Our fall newsletter is live! Click the link below the image for a downloadable PDF with hyperlinks. Newsletter 2019-2 […]
Category: Uncategorized
Summer projects, Part II (Marianna Najman-Franks)
It’s been a busy summer in the Judaica collections at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library! Many collections were processed and are now available for use, thanks to the efforts of some fantastic students. This post, by Marianna Najman-Franks, is the second of a series describing some of the work on our collections this summer. […]
Summer projects, Part I (Yoav Varadi)
It’s been a busy summer in the Judaica collections at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library! Many collections were processed and are now available for use, thanks to the efforts of some fantastic students. This post, by Yoav Varadi, is the first of a series describing some of the work on our collections this summer. […]
NEA Library: Spring 2019 newsletter
The biannual Norman E. Alexander Newsletter is now available! A PDF version of the newsletter, with active hyperlinks, can be found here: Newsletter 2019-1 […]
Digitizing microfilm and a well-used Haggadah
Way back in 2011, the Libraries began a partnership with the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts (IMHM) at the National Library of Israel (NLI) to digitize over 200 manuscripts from our Judaica collection that the IMHM did not have in microfilm. We subsequently posted those manuscript images on a specialized site on the Internet Archive, […]
Purim literature beyond the Book of Esther
In considering the literature relating to the holiday of Purim (due to take place next Thursday), the text that comes to mind instantly is the book of Esther, read on the eve prior and day of the holiday. One with more familiarity to Jewish texts might cite the Talmudic tractate of “Megillah,” which is dedicated […]
Samuel Johnson and Hebrew at Columbia
We’ve discussed the history of Hebrew language study at Columbia in previous posts, but until now, not much has been said about Revered Samuel Johnson’s connection to the study of Hebrew. Samuel Johnson was the founder of King’s College (renamed Columbia after the American Revolution), and its sole faculty member until 1757. He served as president […]
The semester of the Jewish book
Columbia University Libraries exists to support teaching and learning, in the classroom and beyond. This usually occurs in the form of research consultations, classroom presentations on doing research, online research guides, and various other reference interactions. This semester, however, a wonderful partnership between a professor and a librarian gave graduate students a rare opportunity to […]
Gift of c.200 items greatly enhances Judaica collections
At the beginning of 2018, the Norman E. Alexander Library received a generous gift to be added to Columbia’s collections. The gift includes printed and handwritten materials from the 14th to the 20th centuries, and spans the globe, from Djerba to Dresden, from Mantua to Maryland, Jerusalem to Jessnitz, Sydney to Sulzbach, and many more. […]
New Acquisitions: Personal Prayers and Kashrut
According to the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, Tkhines, or “supplications” were a “private devotions and paraliturgical prayers usually in Yiddish, primarily for women, published beginning in the early modern period.” While one of our recent acquisitions definitely falls under the category of Yiddish prayers for women, it was not published, but rather […]