Major Jewish Studies Journals, Databases and Archives (Below)
Jewish Studies Research Starting Points
Jewish Digital Collections and Jewish Study Guides – A-Z site on General Jewish History, Individual works, Hebrew manuscripts, Jewish newspapers, archives, museums (starting point for new researchers)
Major Jewish Research Organizations
WIZO Archive Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (YIVO) – world’s largest collection of Yiddish books and materials relating to the history and culture of Eastern European Jewry
Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (YIVO)
The ORT – ethnography, photography, research of diverse global Jewish life
The Joint – Joint Jewish Distribution Committee Archives (JDC) – Comprising the organizational records of JDC, the overseas rescue, relief, and rehabilitation arm of the American Jewish community, the archives include over 3 miles of text documents, 100,000 photographs
National Library of Israel Archives (Excellent, Multiple Languages)
Language and Culture Archive Ashkenazic Jewry
Centre for Jewish History Online
OpenEditionBooks – free, diverse academic resources
The OnlineBooksPage – provides reference locations for classical works
archive.org (huge volumes of old, out of print books – recommend use PDF download )
Hassidic Rabbis of Europe (visual) Timeline
Grants and Projects
Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe
Central Asia
Materials from Expeditionary Research in Central Asia
Jewish Studies Journals:
JSTOR Open Access Journals – large selection of open access (non-pay) journals
American Jewish Historical Society
Hebrew Union College (rare book manuscript collection)
Princeton Theological Seminary (massive collection of out of print theological works of various persuasions)
Stanford Libraries (Jewish Studies journals)
Bodleian Libraries (Oxford, Vast, Excellent Cultural Treasures, Documents, Manuscripts Collections)
Parker Library Collections at Stanford (Medieval Manuscripts)
Penn Libraries (Jewish Studies)
UPenn Scholarly Commons (Open Source Publications)
Katz Center Libraries (Hebrew and other manuscripts)
Online Library of Liberty (Constitution, Bill of Rights, key English and American liberty documents)
Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies – (Chicago, U.S.)
University of Chicago Library Collections
Central Chabad Library (Schneerson Collection)
University of Chicago – Dead Sea Scrolls
Morris Raphael Cohen Papers 1898-1981
Classic Jewish Texts (Talmud, Mishna, Shulchan Aruch, The Tanya)
Virtual Judaica. com (Rare Book Auctions)
Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal
Eastern European Jewish Affairs
POLIN (Studies in Polish-Jewry Journal)
MENA (Middle East)
Jewish Historical Studies: Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England
Manchester Collections (University of Manchester Hebrew Manuscript collections; Gaster and more)
Parker Library Collections (Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge) Invaluable collection of medieval texts
Oppenheimer Collections (Oxford, Yiddish)
Jewish Historical Society of England
Leopold Muller Memorial Library (Oxford) – lending library specialising in Hebrew and Jewish studies, and part of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Located in the basement of the Clarendon Institute on Walton Street, the library holds unique collections of books, journals, archives and pamphlets
Shtetl Routes (description of Jewish townlets, local politics)
Ad Hena – Advanced Center for the Research of Galician and Bukovinian Rabbinic Culture
Jewish Political Studies Review
Journal of Modern Jewish Studies
Leo Baeck Institute – German Jewish History Catalogues
Rabbinical Archives
Rabbinical and Historical Manuscripts. Collection (YIVO) – rabbis, religious life, Jewish community councils (towns, shtetls)
YIVO Remote Research Sessions (research assistants; booking :30 Zoom)
Rabbinic Responsa – Primary Sources List with Links (Bnei Brak Database)
Major Libraries and Archives
NYU Libraries Hebrew and Jewish Studies List
YIVO Encyclopedia of Eastern European Jewish Studies
The National Library of Israel
Valmadonna Trust Library (A well-preserved set of the Babylonian Talmud (1519–23), Pentateuchs from the Middle Ages, 1848 original Communist Manifesto) now housed at the National Library of Israel
The National Archives (United Kingdom)
Wellcome Trust (extensive, diverse global collections)
National Archives (United States)
British Library News Datasets (meta-data lists, massive repository on periodical press, international printed material)
