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The Hebrew Collection at the British Library
From: The British Library
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| The Israelites leaving Egypt. The Golden Haggadah, Catalonia, ca.1300. | |
 he British Library holds one of the most representative Hebrew manuscript collections in the world, amounting to some 3,000 volumes. In addition, it holds approximately 73,000 printed book titles; 10,000 fragments deriving from the Cairo Genizah; 1,000 Hebrew and Yiddish periodical and newspaper titles, and considerable numbers of manuscripts, printed books and periodicals in microforms. |
A preview of this collection can now be seen online at the Hebrew Collections website (www.bl.uk/collections/hebrew.html). The site details the breadth and scope of the library's holdings and features interesting facts about the history and acquisition of the collection. Viewers can learn about the original manuscripts as part of the British Museum foundation collection; the splendour of the Golden Haggadah, copied and illuminated in Catalonia in the fourteenth century, and more recent additions such as the earliest complete Judeo-Arabic copy of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, written in Yemen in 1380. Acquisitions, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, have been wide-ranging in scope, including art, archaeology, bibliography, history, geography of Israel, holocaust, belles-lettres, sociology and politics. |
In its nearly 250 years of existence, the collection of Hebrew printed books has evolved from a modest reserve into a wide-ranging scholarly resource. At its inauguration in 1759, the British Museum counted a single Hebrew work among its half million printed volumes. The vastness of the printed book collection held at the British Library today is showcased on the website alongside detailed commentary. Among these: Moses Almosninos' ethical treatise Hanhagat ha-hayim (The management of life) Salonica, 1564 (1933.d.26), probably the first Judeo-Spanish book to enter the Museum's library and the incunabula editions, books printed by movable-type before 1501. |
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| King David at prayer. Leipnik Hagadah, copied and illuminated by Joseph Leipnik, Altona 1740. | |
Various reference aids are listed for the scholar, from manuscript and printed book catalogues and indexes to information about the collections microfilm and microfiche formats, which vary from comprehensive bibliographies of manuscript and book collections held in overseas Hebraic libraries, to the full text of Hebrew manuscripts, imprints and journals missing from the British Library collections. |
This site is an indispensable resource for bibliographers and for scholars of Hebrew and Jewish studies. It works as a comprehensive and accessible catalogue of the British Library's Hebrew collection as well as an insight into the history of the collection and images of the manuscripts themselves. Examples of the manuscripts are beautifully displayed throughout the site and can be enlarged without loss of quality. |
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