Hopes and Dreams of “Modern Africa”, 1960-1965: Selected Photographs from The Marc & Evelyne Bernheim Collection

A new exhibition is currently on view in Knox Hall, 2nd Floor Hallway, 606 West 122nd Street, New York. Open to Columbia affiliates only. Curated by Dr. Yuusuf Caruso, African Studies Librarian, Columbia University, and co-sponsored by The Institute of African Studies and Columbia University Libraries. This exhibition is just a very small sample from […]

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Writing in Spanish and Portuguese among the Dutch: Jewish Sephardim in Amsterdam

In 1892, Temple Emanu-el, a Jewish Reform congregation in New York City, donated a collection of rare Judaica books and manuscripts to Columbia University. Richard James Horatio Gottheil, the son of Temple Emanu-el’s rabbi and Columbia’s newly established professor of Rabbinical Literature (his title would change many times over the next few decades) was instrumental […]

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Finding the women in Columbia’s Judaica collections

When searching for women in early manuscript collections, it may seem as if they are only found without agency; adjacent to the men in their lives.  However, when I began looking for traces of women in Columbia’s rare Judaica collection, I was delighted to discover that they have a presence throughout the collections. I began […]

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Summer Processing of Hebraica and Judaica materials

During the summer, as things quiet down on campus, we often turn to large processing projects, providing further access to many of our otherwise unknown holdings.  This summer has been no different in the Hebraica and Judaica collections.  In past years, our talented students have cataloged about 2000 rare printed Hebrew books, which can now, […]

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The Muslim World Manuscript Project

How do archives get activated? The Muslim World Manuscript Project at the Columbia University Libraries On the shore where Time casts up its stray wreckage, we gather corks and broken planks, whence much indeed may be argued and more guessed…. Anonymous   One question that fascinates me is how the power of archives gets activated. […]

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