Palestine Bulletin – newspaper from British Mandatory Palestine 1925-32 (many interesting stories, local news)
Morning Chronicle (Dickens Employer, Victorian Era newspaper 1801-1850)
European Libraries
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library) – major catalogue for research on German-Jewish documents which digitized “Jewish Periodicals from Nazi Germany” a collection of approximately 30,000 pages, which were originally published between 1933 and 1943
Leipzig University Online Collections
Frank.L.Herz Collections – German-Jewish, Reuchlin
Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society (FJMS) (Toronto, Canada)
Luminarium (Excellent Medieval, Renaissance, 17th Century and Restoration Literature – England)
Judaica Europeana (archives on Jewish presence, heritage in Europe)
Institute of Historical Research (School of Advanced Study University of London) – Jewish community histories in London
Specialized Jewish Research on Jews of Britain |
Spitalfieldslife (Jewish Stories from East End London)
Carey’s 1837 Map of London – highly useful street views to indicate proximity and period, neighbourhoods, addresses from the stories and culture of London’s urban geography
Synagogues in the East End and City of London (listed by street name)
The Jewish People in British Colonies Archives
Jewish Miscellanies (Voice of Jacob Newspaper)
Jewish MIscellanies (Jews College)
A.A Green Sermons Hampstead Synagogue (1935)
Re.I.Levy Sermon Hampstead Synagogue (1949)
Seldon Society (Oldest English Legal Society) – Publications of the Seldon Society
The Lord’s leadings in the origin and growth of the Mildmay Mission to the Jews (Excellent personal insight into Jewish Street life in 19th C Britain)
Parkes Institute at University of Southhampton (Jewish-Christian Relations Archives)
Newspapers and Magazines
The Jewish Chronicle (oldest continually published Jewish newspaper in the world)
Timothy Hughes Rare and Early Newspapers
Sunday at Home Magazine (1854) (kind of Victorian England Readers Digest)
UCL Press (Jewish Periodicals)
Country Archives |
Pale of Settlement (Imperial Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus)
UKRAINE
Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (Central Archives for the Jewish People in Israel – massive archives on Ukraine)
Alex Krakovsky Archive Scans (Excellent – scans of over 2,980 metrical books, indexes, name lists, revision lists, and censuses of the Jewish people in Ukraine – Mar 28, 2023)
Routes to Roots – Miriam Weiner archives, images, statistics of Ukraine shtetls (1990s Genealogical research)
Gesher Galicia (Jewish genealogical and historical research on Galicia, formerly a province of Austria-Hungary; genealogy on Galician shtetls, surname lists, list of towns in their Jewish and Greek Catholic names)
Jewish Galicia and Bukovina – photos, personal stories
MyShtetl (photos, info on shtetls, synagogue photos, cemetery stone symbolism, Jewish life)
Nevzlin Center (Digitization Project) – In 1982 Ilya Dvorkin began expeditions to document aspects of Jewish communal life in Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania and Uzbekistan. In addition, the activists collected documentation on the life of the Jewish community in Petersburg starting from the end of the Soviet period into the post-Soviet era. The digitized collection includes approximately 7000 visual images, 170 hours of audio recordings and 74 hours of videotape
Mitzvah Emet – photos of gravestones in Jewish cemeteries, buildings, places of Jewish interest from cities in the FSU (Former Soviet Union) and Israel; older site yet characterfully organized
European Archive Holding Institutions (city, village archives)
Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine Lviv – Jews of Galicia (archival description – English)
Contemporary Ukrainian History – Research Guide
Central State Historical Archives Lviv (Ukrainian Fond List)
Brodskii Family of Kiev Archive
Rabbinates, Land Courts, Famous Families Ukraine-Poland-Russia
Office of the Governor-General of Kiev, Podolia, and Volhynia
Vernads’kyi National Library of Ukraine
Lviv National Science Library V.Stefanik
Miriam Weiner Archive (Ukraine and Moldova)
Forgotten Galicia – photographs of old Lwow (Lviv, Lvov, Lemberg) showing languages street businesses used to advertise
Rzeczpospolita (The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth)
Jewish Crown Financiers in the Vaad Arba HaAratzos (Council of Four Lands)
Miriam Weiner Archive (Poland)
Polish Archives on Ukrainian Lands – Legal Status of Jews, Pogroms
