscripts in Hebrew, some of which date to the 16th century.
    • Samuel Ephraim Tiktin Papers: It includes several hundred biographies of rabbis compiled for a Universal Rabbinical Biographical Encyclopedia, which was never published. Biographies include rabbis from the United States, Palestine, Poland, Germany, and other countries. (Record Group 495)

Additional Libraries and Archives

• Academic Jewish Studies Internet Directory - links to world-wide Academic Associations, Libraries, Archives, Universities, Research Institutes, and other Internet Resources
• Comprehensive listing of Judaic libraries and archives on the web, world wide
• Judaica Libraries, Archives, and Research Centers, by Princeton University
• List of Judaica library web sites
• Libweb with links to libraries world wide
• Useful Links to Books and Libraries, by Bar-Ilan University

Additional Resources and Links

• HebrewBooks.org: Many American Rabbis wrote seforim (Hebrew books) in the early part of the 20th century. More than 700 entire seforim, including hakdomos (introductions), are available to view and print online.
• Judaica Archival Project, a non-profit, preservation and access program of Machon Mekorot Institute, dedicated to preserving Sifrei Kodesh (Rabbinics).
• MALMAD, Israel Center for Digital Information, (including links to Israeli libraries and OPACs, to the Israel union lists, etc.).
• OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) is a nonprofit membership organization serving 41,000 libraries in 82 countries and territories around the world. It provides access to:
  • WorldCat, containing the merged catalogs of libraries around the world, making it the world's largest database of bibliographic information. Access to WorldCat via OCLC FirstSearch is through libraries only. Ask your local librarian for assistance in accessing WorldCat.
• RAMBI, the index to articles on Jewish studies.
• Articles
  • Librarian's Lobby, by Daniel D. Stuhlman, December 1997.
  • Librarian's Lobby, by Daniel D. Stuhlman, December 1998.

Shirley Rotbein Flaum
Houston, Texas, USA

Footnote

1. "Librarian's Lobby," by Daniel D. Stuhlman, December 1997. (return)