A guide for the perplexed. Exploring the German-Jewish archives at the National Library of Israel

ABSTRACT

The National Library of Israel holds more than 200 personal archives and collections of German-Jewish intellectuals from the 19^th and 20^th century. In 2021/2022, a joint project with the University of Hamburg catalogued and digitized 24 of the most important holdings. This article surveys the complex characteristics of the material and points to its significance for scholarship through three exemplary dimensions: personal entanglements, multilingualism, and migration histories. It also addresses the challenges of accessing and managing more than 700,000 digital images and shows the potentials they hold for future research. The article serves as an introduction to this special issue.

KEYWORDS:

• Archive
• digitization
• German-Jewish history
• migration
• Israel
• multilingualism
• cultural heritage

Acknowledgments

I am greatly indebted to our partners at the National Library of Israel, namely Matan Barzilai, Stefan Litt, Shaul Greenstein, and Johanna Witte who have been committed, helpful and supportive throughout the project. The interdisciplinary community at the CSMC has provided an inspiring and supportive environment and graciously housed and funded the workshop this issue is based on. Thank you to all the workshop participants for their readiness to let themselves be overwhelmed by the material. Joachim Schlör was kind enough not only to attend the workshop and deliver the keynote but also provide us with a place of publication. I would also like to thank the project’s principal investigator Giuseppe Veltri who gave free rein to me regarding the practical configuration of the project and supported my various ideas. Finally, Benjamin Balint was kind enough to proofread my article and gently remove any grammatical or stylistic transgressions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Cf. Felix Weltsch, “Das Erbe einer Generation. Aus den literarischen Archiven der Jüdischen Nationalbibliothek in Jerusalem,” Aufbau, May 27, 1960, 13–14 and in Zum Andenken an Josef Chasanowitsch, 1844–1920 und Awraham Schwadron, 1878–1958, ed. Norbert Weldler (Zürich: Der Scheideweg, 1960), 17–21.

2. Weltsch, “Das Erbe einer Generation,“ 13. The translation follows an apparently unpublished English typescript from Weltsch’s estate at the NLI, call no. ARC. Ms. Var. 418 4 26.

3. Quoted from Benjamin Balint, Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine that Transformed the Jewish Left into the Neoconservative Right (New York: Public Affairs, 2010), 33.

4. On Bein’s pioneering activities in the Israeli archival landscape and his use of the term ‘kibbuts galuyot’ see Jason Lustig, A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 58–64.

5. On the Schwadron collection see Rachel Misrati, “A Jewish national collection for a Jewish national library: the Abraham Schwadron collection, past and present,” Judaica Librarianship 20 (2017), 52–79, https://doi.org/10.14263/2330–2976.1207; Rachel Misrati, “Complement or contradiction? British non-Jews in Abraham Schwadron’s autograph collection,” Jewish Culture and History 19,3 (2018), 213–236, https://doi.org/10.1080/1462169X.2018.1488918.

6. For the German discourse on the concept of ‘Nachlassbewusstsein’ (archival awareness) see Kai Sina and Carlos Spoerhase, “Nachlassbewusstsein: Zur literaturwissenschaftlichen Erforschung seiner Entstehung und Entwicklung,“Zeitschrift für Germanistik 23, no. 3 (2013), 607–623, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23978445.

7. Cf. Martin Buber, “Das Ende der Deutsch-jüdischen Symbiose,” Jüdische Welt-Rundschau, March 10, 1939, 5.

8. Cf. Sebastian Schirrmeister, Begegnung auf fremder Erde. Verschränkungen deutsch- und hebräischsprachiger Literatur in Palästina/Israel nach 1933 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2019), 34–38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04931-5.

9. For a cross-cultural perspective see Alessandro Bausi, Christian Brockmann, Michael Friedrich and Sabine Kienitz, Manuscripts and Archives: Comparative Views on Record-Keeping (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110541397

10. Cf. Stefan Litt, “Zeugnisse deutsch-jüdischer Kulturgeschichte. Der Erwerb deutschsprachiger Privatnachlässe für die Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem 1934–1971,” in Deutsche(s) in Palästina und Israel: Alltag, Kultur, Politik, ed. José Brunner (Göttingen: Wallstein 2013), 195–212.

11. Litt, “Zeugnisse,” 211.

12. Zvi Baras, A Century of Books: The Jewish National & University Library 1892–1992 (Jerusalem: JNUL, 1992), 72.

13. Ibid.

14. Raquel Ukeles, Hezi Amiur, Yoel Finkelman, Stefan Litt, and Samuel Thrope (eds.), 101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel (New York: Scala Arts Publishers, 2022).