Sources on Polish Jewry – Archives Guide
Beilis Ritual Murder Trial Archives – ritual murder trial Kiev, Imperial Russia (1913)
Germany
Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien (Berlin-Brandenburg)
History of the Jews in Germany
Key Documents of German-Jewish History
House of Literature – Belgium – Important Jewish Families Archives
Lithuania |
Strashun Library – Matisyahu Strashun (1817-1885) amassed one of the most important Jewish libraries in Eastern Europe during the 19th century. His collection included 5,700 rare Hebrew and Yiddish imprints and manuscripts published throughout Europe and the Middle East from the 15th-19th centuries (now at YIVO)
England/Britain/United Kingdom
Jewish Historical Studies: Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England
UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies
Jewish Chronicle Archive (oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world)
London Metropolitan Archives: City of London (persons (e.g. Chief Rabbis), businesses (e.g. wine merchants), organizations (e.g. YMCA) , families (e.g. Salaman Family of London), diaries (e.g. Nightingale Nursing Training School), papers)
Papers Past – Old Newspaper, Journals, Diaries Archives New Zealand, Int’l
Genealogy Records in Israel
Ottoman Administration Databases (Prior to 1917) – British Consulate, Safed burials, founders, settlers, residents, Christchurch burials
British Administration Databases (1917-1948) – First Jewish Battalion at Gallipoli 1915, Jewish Officers in the Ottoman Army 1917, Re-enlisted Russians from the Zion Mule Corp 1917, List of Winegrowers, Citrus Growers, and Planters in Rehovot 1918, Members of the Jewish Legion (Gdudim) living in Jerusalem (date unknown), Name Changes 1922-1948
Israeli Administration Databases (1948-) – Operation Eagles’ Wings (Magic Carpet ) Yemenite Airlift, municipal cemeteries, Histadrut Elections, Mohalim approved by the Chief Rabinate of Israel
Hebrew Manuscripts and Lexicons
Hebrew Manuscript Collection – National Library of Israel
Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts – British Library archives
Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Nationalbibliothek Vienna – Hebrew manuscripts 13th-18th centuries, Galician Rabbinic literature; even some Mongolian MSS
Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries – European and international database of Hebrew books and documents
Genizat Germania – Hebrew literature and fragments from German lands
BDB Lexicon – BDB considered of the finest and most comprehensive Hebrew lexicons available to the English-speaking students
Jastrow (1903) Aramaic Targum Talmud Midrash – indispensable dictionary of targumic and rabbinic literature compiling thousands of Hebrew and Aramaic entries
Cline’s Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH)
Historical Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew (Rezetko & Young, 2014) – useful Biblical Hebrew historical linguists in-depth
Hebrew Manuscripts – professional, accounting, daily life documents
Reuchlin Documents – Hebraist Johann Reuchlin pioneer in non-Jewish Hebrew scholarly studies with documents and publications (Latin, German, Hebrew)
Reuchlin Book Controversy – Germany
Christian Hebraists – Medieval and Early Modern documents
Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden im Fränkischen und Deutschen Reiche bis zum Jahre 1273 – deep detailed account of Jewish residence in Medieval German States – Goethe Institut metadata pdf
France (Modern Era) |
Revue des études juives (Recent 1980-2024) (Archived 1879-1962) – The journal covers research and prints unpublished texts concerning Judaism among others documents relative to the history of the French Jews. Nearly every issue also contains a special bibliographical section devoted to reviews of current works on Judaism. It is one of the oldest active scientific periodicals in the field of Jewish studies
Revue des études juives (13 publications de 1889 à 1922) – Journal of Jewish Studies (Francais)
Les Juifs des Montpellier 18thC – name lists, accounts of city, region
Medieval France |
Juifs Moyen age – Years 1301-1303 name lists, regions (Cohen common; may have moved to England later is theory)
Rashi and Christian Scholars (1963)
Thomas Platter et les Juifs d’Avignon –
Notes sur les hébraïsants chrétiens et les Juifs en France (Vol.I) – Christian Hebraists, Jews and Judaisers Medieval France (Jewish residence among Christians (1515)- Forgotten students of Elie Levitas)
