Jewish collections

Scope of the collection

Since its foundation in 1841 The London Library has been amassing books and periodical volumes on a broad range of subjects across the humanities and social sciences, in more than 50 languages. With material dating from the sixteenth century to the latest publications, the Library maintains international-standard research collections for use by the widest range of writers, scholars and general readers in the humanities. Amongst these is a remarkable collection of Judaica, which continues to grow every year and includes material across several subject areas. The collection comprises materials from the general, open access collections, as well as the Montefiore Pamphlets.  For forty years, the Library looked after a Torah scroll from the community of Domažlice in Czechoslovakia.  In 2019 the scroll was handed to the care of the Memorial Scrolls Trust (https://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/about-us/latest-news/1913-new-chapter-for-rare-torah-scroll).

Books are readily accessible to members and are arranged on the shelves according to the Library’s unique classification scheme. It is important to note that the arrangement was devised in the 1890s and is very much a product of its time.  We regularly make minor adjustments to the scheme and at present we do not have the resource to undertake major changes to bring it up-to-date, such as creating sections for Israel in our History and Topography collections, but very much aspire to do so.

Founded in 1841, the Library’s collection has grown each year and we hold titles from the late 18th century onwards on the open shelves.  As a result, our collection reflects the evolution and changes in thinking in a particular subject and does mean that you may come across titles which contain ideas and vocabulary that would be considered abhorrent today. The collection continues to grow with some 5,000 new titles being added each year. As we develop the collection, we seek to ensure that the controversial topics of today are represented from all sides of a debate. 

Understanding shelfmarks

The Library’s collection is divided into broad subject areas (e.g. History, Literature, and Topography) and then into smaller areas, arranged alphabetically. Within each subject category, books are arranged alphabetically by their author’s surname or, in the case of edited collections or books with multiple authors, by their title.  Check the catalogue record for the ‘shelved under’ information. 

In order to make the most effective use of space, the collection is also shelved by size. Check the end of shelfmarks for the notations 4to. (quarto), small folio, folio, and folio extra large, which may indicate a different place to look for the books.   

Above is an example of a book record from the catalogue.  Here you can see that the book is shelved under the author’s name and that it is available (i.e. on the shelf) at in the Art section (A.), in the sub-section for Sculpture and then shelved under the author Epstein.  

Labels on the edges of the shelves will guide you through the section. Some shelfmarks are large, such as A. Painting and are subdivided further by letters marking the authors’ surnames (or titles in the case of edited collections).  

Books may be requested and put aside ready for collection, but we would always encourage members to browse the shelves and discover books serendipitously. Items from the Library’s Special Collections cannot be borrowed but may be consulted in the Library under supervised conditions, given 72 hours’ notice. 

Books and eBooks

The Library’s collection includes both academic eBooks and other fiction and non-fiction eBooks available through the Libby platform. All academic eBooks will appear in your search results in the Library Catalogue. Those available through Libby are also in our Catalogue but can also be searched separately through the Libby platform, which you also need in order to access these titles.

Literature

The collection of Jewish literature in L. Hebrew incorporates original editions of the standard works of the German Wissenschaft des Judentums from the 19th century, which are regularly reprinted to this day, such as Bacher's Die Aggada der Tannaiten and August Wuensche's translations of Midrashim, alongside many other 19th-century German translations of classical Jewish literature.

There is good representation of scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls dating from the 1950s and 1960s, while other particularly strong areas are the collection of translations of Midrashim and the collection of translations and originals of Yiddish authors such as Asch, Bialik, and Mendele Mocher Sfarim. The Library’s Literature section also includes translations of Hebrew poetry from all periods and a selection of present-day scholarship on Modern Hebrew Literature. There are some Yiddish plays in L. Hebrew, while works on Jewish drama in other languages are shelved elsewhere such as L. Eng. Drama Colls.  There are also works on Jewish wit and humour in L. Wit & Humour and in Anecdotes.

History and biography

The extensive Jewish history collection, mainly under H. Jews, is particularly rich in books on the history of ancient and Biblical Israel, local histories of Jews in numerous countries and regions, and books about the Holocaust/Shoah, alongside a wide range of popular general overviews and introductions to the subject area. This section also contains studies of the history of Jewish Literature (such as Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews). Other relevant shelfmarks are:

H. Army, Israeli
H. Dreyfus Case
H. European War II
H. Jerusalem, Kingdom of
H. Middle East
H. Palestine & Syria
H. Philistines
H. Semites
H. Sinai

Biographies and autobiographies of notable Jewish figures (including diaries, such as Anne Frank’s, and collections of letters), excluding monarchs, can be found in the main Biography stacks. These include biographies of remarkable people in all walks of life, from art dealers and athletes to booksellers, composers, comedians, historians, journalists, philosophers, radicals, scientists and teachers, among many others.

Biographical works on monarchs such as King David are shelved in H. Jews rather than Biography because they include histories of their reigns. The Library holds extensive biographical material on literary authors, philosophers, artists, monarchs and statesmen. Please note that correspondence or autobiographical material of literary authors is sometimes included as part of their collected or selected works, and will therefore be shelved in the Literature section.  Works containing collections of biographies of more than 2 persons can be found at the shelfmark Biographical Colls.

