https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3216-8097
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ABSTRACT
This comparative, mixed-methods study explores various definitions of Israel Studies as a discipline through their manifestations in library and archival collections. A survey and a follow-up interview with collection curators provide a glimpse into library operations and demonstrate their dependency on Jewish Studies across the board. Collection strengths, extensiveness, and uniqueness are shaped not by the presence of an on-campus Israel Studies center, but rather by individual curators guided by their own proactive approach to collection building. The article includes an annotated list of over 120 distinctive collections, among which we uncover several hidden collections. Taken together, our article illustrates the need for better communication between Israel Studies’ scholarly and information communities.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Shari Laster of Arizona State University Library and Nena Couch of The Ohio State University Libraries for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13531042.2023.2338626.
Notes
1. The Books Law (2000) “requires two copies of every publication published in Israel to be deposited in the Library. This includes any printed publication, book, journal or magazine, item of ephemera or audio-visual format issued in more than 50 copies” (National Library of Israel, “The NLI Collection Development Policy,” 17; for the full version (Hebrew only), see National Library of Israel, “Legal Deposit.”
2. National Library of Israel, “The NLI Collection Development Policy,” 51–84; and see also Shveiky, “Developing a Collection Policy.”
3. Hazen and Spohrer, Building Area Studies Collections; Hazan, “Researching Library Support for International Studies”; Celik, “Collection Development and Acquisitions”; and Silva and Ostos, “No, It’s Not Online.”
4. See Pitman, Supporting Research in Area Studies; Taler,“Globalization of Area Studies”; and Silva and Ostos, “No, It’s Not Online.” For Middle Eastern collections, see Hirsch, “From Parchment to Pixels”; and Moustafa, “Research without Archives.”
5. Amit, A Queer Way Out; Yehudai, Leaving Zion; and Kranz, “Towards an Emerging Distinction.”
6. Berger, “Jewish Libraries and Archives in America.”
7. Lustig, A Time to Gather, and accompanying website, “Research Guide to Jewish Archives.”
8. Cohen, “Jewish Libraries in Interwar Poland.”
9. Rozental, “Photographic Archives, Nationalism.”
10. Bartov, “Chambers of Horror: Holocaust Museums.” The same is true for such institutions and collections in Israel (e.g., Schidorsky, “The Emergence of Libraries”; Mack, “Jerusalem’s Historical Libraries and Archives”; and Harel et al., “The Younes And Soraya Nazarian Library,” as well as academic librarianship in Israel (Korn, “Israeli Libraries and Librarianship”; Shoham, “Libraries and Librarianship in Israel”; Aharony “The Librarian and the Information Scientist”; and Greenberg and Bar-Ilan, “Ask a Librarian.” Contacts between Judaica librarians and Israeli librarians take place through the Association of Jewish Libraries, which has held only one annual conference in Israel (see Association of Jewish Libraries, First International Conference of Judaica and Israeli Librarians).
11. We especially thank Dr. Gideon Reuveni of University of Sussex for his valuable help in identifying collections in the United Kingdom.
12. For example, no responses were received regarding testimonies of Holocaust survivors living in Israel, maybe because such collection curators did not see the connection to Israel Studies. Some libraries we attempted to contact did not respond, including those in Birzeit University in the West Bank, Cairo University, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Yale University, and the British Library. Additionally, the collections at the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives may include relevant materials (to scan them for relevant collections, search by subject: AmericanJewishArchives.org; accessed March 26, 2024).
13. The recently launched (June 2023) Jewish Settlements Archival Project at New York University’s Taub Center for Israel Studies consists of curated surrogates of digitized files “held by the Israel State Archives (ISA), the Israel Defense Forces Archives (IDFA), Knesset plenary debates and committee records, and records of the Israeli Supreme Court and lower courts” (https://archive.nyu.edu/handle/2451/64459; Accessed March 22, 2024). Digital backup projects such as this one may prove necessary in light of the November 2023 cyberattack on the ISA (see Ofer Aderet, “Future of Israel’s State Archive Website ‘Uncertain’ Following Cyberattack,” Haarertz, February 22, 2024). https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-02-22/ty-article/.premium/future-of-israels-state-archive-website-uncertain-following-cyberattack/0000018d-cd33-d914-a5ad-cf33dfd90000. Accessed March 22, 2024.
14. Library archives, especially on the American East Coast, include several such materials at the folder level.
15. For example, the Elihu Grant excavation records of Beth-Shemesh at University of Pennsylvania, http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/ead/upenn_museum_PUMu1032 (accessed March 26, 2024), or the Gus Van Beek papers related to the Tell Jemmeh excavations at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, https://www.si.edu/object/archives/sova-naa-2008-28b. Accessed March 26, 2024.
