Exposing the Hidden: Highlights from CUL’s rare printed Hebraica

Happy New Year! December 2016 marked the end of a three year project to catalog Columbia’s rare Hebraica and Judaica collections.  While Columbia has been collecting Judaica since its inception (with a donation from Kings’ College founder Samuel Johnson that included his Hebrew-Latin Psalms), many of the books were left uncataloged due to lack of […]

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Hasidic Autographs in the RBML

Guest post by Avinoam Stillman, CC ’17.  Avinoam, a CC senior, has just completed a project to catalog our rare printed Judaica collection.  The post below is highlights some of Avinoam’s discoveries. Although Columbia’s campus has had its share of Hasidic celebrity since Hasidic pop star Lipa Schmelzer enrolled at GS, maybe the best place […]

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NEA Newsletter, Fall 2016

The live links are available via PDF (Newsletter 2016-2 (PDF)) or below (note that if you’re a regular Jewish Studies @CUL reader, you might find some of them familiar!): Hebrew Grammar textbook.. Kotar Flavius Josephus Online Italian Broadsides in the Digital Library Collections Columbia Hebrew manuscripts in Ktiv NEH announcement of funding for LCAAJ project […]

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Since 1754: The study of Hebrew at Columbia (and a new acquisition)

From its inception in 1754, the founders of Columbia University felt that the study of Hebrew was critical to understanding the classics.  Columbia’s collection includes founder Samuel Johnson’s own copy of a Hebrew-Latin psalms with the Hebrew alphabet written in his own hand. Another professor in the 18th century was Johann Kunze, who taught Hebrew […]

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Italian Jewish Community Broadsides – now digitized!

As posted earlier this year, we had acquired 40 broadsides and other pamphlets containing regulations pertaining to the Italian Jewish community.  I am pleased to announce that these pamphlets have now been digitized, and are fully available in Columbia’s Digital Library Collections. Each item is searchable with the first words (in Italian) of the document, […]

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New Acquisition: Kotar (Hebrew e-books from Israeli presses)

A collaboration of leading Israeli publishers, Kotar is a large collection of reference materials, scholarly books, biographies, and other materials related to Israeli and Jewish topics. Kotar aims to provide students, teachers, and scholars with the best sources of information published over the last 50 years in Hebrew, along with an online work environment. Kotar […]

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Conservation and book repair, historical and modern

The Conservation Department at Columbia University Libraries is an often unsung hero of the libraries.  The work of their talented conservators encompasses all areas of the library, and ensures that our collections, both modern and ancient, will endure for years to come. Many times, in a routine conservation activity, hidden aspects of books come to […]

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Save the date! Alexander lecture with Jenna Joselit Weissman, November 1

We are very pleased to announce that Jenna Weissman Joselit, Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of History, and Director of the Program in Judaic Studies at George Washington University will be giving the annual Norman E. Alexander Lecture this year, on November 1, 2016.  The title of the lecture is: “Rock […]

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