The Library also holds genealogical works such as Wer einmal war: das jüdische Grossbürgertum Wiens, 1800-1938 or The Jewish Community of Frankfurt: a Genealogical Study, 1349-1849 as well as family histories such as The Goldschmidts in the Genealogy & Heraldry section.

The Library’s collection of biographical dictionaries (shelved at R.R. Biographical Dicts. in the Reading Room) includes a number of works on important Jewish historic figures. Among these works are The Dictionary of Jewish Biography; Who's Who in Jewish History, after the Period of the Old Testament; and Große jüdische National-Biographie mit mehr als 8000 Lebensbeschreibungen namhafter jüdischer Männer und Frauen aller Zeiten und Länder: ein Nachschlagewerk für das jüdische Volk und dessen Freunde.

Art

The Library’s extensive collection of art books includes a wide range of material on Jewish art and artists from the Greco-Roman period up to the present day. There are works on topics such as Jewish ceremonial art as well as folk art, on the illumination of the Haggadah, and on Jewish silverwork.  Apart from monographs the Library acquires catalogues raisonnés of major artists and architects such as Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky, Alfred Stieglitz, Max Weber, Amedeo Modigliani, Sir Jacob Epstein, and Camille Pissarro. However, lesser-known artists such as Abraham Manievich, Max Liebermann, Felix Nussbaum and Charlotte Salomon are also represented. The collection includes a selection of catalogues of relevant exhibitions held in Britain and abroad as well as catalogues of major museums and art galleries, such as the Jewish Museums in Prague, London and New York and the Ben Uri Gallery in London. Works by Jewish art historians such as Ernst Gombrich, Meyer Schapiro and Erwin Panofsky also feature prominently.

Most exhibition catalogues are shelved alphabetically under the exhibition title, and catalogues of museums can be found under the name of the museum. Throughout the art collections it is important to note that a significant number of books in each subject area will be found in the separate sequences for oversize books (labelled 4to., small folio, and folio). Books covering work in more than one medium are shelved at A. Art while books on individual artists will be found under the sub-section for the medium concerned (e.g. A. Painting, A. Sculpture) and then under the artist’s name (e.g. A. Painting, Chagall).  Also included in the Art collection are books on Jewish cinema such as Laughter through the tears: the Yiddish cinema by Judith N. Goldberg (A. Cinema &c.)

Topography and travel 

The Topography collections include archaeology, architecture, geography, local history, travel writing, and some guide books. The large section in T. Palestine & Syria includes excavation reports of major sites in Israel and Jordan, and also classical volumes of the Discoveries in the Judean Desert and other items concerning the beginnings of Dead Sea Scrolls’ research in the 1950s and 1960s.  A number of travel guides can be found in Guide Books, Palestine &c.

Religion and philosophy

The Religion section forms a comprehensive library of standard Christian scientific commentaries, but is noteworthy also for its collection of classics of 19th-century German biblical scholarship in each of its separate sections for the different books of the Bible. The Psalms section - which is particularly extensive – includes, for example, a translation of David Kimchi's Commentary, while in the Prayer section one can find the latest publications on Jewish Prayer by Stefan Reif and Jeremy Schonfield. The Library also holds a remarkable and unusual collection of Hebrew Bible editions: alongside the common Letteris and Ginsburg texts, there is, for example, a rare ‘pocket’ chumash printed in Amsterdam in 1712. Many of the most remarkable works in this section come from the Allan Library, collected by Thomas Robinson Allan (c1800-84) to form the nucleus of a large central library for the Methodist church, and rescued from dispersal when it was purchased in its entirety by the London Library in the 1920s. The relevant shelfmarks in Religion are:
    
R. Chronicles
R. Daniel
R. Deuteronomy
R. Ecclesiastes
R. England's Jewish Origin
R. Exodus
R. Ezekiel
R. Ezra, &c.
R. Genesis
R. Hebrews
R. Heptateuch
R. Hexateuch
R. Isaiah
R. Jeremiah & Lamentations
R. Job
R. Joshua
R. Judges & Ruth
R. Kings
R. Leviticus
R. Lost Tribes
R. Minor Prophets
R. Numbers
R. Old Testament
R. Pentateuch
R. Proverbs (Book of)
R. Psalms
R. Samuel
R. Septuagint
R. Song of Songs

The Philosophy section includes the works of Jewish philosophers such as Isaiah Berlin, Spinoza, Jacques Derrida, Solomon Maimon, Leo Strauss, Moses Mendelssohn, Martin Buber, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Marx, Simone Weil, and Ayn Rand among many others. Please note that works by and about Maimonides and Claude Lévi-Strauss are mostly in L. Hebrew &c. and S. Ethnology &c., respectively.

Language, dictionaries, etc.

The Library’s philology section, Philology Hebrew, includes loan copies of some rare editions of 18th and 19th century Christian philological research on Hebrew, such as J.D. Michaelis’ Supplementa as Lexica Hebraica ( Goettingen, 1792 and Philippo Ouseel’s Introductio in Accentuationem Hebraeorum Prosaicum, (Lugdunum 1715). There are also some Yiddish textbooks and grammars in Philology, Yiddish.