16. The authors would like to thank the librarians and archivists who participated in this study, coming from the following institutions: Alliance israélite universelle, American University, Arizona State University, Brandeis University, Columbia University, Concordia University, Duke University, Emory University, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Harvard University, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg, Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center (Moscow), Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Leo Baeck College, Institut für Jüdische Philosophie und Religion, Michigan State University, New York Public Library, New York University, The Ohio State University, Princeton University, Stanford University, Towson University, Tulane University, Universität Hamburg, University of Amsterdam, University College London, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Florida, University of Maryland in College Park, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, The University of Texas at Austin, University of Toronto, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Yeshiva University.
17. The Middle East Librarians Association recently launched the MELA statistical database (October 2021). This promising project aims to provide “data about the counts of and the expenditures on materials in Middle Eastern languages in North American academic libraries. This includes materials in all formats such as books, serials and print or digital media. The data reflects the counts of materials written in Middle Eastern languages such as, but not limited to, Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Persian, Kurdish and Turkish.” The project depends on the voluntary efforts of individual librarians and information sharing permissions of their institutions. See https://www.mela.us/statistics; accessed March 26, 2024.
18. McGuigan and White, “Subject-Specific Policy Statements,” 15.
19. See, for example, Roll, “Both Just-In-Time and Just-in-Case”; and Crawford et al., “Implementing a Just-in-Time.”
20. See more, International and Area Studies Collections in the 21st Century, “IASC21 Statement.”
21. See https://www.worldcat.org (accessed March 26, 2024).
22. For example, Hidden Treasures, the online platform for Jewish archives in Britain (https://celebratingjewisharchives.org; accessed March 26, 2024); Yerusha, a comprehensive platform for Jewish archival collections in archives, libraries and museums across Europe and Israel (https://yerusha.eu; accessed March 26, 2024); Rachel, the union catalog of the European Network of Judaica and Hebraica Libraries (http://www.rachelnet.net/rachelnet/E/index.htm (accessed March 26, 2024); see also Musnik, “Rachel: The Union Catalog.”)
23. Three other libraries that have sizable collections related to Israel Studies include Stanford University, Jewish Theological Seminary, and Columbia University.
24. Harvard’s Judaica Division has five full-time staff, who are also aided by student workers at the library. The LC collections are maintained by a team of 12 full-time staff members: three librarians in the Hebraic Section, one Israeli law specialist in the Law Library, and seven catalogers in the Cataloging Division. In addition, many other staff members throughout LC deal with Israel-related material on an ad hoc basis (for example, Israeli newspapers are processed in the Newspapers and Periodicals Division). The Hebraic Division’s activities and new acquisitions are reported annually at the conference of the Association of Jewish Libraries.
25. Harvard’s Judaica endowments are listed in Berlin and Harvard Library Judaica Division, Harvard Judaica in the 21st Century, 147–172; LC’s budget reports are available online, but the dollar amount reported is the expenditure line for all general and international collections, https://www.loc.gov/about/reports-and-budgets/congressional-budget-justifications (accessed March 26, 2024).
26. See also Library of Congress, “About the Collections – Hebraic Section.”
27. The LC online Finding Aid for Archival Collections is at http://findingaids.loc.gov (accessed March 26, 2024; search by subject, then Israel).
28. LC’s general catalog may be set to search by subject and language, as well as format, such as manuscripts/mixed material, legislation, or personal narratives, see https://www.loc.gov/search (accessed March 26, 2024).
29. Although these collections are uncatalogued, they are organized by topics, organizations, and personal names. A detailed list is available upon request. See https://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/pdf/ephemera-in-the-hebraic-section-finding-aid.pdf (accessed March 26, 2024).
30. Berlin et al., Documenting Israel; Berlin and Harvard Library Judaica Division, Harvard Judaica in the 21st Century; and Berlin et al., Documenting Israel: Proceedings. The Harvard Judaica Division publications, issued since 1969, comprise over a hundred titles: exhibition catalogs, lectures and articles, conference proceedings, collection catalogs, monographs in the Harvard Judaica Collection Student Research Papers series, and fundraising-related materials. These publications have been digitized and are freely accessible via Harvard Library’s catalog under “Harvard Judaica Library publications” (https://hollis.harvard.edu; accessed March 26, 2024).
31. Berlin, Documenting Israel: Harvard Library’s Israel Collection.
32. See note 31 above.
33. The lion’s share of Harvard’s digitized collection comprises of digital reproductions of original items that reside in Israel. Images from the photo archive of Israel Sun Agency were reproduced from 2 million original negatives housed in Harvard.
34. https://library.harvard.edu/collections/judaica-collection. Accessed March 26, 2024.
35. Information about access and availability is also not shared: for example, most of the digitized images at Harvard are available for low-resolution viewing only; and LC’s Africa and Middle East Reading Room’s Country page for Israel has not been updated since May 2017.
36. Kiron, “Berlin, Charles. Harvard Judaica in the 21st Century,” 110.
37. For example, the core collection at UCLA was acquired from the Bamberger and Wahrmann antiquarian bookshop in Jerusalem (see Gafni, “The Bamberger and Wahrmann Bookstore”).