Notes sur les hébraïsants chrétiens et les Juifs en France (Vol.II) -Christian Hebraists, Jews and Judaisers Medieval France (Issac Casaubon and Abraham of Lunel to Two Letters of Louis of Compiegne to Perault)
Hebraica America Documents – Hebraica documents from Early America
Hebrew Language and Literature (Beginners)
Trinity College, University of Toronto BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REFERENCE TOOLS FOR BIBLICAL HEBREW
MNamon – Ancient Writing Systems in the Mediterranean – Bibliography Ancient Hebrew
Bibliography of Ancient Jewish Sciences NYU
ספרים עבריים (Hebrew Books) – with Hebrew virtual keyboard for searching
European Rabbis Throughout the Generations
Antiquity (Ancient World Studies)
Ancient Empires and Texts Links
Archaeology
Israeli Institute of Archaeology
Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND
Deutschen Archäologischen Institut
Griffith Institute (Top Egyptology and Near East Studies institute, site)
Digital Giza at Harvard University – archaeology, funerary traditions in Ancient Egypt
Les Hyksos en Egypte (Français) – Egyptology, chronologies, historiographies, good bibliography
Ancient Texts
Medieval Texts
Syriac Resources Texts – Syriac sources on Ancients, Medieval, Mongols
Classical Studies
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
Mnamon: Ancient Writing Systems in the Mediterranean
MENA (Middle East Studies)
University of Chicago The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center
The University of Chicago Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures: West Asia and North Africa
MENALIB Middle East Virtual Library
MENA Databases: Archives, Primary Sources, and Documents
Special Journals
Past and Present (Journal, Archives, excellent scholarly articles on a wide range of Jewish and other universal societal topics)
Russian Federation/ Imperial Russia/Soviet Union
Russian State Library (Hebrew Manuscript Collections)
Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library
Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts (RGADA) (English)
Федеральное казенное учреждение «Российский государственный архив древних актов» (РГАДА) (Russian)
Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA)
Kliuchevskii – (direct access) of his historical works in Russian at Yeltsin Presidential Library
Solovyov, Vladimir Sergeyevich – (direct access) of his historical works
The character of the Russians and a detailed history of Moscow – Lyall, Robert (1790-1831) appearance of city, churches, police, hospitals, prisons, cemeteries, travelers, Tatar incursions, Alexander I, port-1812 renovations: with a dissertation on the Russian language; and an appendix, containing tables, political, statistical, and historical; an account of the Imperial agricultural society of Moscow
The case at the petition of Yalomstein and Savason about the permitted to send them to Russia to spread the newspaper, which they published in New York under the title “The Jewish Gazatte” Дело Департамент народного просвещения Министерства народного просвещения (1803-1917) Ф. 733. Оп. 189. Д. 549
Institute of Oriental Manuscripts – Russian Academy of Sciences – Hebrew Manuscripts
Royal Asiatic Society – Sir Aurel Stein expeditionary collections
Archaeo Biblio Base (federal, regional archives in Russia)
Archival Holdings in Academies, Research Institutes, and Universities (Academy of Science, by city, field of study) – Russian Federation
Materials on the Refusenik Movement (the Jewish Movement to Leave the USSR)
Plekhanov House – Modern Political Parties and Social Movements (Nationalism, Masonic Groups)
Firkovich Collection – Karaites, Imperial Russia, ethnographic collections
Yudin collection of Russian-American Company records, 1783-1946
Black Book of Soviet Jewry (Chronicle of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union)
Eastview – Imperial Russian newspapers
Cowen Papers – In 1906, the U.S. Government sent immigration inspector Philip Cowen on an undercover mission to the Pale of Settlement in Russia (St. Petersburg, Kief, and Odessa) to discover the cause of increased Jewish immigration from Russia to the United States. His findings revealed appalling and unremitting persecution of Russian Jews
Other Resources:
Genealogy
Jewish Gen – global home for Jewish genealogy
Avotanu Online – Jewish DNA Project, genealogy, Jewish regional areas
Gesher Galicia – Jewish genealogy Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland, Ukraine
Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) – the largest genealogy organization in Israel with over 1,000,000 records in its online database.