There is a collection of Hebrew dictionaries available in the Reading Room at R.R. Lang. Dicts., Hebrew. These range from complete modern Hebrew-English dictionaries, to works on classical Hebrew, a lexicon of the Dead Sea Scrolls and A dictionary of the Talmud, the Midrash and the Targum: with Quotations From the Sources as well as Gesenius’ original Old Testament lexicon together with a modern English translation. R.R. Lang. Dicts., Yiddish boasts, among others, a Hebrew-English-Yiddish dictionary and Hooray for Yiddish!: a Book About English.

Bibliography and Hebrew library catalogues

The Bibliography section contains a range of relevant bibliographies and library catalogues. Here subject and form take precedence over language, country and region, which is why, for example The Babel Guide to Jewish Fiction is shelved under Bibliog. Fiction, Esther Snyder’s bibliography of books about Israel is in Bibliog. Topography &. (Gen.) and Elizabeth Eppler’s International Bibliography of Jewish Affairs, 1966-1967: a Select Annotated List of Books and Articles Published outside Israel is in Bibliog. History (Gen.) together with Joseph Melzer’s Deutsch-jüdisches Schicksal:  Wegweiser durch das Schrifttum der letzten 15 Jahre, 1945-1960.

Bibliog. Hebrew is reserved for bibliographies of books and manuscripts written in Hebrew but not limited to any subject or form, such as Treasures of Judaica and 2000 Books and More: an Annotated and Selected Bibliography of Jewish History and Thought. Library catalogues such as Important Hebrew Books from the Library of the Late Salman Schocken and Catalogue of Hebrew Books in the British Museum Acquired during the Years 1868-1892 are also shelved here.

Bibliographies dealing with one particular person are shelved at Bibliog. Biog., such as Bibliog. Biog., Cohen. For works on the publishing of Jewish literature see Bibliog. Publishing, and Bibliog. Books, Booksellers &c. for the Jewish book trade.

Science & Miscellaneous

In this section there are relevant works covering a myriad of subjects. Some examples are:

• Il Cimitero Ebraico in Italia by Andrea Morpurgo, in S. Burial  
• Rituals of Childhood: Jewish Acculturation in Medieval Europe by Ivan G. Marcus in S. Children &c.  
• Broken Threads: the Destruction of the Jewish Fashion Industry in Germany and Austria in S. Dress, 4to. 
• Leaves from the Garden of Eden: One Hundred Classic Jewish Tales by Howard Schwartz in S. Folklore &c.  
• The Book of Jewish Food: an Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day by Claudia Roden in S. Food &c., 4to. 
• When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport by Allen Bodner in S. Sport

Reference works

In addition to its loan collections the Library holds a few key reference works such as The Jewish Yearbook, Who's Who in Israel and the annual of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Montefiore Pamphlets

Claude Joseph Goldsmid Montefiore (1858-1938), great-nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore and grandson of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, was a member of the Anglo-Jewish elite who broke withJewish orthodoxy when he founded Liberal Judaism in Britain.  Both Claude and his son Leonard were members of The London Library, the former joining in 1884 and the latter in 1946.  After his death in 1938, the Library received a bequest of all the pamphlets he collected during his life.

The Montefiore Pamphlets are an important record of Anglo-Jewish heritage. The materials included were in general not collected at the time of their publication and today comprise one of the most important historical sources for the development of Liberal, Reform, and Progressive Judaism. They are relevant as a collection of materials of Jewish and general social history, mirroring the formation of a new social order that impacted all areas of society and involving themes that remain a part of our social discourse in the present day.

The approximately 5,000 titles (a combination of speeches, lectures, sermons, addresses, essays, offprints and tractates bound into 664 volumes in rough chronological order) cover all of his areas of interest and reflect many prominent interests and concerns of the time: modern Biblical scholarship, Judaism and Christianity, the development of Progressive Judaism, especially in Germany and later in Britain (reflected in the documents of the West London Synagogue), social welfare, education, the rise of Zionism and the fight for women's rights.

As well as pamphlets written by individuals, there are numerous reports and conference proceedings issued by the various organisations Montefiore sympathized with, was a founder of, or actively supported such as the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls & Women, the World Union for Progressive Judaism, the League of British Jews, and the Anglo-Jewish Association. The collection also includes many records of services held at the West London Synagogue and the Liberal Jewish Synagogue.

Journals, eJournals and online resources

The Library has access to the following titles either as print copies or online.  Through JSTOR members can access the full text articles of the archives of almost 80 online publications on Jewish studies.
Please check the online catalogue to see full details of holdings as well as their locations.  Some material is held offsite if online access is available, but it can be retrieved if required with 48 working hours’ notice.

• European Judaism
• Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England
• The Jewish Annual
• The Jewish Quarterly
• Miscellanies of the Jewish Historical Society of England
• Kirjath Sepher: Bibliographical Quarterly of the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem
• Polin: a Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies
• Textus : Annual of the Hebrew University Bible Project