Archives | Finding Aids | Rare Books & Manuscripts | Sephardic Reference Room
Yeshiva University Archives
Address: Yeshiva University Archives,
500 West 185th St., New York, NY 10033.
Hours: 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM, M - Th., by appointment only.
Contact: Shulamith Z. Berger, Curator of Special Collections, archives@yu.edu,
(212) 960-5451.
Volume: 5,421 linear feet
Number of collections: 381
Dates: 1605 to present
Collections
The Archives holds organizational and institutional records and private papers relating to modern Jewish history and culture in the United States and abroad. As the repository for Yeshiva University records the Archives retains papers of University administrators created in their official capacity, files of the Public Relations Office, and copies of official University and student publications. Correspondence, photographs, audiotapes, architectural drawings, broadsides and ephemera exemplify the types of material in the Collections.
American Jewish history is one of the strengths of the Archives. Papers of prominent lay and rabbinic leaders include those of:
Benjamin Koenigsberg (1884-1975), an Orthodox lawyer who was active in Young Israel, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and Jewish institutions on the Lower East Side. Peter Wiernik (1865-1936), editor of the Jewish Morning Journal and member of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Congregational records include:
Jewish communities overseas are documented in the:
These groups generally conducted their work abroad, and their files document the communities they aided, many of which are no longer in existence. The Central Relief Committee supported Orthodox educational institutions in Eastern Europe and Palestine between the two world wars. Statistical information on many of these schools may be found in the Collection. The Vaad Hatzala, Rescue Children, and the Central Orthodox Committee Collections record rescue efforts during World War II as well as life in orphanages and Displaced Persons camps after the war.
Published GUIDES forselected collections may be obtained from the Archives .
Most of the major collections are described briefly in the YULIS catalog. Searchable digital versions of finding aids to many of the collections are included in the Research Libraries Group’s ArchiveGrid database. (The database is accessible to authorized Yeshiva University students, faculty and staff, and to patrons of other subscribing libraries.)
Rare Books and Manuscripts
The Rare Book Room, a glass-enclosed room on the fourth floor of the Mendel Gottesman Library with a controlled environment, houses the University’s rare books and manuscripts collections.
Books
Approximately eight thousand printed volumes, most of them in Hebrew, are included in the rare collections. The oldest among them, forty Hebrew incunabula, are described in detail, with photographs, in the Hebrew volume Sifre ha-defus ha-rishonim (Inkunabulim): Bet ha-sefarim al-shem Mendel Gottesman, Yeshivah-Universitah by Gershon Cohen (Hebrew Incunabula: Mendel Gottesman Library of Hebraica-Judaica, Yeshiva University) published by Yeshiva University Press in 1984. Many of the rare books were originally part of the library of Berthold Baruch Strauss, a London collector.
To consult a book from the rare collections inquire at the Mendel Gottesman Library’s fifth floor reference desk, Monday through Thursday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Manuscripts
A collection of one thousand one hundred rabbinic and historical manuscripts is housed in the Rare Book Room. Many of the manuscripts are from the library of Louis Lewin (1868-1941), a rabbi in various communities in Posen and Silesia, and a prolific author who wrote extensively about the Jewish communities in those areas.
Four hundred rabbinic manuscripts include works on Jewish law, homiletics, ethics, philosophy, mysticism, commentaries on the Bible and Talmud, and rabbinic correspondence. The lavishly illuminated Prague Bible of 1488 (ms. 1247), by the scribe Mattathias ben Jonah of Laun, Bohemia, a gift of Ludwig and Erica Jesselson, is the jewel of the collection. In addition to the beauty of the manuscript, it is valuable for Rashi’s commentary, which differs from that found in printed editions. The collection of the Rogachover, Joseph Rozin (1858-1936), rabbi of Dvinsk, a gift of William Safern, includes questions posed to Rabbi Rozin from correspondents all over the world (ms. 1142). The rabbinic manuscripts are described in depth in Hebrew, with abridged descriptions in English, in Osef kitve-ha-yad ha-rabaniyim: Sifriyat Mendel Gottesman, Yeshivah-Universitah (Rabbinic Manuscripts: Mendel Gottesman Library, Yeshiva University), by Joseph Avivi, translated by G. Hirshler, trans. condensed and revised by P. Berger (New York: Yeshiva University Library, 1998)
In addition to the Lewin materials, items of note among the historical manuscripts include: records of the Ohole Shem Society of New York, a group founded at the turn of the century in New York City, which was devoted to the study of the Hebrew language and literature; a plan for a rabbinical seminary in Odessa founded by Chaim Tchernowitz in 1907 which was attended by Hayyim Nahman Bialik (ms. 275a); and a minute book of a Psalms Society in the Russian Army, 1864-1867 (ms. 1246). A description of this manuscript, including facsimiles, appears in Psalms for the Tsar by Michael Stanislawski (New York: Yeshiva University Library, 1988). The historic manuscripts are described in the YULIS catalog.
Consultation of manuscripts is by appointment only. Contact Shulamith Berger, Curator of Special Collections, at 212-960-5451 or archives@yu.edu. Most of the manuscripts are available on microfilm and patrons may be requested to use the microfilm copy rather than the original. Manuscripts may be consulted on-site only.
Sephardic Reference Room
The Sephardic Reference Room houses an extensive collection of books, periodicals, and audio materials in Judeo-Arabic, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), Hebrew and English. The majority of the books are listed in the Unified Catalog to the Sephardic Reference Room, which may be consulted in the library (call no. Z6374 S4 Y47 1982). The Ladino newspaper, La Vara, published in New York from 1922 to 1948 has been microfilmed and is available for use on the fifth floor of the Mendel Gottesman Library. Books in the Ladino language may be searched in the YULIS catalog.
The Sephardic audio collection consists of more than six hundred items, most of them not commercially produced. The musical material includes recordings of Sephardic cantorial, liturgical, and non-liturgical vocal music from various communities. More than half of the recordings are educational and cultural in nature, tapes of lectures and conferences of organizations such as the American Society of Sephardic Studies, various Sephardic rabbinical groups, the Sephardic Cultural Festival (Semana Sepharad), and the Yemenite Cultural Festival.
Appointments to consult Sephardic Reference Room items may be made by contacting Shulamith Berger, Curator of Special Collections, at 212-960-5451 or archives@yu.edu.
