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Country
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US
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Language of name of institution
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eng
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Contact information: postal address
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3080 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
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Contact information: phone number
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001 2126788075
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Contact information: email
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dakraemer@jtsa.edu
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Reference number
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MS
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Type of reference number
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Archival reference number
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Title (official language of the state)
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Hebrew Manuscripts
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Language of title
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eng
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Creator / accumulator
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Jewish Theological Society Library
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Language(s)
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heb
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lad
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Extent
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c. 11,000 manuscripts
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Scope and content
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The Jewish Theological Society Library holds the largest collection of Hebrew manuscripts in the world, composed of about 10,000 items. Among this extensive number of manuscripts, several are of Iberian origin. Some examples are the following:
MS 6949: Jacob ben Asher's Sefer Even ha-ezer, copied in Setúbal in 1390.
MS 2626: 15th-century codex with astronomical and astrological treatises, including one by Moisés ben Abraham de Leiria, written in Portuguese aljamiado.
MS 3167: collection of texts (Moses ibn Ezra's Sefer ha-tarshish, Joseph Ezobi's Kearat kesef [Bacia de Prata], and Hai ben Sherira's Sefer Mishlei) copied in Lisbon in 1475. The copyist is identified as José, son of Moisés Ḥiyyon.
MS L 80: fragment of a Pentateuch with massorá magna and parva copied in Lisbon about 1489. It contains two illuminated folios (1v, 2).
MS 8235: part of an illuminated Siddur of Sephardic ritual copied in Lisbon, c. 1490-97. The other part of this Siddur is in the Floersheim Collection in Zurich (MS 5.59).
MS 2779: a copy of the Ninth Book of the Al' Mansuri by Rhazes, expounded and commented upon by Gerard de Solo and translated from Latin into Hebrew by Tobiel ben Samuel de Leiria, a Jewish physician. Tobiel translated this work in Coimbra, in 1388, under the sponsorship of Moisés de Leiria, "rabi-mor" and physician of King João I. Two other copies of this translation are held by the University Library of Dresden and the Reynolds-Finley Historical Library in Birmingham, Alabama.
MS 8184: Copy of Avicenna's Canon produced in Castile in 1468.
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Archival history
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The Hebrew Manuscripts collection was gradually formed since the opening of the Jewish Theological Seminary Library through acquisitions and donations. Elkan Nathan Adler (1861-1946), English lawyer, historian and bibliophile, was one of the most significant contributors to the growth of this collection since, in the early 1920s, due to economic distress, he was forced to sell most of his extensive collection of manuscripts and printing books. The Jewish Theological Seminary of America was one of the institutions that bought Adler's collection. The Pentateuch copied in Lisbon (MS L 80) mentioned above was one of the volumes then sold by Adler. The illuminated Siddur, also produced in Lisbon, referred to above (MS 8235), was a gift of Phyllis Walter Goodhart (1913-1994), who had inherited the collection of his father, the bibliophile and collector Howard Lehman Goodhart (1884-1951).
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Administrative / Biographical history
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Founded in 1893, the nucleus of the Library was formed by contributions from outstanding private collectors and philanthropists, including Cyrus Adler, Mortimer L. Schiff, Felix Warburg, Louis Marshall, Mayer Sulzberger, Elkan Nathan Adler, and Hyman G. Enelow.
Alexander Marx, who served as chief librarian for fifty years (1903–1953), was responsible in large part for collecting the material and making it available to readers. His devoted leadership created what is recognised today as the greatest Jewish library in the Western Hemisphere.
In the 1930s, recognising that European Jewry was threatened and that America offered Jews and Judaism a place to grow, the Library made its goal to become the National Museum of the Jewish Book. It adopted a policy of collecting and preserving the totality of the Jewish cultural experience. The books that were acquired during this period remain in the Library’s collections. The Library’s objects became the foundation of New York’s Jewish Museum.
The Library suffered a disastrous fire on April 18, 1966. The fire occurred on the upper floors of the Library tower, where most of the books were housed. Seventy thousand volumes were destroyed, and every other book in the tower was damaged by fire, smoke, or water. Fortunately, rare books and manuscripts were kept in another area and were spared the damage.
Despite this disaster, service to readers was resumed in September 1966. A temporary, prefabricated building was erected to hold some of the books, while others were housed in a warehouse at a distance from the campus. The staff struggled in these improvised quarters until July 5, 1983, when a new building was completed and opened to the public. This facility served the JTS community and the public until the summer of 2015.
On September 1, 2015, the Library opened in temporary quarters on JTS’s campus, anticipating the construction of a new and much-improved Library for the 21st century. As libraries, services, and technologies have changed, so has the JTS Library. The new Library will be second to none in its capacities, services, and, most important, resources, both rare and contemporary.
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(source: Jewish Theological Library website)
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Access, restrictions
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Part of the collection was digitised by the Polonsky Digitization Project and is available on:
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Makor online discovery tool
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Author of the description
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Carla Vieira, 2022
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Bibliography
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Adler, Elkan Nathan. 1921. Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in the Collection of Elkan Nathan Adler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Afonso, Luís Urbano. 2014. “A Escola de Lisboa no contexto dos manuscritos sefarditas iluminados tardo-medievais.” In O livro e as interações culturais judaico-cristãs em Portugal no final da Idade Média. Série monográfica “Alberto Benveniste.” Lisbon: Cátedra de Estudos Sefarditas Alberto Benveniste : ARTIS, Instituto de História da Arte, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa.
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Cohen, Dov. 2018. “New Sources in Portuguese Aljamiado. A Collection of Letters Concerning the Commercial Activities of Sephardic Jews in the Ottoman Empire and Italy During the Mid-Sixteenth Century.” In Portuguese Jews, New Christians, and ‘New Jews,’ Claude B. Stuczynski and Bruno Feitler, 73–101. Leiden: Brill.
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Guénon, Anne-Sylvie. 2005. “Les traductions en hébreu
de l’oeuvre du médecin Gérard de Solo (XIVe siècle).” Revue des Études juives 164 (3–4): 463–88.
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Hilty, Gerold. 2008. “Um novo texto judeu-portuguès aljamiado.” In El iberorromance y su diversidad lingüística y literaria. Ensayos en homenaje a Georg Bossong, Hans-Jürgen Döhla, Raquel Montero Muñoz and Francisco Báez de Aguilar, 177–82. Madrid: Vervuert Verlagsgesellschaft.
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Illuminated Hebrew Manuscripts from the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. 1965. New York: Jewish Museum.
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Metzger, Thérèse. 1977. Les Manuscripts Hébreux Copiés et Décorés à Lisbonne Dans Les Derniers Decénnies Du XVe Siècle. Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian; Centro Cultural Português.
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Moita, Tiago. 2017. “O Livro Hebraico Português Na Idade Média: Do Sefer He-Aruk de Seia (1284-85) Aos Manuscritos Tardo-Medievais Da ‘Escola de Lisboa’ e Aos Primeiros Incunábulos.” PhD thesis, Lisboa: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa.