The Jewish Surname Process in the Russian Empire and its Effect on Jewish Genealogy
History, Adoption, and Regulation of Jewish Surnames in the Russian Empire – Analysis of the formation of surnames by the Jewish population of the 19th century Russian Empire. Description of the cultural and legal context of Ashkenazi Jewish surnames in Russia with examples taken from census records
Cemetery Scribes – surname search, person ID, birth year, location, Jewish graveyards, Hebrew stones photos (United Kingdom), lists of top Jewish surnames in UK
Henry Mayhew’s ‘London Labour and the London Poor‘ (1851)
Mayhew’s List of Jewish residents and their professions East London (1851) from PO, Pigot’s, Watkin’s Directories (i.e. many Jews were ‘fruit, furniture, second hand clothes and coffee’ merchants in London)
Synagogue Scribes – Anglo-Jewish genealogy, marriage, wills, circumcision records
Susser Archive – Southwest England Jewish genealogy
Jews Found in Other Denomination Records – Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox records
Jews and Inquisition – old inquisition books (Spanish, Portuguese)
Emigration, Immigration Lists – Hamburg Passenger lists, Holland-America Lines, US State Department
Newspapers, Periodicals
Newspapers of America – by State, by first and last issue date (1690-Present)
Libraria (Ukrainian Online Periodicals Archive) – Polish, Yiddish, German
Jewish Digital Collections – Jewish newspapers, North America lists
Voice of Jacob – Oldest Anglo-Jewish newspaper (1841)
Exile Presse (German, 1933-1945)
Israeli
onlinenewspapers – Israeli newspapers
Sephardic
Genie Milgrom – collection of Crypto-Jewish and Sephardic resources, genealogy
Gaster Papers (Sephardic Jews Romania-Bevis Marks Synagogue)
Shoah (Holocaust)
Bad Arolsen Archives – 13 million Holocaust records online
Classical Studies
History of Philosophy – (podcast) on philosophy by period and region hub (useful, succinct) at Kings College London and Ludwig Maximillian University Munich
Classics Databases -comprehensive list of Classics periods
Institute of Oriental Manuscripts
Geniza Research Unit (research into the Geniza Jewish manuscripts found in the Ben Ezra synagogue Cairo, Egypt)
Post Reformation Digital Library (database of digital books relating to the development of theology and philosophy during the Reformation and Post-Reformation/Early Modern Era (late 15th-18th c.)
Vatican Library – Hebrew manuscripts and far more
Bodlian Library (Oxford) – Hebrew manuscripts and far more
National Library of Israel – Hebrew manuscripts
Leipzig University Library – Hebrew manuscripts
Theological Schools |
Moscow Theological Academy – origins relate to Slavic Greek Latin Academy founded 1685. Reorganized 1814 moved from Moscow to Trinity Lavra of St.Sergius. Academy closed 1919, reopened 1944.
Kiev Theological Academy – specialized higher Orthodox educational institution opened in 1819 in the territory of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, after the closure of the latter by the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1817. As a result of the ecclesiastical education reform which begun in 1807, in August 1817 the decision of the Commission of Theological Schools under the Synod was to temporarily close Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
General Archives and Resources
forgottenbooks.com – republished long out of print popular, lost and forgotten books of earlier generations; useful old Hebrew titles
China
Photography of China Collection
East View – Late Qing (Manchu Empire) and Republican Era newspapers
Chinese Jewish Genealogy Records
Yiddish
In geveb (Yiddish journal)
Archive of the Yiddish Literary Journal Kheshbn (UCLA)
University Search Engines
Illinois Library (excellent Russian archives list and Area Studies links)
Duke University Jewish Studies Journals
University of Alberta – Jewish Studies Open Access
Online Polyglot Bibles |
General Research Starting Points:
Academic Journals Search
Open Source Search
TheOnlineBooksPage (University of Pennsylvania)
Littman Library of Jewish Civilization at Liverpool University Press – peer reviewed high level, reputable Jewish Studies journal
John Rylands Research Institute and Library – one of the Top 5 Special Collections libraries in the world
Ars Judaica – Bar Ilan University through Project Muse – Journal of Jewish Art
Sort |
UCL Library Guides – alphabetical conglomerate with many useful sites
Link Locker – encrypt pages, private links for public pages
Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan 1834-1922
https://www.amdigital.co.uk/collection/confidential-print-middle-east-1839-1969
Journals |
Judaic-Slavic Journal – goal to intensify contacts between Russian and Western Jewish studies. Editorial board of foreign scholars. The journal will have sections for reviews and a scientific chronicle, which will publish reviews of foreign and domestic books (primarily English- and Hebrew-language).
Slavic Studies Academic Journals – Department of
Slavic Languages and Literatures – Department of
Slavic Languages and Literatures – Department of Slavic Literatures, Princeton University Press
Academic Paper and Application Sites |
Hebrew and Judaic Studies: Ph.D. Workshop
Dissertations in Russian-Jewish Studies – Grafiati (read abstract, choose full dissertation text and instant add citation styles (i.e. APA 7), website to your bibliography list, import/export)
Dissertation and Theses Database
Research Exchange – Dissertation and Thesis upload site
Postgrad and Graduate Application Advice
Basic Jewish Glossary for Students
Convert Text – create URLs, convert text cases, code, image, IP generator
Job Sites:
The Chronicle of Higher Education (JOBS SEARCH)
Jewish Studies Positions (Tenure and Other)
Humanities and Jewish Studies Positions
Jewish Studies Positions (International Positions)
AJS Jewish Studies Career Openings
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Finkelperel Institute for Israeli and Jewish Studies 