Jewish communal registers (Pinkese kehilah) collection
Item
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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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Sterling Memorial Library. 120 High Street, 06511 New Haven, CT
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Contact information: phone number
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001 (203) 432 1735
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Contact information: email
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mssa.assist@yale.edu
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Reference number
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MS 1824
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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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Jewish communal registers (Pinkese kehilah) collection
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Language of title
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eng
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heb
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Creator / accumulator
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Yale University Library. Judaica Collection
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Date(s)
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1623/1960
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Language(s)
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deu
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dut
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eng
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heb
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lad
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lat
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yid
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Extent
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21.46 linear metres (61 boxes)
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Scope and content
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This collection comprises register books of various Jewish communities, mainly in Europe, with a few from the Middle East and the United States. It includes minute books of synagogues and social welfare committees, account books, school registers, and wills. The collection contains the record "Pinkas kehilat Mantovah", dated from 1623-1624, concerning the Jewish community of Mantua (box 18). It includes lists of local yeshivot, decisions of the community council, and accounts of events that took place in the community at the beginning of the 17th century. This appears to be a rare document that was saved from the destruction of the ghetto and expulsion of the Jews during the War of the Mantuan Succession in 1629-30.
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Archival history
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The registers were purchased by the Judaica Collection and transferred to Manuscripts and Archives from 2002 to 2015. Most of the registers were purchased from Yeshayahu Vinograd, Jerusalem, 2002-2003. One was purchased at auction from Kestenbaum & Company, New York, in 2002. Others were purchased from Bery Gross, New York, in 2003. Additional registers were purchased 2004-2008 from Bery Gross, New York, and Yeshayahu Vinograd and Moshe Rosenfeld, Jerusalem. One was purchased from Kestenbaum & Company on the Rosalyn and Joseph Newman Collection Fund, 2015.
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(source: Cohen. Julie. 2008. Guide to the Jewish Communal Registers (Pinkese kehilah) Collection)
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Administrative / Biographical history
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Yale has a long and rich tradition in the study of Jewish religion, history, and thought dating back to Yale's founding when the Hebrew language was a required course of study. An undergraduate major in Judaic Studies, and a graduate program training future academic leaders, was begun in the mid-1980s.
Following the receipt of two major gifts in 1915, the Yale Library established a separate Judaica collection, which is recognised as one of the major collections of Judaica in the USA. The focus of the approximately 300,000-volume collection, which includes manuscripts and rare books, is biblical, classical, medieval, and modern periods of Jewish literature and history, and supports the research needs of the faculty and students of the university's Judaic Studies Program and of the broader academic community.
Rare materials are housed in the Manuscripts and Archives Department of the Sterling Memorial Library and in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Among the rare and unusual Judaica at the Beinecke Library are some 200 manuscripts and 45 incunabula. Special features include the Alexander Kohut Memorial Collection of Judaica, Selah Merrill Collection of Josephus, the Goodhart Collection of Philo imprints, and the Sholem Asch Collection, a collection of illuminated Jewish marriage contracts, and a collection of Jewish illuminated votive plaques.
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(source: Judaica Collection. Yale University Library: Manuscripts & Archives)
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System of arrangement
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The collection is arranged as received from the Judaica Collection.
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Access, restrictions
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The materials are open for research. Selected volumes in boxes 18, 19, and 27 are available on microfilm.
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Author of the description
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Carla Vieira, 2022