38. Under the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, commonly known as Public Law 480, agricultural commodities were sent from the United States to participating countries, while the American government was paid with local currency that could be spent only locally. Those funds were used by the Library of Congress to acquire books and periodicals that were sent back to the United States and distributed among academic libraries across the nation (Williamson, “The Impact of the Public Law 480 Program”; and Degerald, “Trading Wheat for Books in the Cold War”). According to the Library of Congress, “About the Collections – Hebraic Section,” each of the 25 American libraries selected for this program received “an average of 65,000 items over the course of the program.”
39. However, only one survey respondent commented that their collection development policy “has been guided by focusing on those materials with specifically Jewish-related content.”
40. Materials in subjects related to the arts, such as architecture or music, as well as Jewish and/or Israeli Law, are sometimes housed in dedicated libraries and solely selected by librarians specializing in these areas, although some Israel Studies librarians coordinate the curation of these collections with these other librarians.
41. One of these belles-lettres comprehensive collections, at The Ohio State University Libraries, supports the bibliographical work of Joseph Galron-Goldschläger, editor of the Modern Hebrew Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Lexicon, a free resource, available at https://benyehuda.org/lexicon (accessed March 26, 2024); see also Galron-Goldschläger’s Union List of Digitized Jewish Historic Newspapers, Periodicals and e-Journals, which includes a secondary list titled Periodicals in Hebrew Script: https://library.osu.edu/projects/hebrew-lexicon/Jewish-Press.htm (accessed March 26, 2024).
42. For collaborative collection development in Area Studies, see Lenkart et al., “Measuring and Sustaining the Impact”; and Thacker et al., “Establishing the Impact of Area Studies Collections.” The few collaborative collection building efforts include the Manhattan Area Research Initiative in New York City (Columbia University, New York University, and the New York Public Library), who share an offsite storage facility and together with Princeton University purchased the Magnes ebook collection; and Arizona State University and the University of Texas at Austin, who divide the acquisition of popular filmaic materials between them based on format (print/film and ephemera, respectively).
43. The study found no personal preferences regarding material formats, although a few institutions stopped collecting what they regard as obsolete formats (DVDs, microforms, print newspapers).
44. See Hirsch, “From Parchment to Pixels,” 82: “Geographic Coverage: Middle Eastern collections can span a broad geographic area. Traditionally, collecting includes the Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority (West Bank and Gaza), Jordan, Iraq, the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates; the North African countries of Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya; as well as Iran, Turkey, and Israel”
45. See also Wiener, “History and Mission of the IIJS.”
46. See also the Abraham Danon papers at the Bibliothèque universitaire des langues et civilizations (BULAC). https://bbf.enssib.fr/consulter/bbf-1977-07-0449-002 (accessed March 26, 2024).
47. See also the program of a 2013 symposium, “Israeli Literature from the Holtzman Collection,” https://img.lib.msu.edu/SymposiumProgram.pdf (accessed March 26, 2024).
48. See Brener, “The Odessa Years.”
49. See Leket-Mor, “IsraPulp: The Israeli Popular Literature Collection.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Rachel Leket-Mor
Rachel Leket-Mor is the Open Stack Collections Curator at Arizona State University Library and editor of Judaica Librarianship (refereed). She holds a master of arts in translation studies from Tel Aviv University and a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Arizona. Her 2022 book chapter, “My Heart Is in the West but I Am on the Eastern Edge: Hebrew Pulp Westerns and the Sabra Cowboy,” was published in The Western in the Global Literary Imagination. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2022).
Uri Kolodney
Uri Kolodney works at The University of Texas Libraries. He is the Hebrew, Jewish, and Israel Studies subject liaison, as well as the librarian for film and video across all subjects. He holds a master’s degree in Middle Eastern languages and cultures and a master of science in information studies, both from The University of Texas at Austin.
Joseph Galron-Goldschläger
Joseph Galron-Goldschläger, Hebraica and Jewish Studies Librarian at The Ohio State University, was born in Israel. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and in archaeology of the Land of Israel from Tel Aviv University and a master of library science from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He began his library career at the Central Library of Tel Aviv University as cataloger of Hebrew and German material. In 1988, he was hired as a Hebrew cataloger at The Ohio State University, and since 1994, he has worked as a Hebraica and Jewish Studies bibliographer. Galron-Goldschläger published several personal bibliographies of Israeli Hebrew writers. Since 2004, he has been compiling an online Bio-Bibliographical Lexicon of Modern Hebrew Literature that includes Hebrew writers from the eighteenth century to the present, as well detailed table of contents of literary magazines and collections of research volumes on Hebrew literature. In 2009, he was awarded a Body-of-Work award by the Association of Jewish Libraries and in 2019 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the National Library in Jerusalem.