15. Cf. Lustig, A Time to Gather.

16. See https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/newspapers/jpress, accessed November 23, 2023.

17. Ofer Aderet, “Jerusalem’s National Library Presents: All the World’s Hebrew Manuscripts Online,” Haaretz, published August 3, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-08-03/ty-article-magazine/.premium/jerusalems-national-library-presents-all-the-worlds-hebrew-manuscripts-online/0000017f-e815-d97e-a37f-ff7543f90000?lts=1700735602180. The website of the platform is https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/manuscripts/hebrew-manuscripts, accessed November 23, 2023.

18. For a critical evaluation of the term ‘Jewish heritage’ in the German context see Sarah M. Ross and Dani Kranz, “Jüdisches Kulturerbe versus Jewish heritage: The socio-political significance of jüdisches Kulturerbe and the discontents of Jewish (cultural) heritage in Germany,” Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, January 11, 2023, https://www.bpb.de/themen/zeit-kulturgeschichte/juedischesleben/518788/juedisches-kulturerbe-versus-jewish-heritage/.

19. “3. Deutsch-israelische Regierungskonsultationen in Jerusalem,“ HaGalil, published February 1, 2011, https://www.hagalil.com/2011/02/regierungskonsultationen-3/.

20. Maya Sela, “National Library, Germany Partner to Put Papers Online,” Haaretz, published February 16, 2011, https://www.haaretz.com/1.5123036?lts=1652953275976.

21. Giuseppe Veltri, Evelyn Burkhardt, Grit Schorch, Till Schicketanz and Lutz Wiederhold, ‘Die Digitalisierung des Leopold Zunz-Archivs: ein Projekt des Leopold Zunz Centers der Martin- Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg im Kontext der Digitalen Bibliothek der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt,’ ABI-Technik: Zeitschrift für Automation, Bau und Technik im Archiv-, Bibliotheks- und Informationswesen 29, no. 2 (2009), 78–89.

22. See https://www.jewish-archives.org/, accessed November 21, 2023.

23. “Digitalisierung von deutsch-jüdischem Kulturerbe,“ Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, https://www.dnb.de/DE/Professionell/ProjekteKooperationen/Projektarchiv/2018/Digitalisierung-Kulturerbe/digitalisierungKulturerbe.html, last updated January 1, 2020.

24. See https://kuenste-im-exil.de/SiteGlobals/Forms/Suche/DE/A-Z/Suchformular_Objekt.html?nn=25142&cl2RespTargets_Netzwerkpartner=National+Library+of+Israel, accessed November 23, 2023. Apparently, only 38 objects have been uploaded to the portal so far.

25. “Claudia Roth will Zusammenarbeit mit Israel vertiefen“, Spiegel online, May 24, 2022, https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/israel-claudia-roth-kuendigt-vertiefte-kulturelle-zusammenarbeit-an-a-0b7c7f34-9ad0-40ba-9a8b-4c9a3e813a94?sara_ref=re-xx-cp-sh.

26. On this topic see Benjamin Balint, Kafka’s Last Trial. The Case of a Literary Legacy (New York: W.W. Norton, 2018).

27. See https://www.laskerschuelerarchives.org/, accessed Jan 1, 2024.

28. Ulrich Raulff, “Jahresbericht der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 2013/2014,” Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 58 (2014), 647–711, 677.

29. ‘Kafka Virtual Archive’, Deutsches Literatur Archiv, https://www.dla-marbach.de/forschung/editionen-und-digital-humanities/kafka-virtual-archive/, accessed November 21, 2023.

30. DFG Practical Guidelines for Digitisation, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7561148, uploaded February 16, 2023.

31. See Joachim Schlör, “German-Jewish Family Archives in the (Virtual) Diaspora: Questions of Storage, Ownership and Belonging,” Tsafon. Revue d’études juives du Nord, hors-série 11 (2023), 141–160.

32. A spreadsheet with the extracted catalogue data is available in the research data repository of University of Hamburg: https://doi.org/10.25592/uhhfdm.13914.

33. On this 24-year project see https://www.adwmainz.de/en/projects/buber-korrespondenzen-digital/information.html, accessed November 27, 2023.

34. See Felix Weltsch Archive, call no. ARC. Ms. Var. 418 2 265, ARC. Ms. Var. 418 2 266, ARC. Ms. Var. 418 2 267.

35. For the complete data set see https://doi.org/10.25592/uhhfdm.13914.

36. See Rachel Misrati, “48 Years of Personal Archives: A Historical User Study of the Archive Department at the National and University Library − 1959–2007 and Reflections a Decade Later,” [Hebrew], Arkhion 18 (2017), 22–46.

37. The fragments are presented in Ukeles et. al., 101 Treasures, 274–275 with further reading suggestions on page 330.

38. See https://www.nli.org.il/en/research-and-teach/open-library, accessed December 4, 2023.

39. See Vanessa Freedman, “Making the Dewey Jewey: Gershom Scholem as a Librarian,” in: Scholar and Kabbalist: The Life and Work of Gershom Scholem, ed. Mirjam Zadoff and Noam Zadoff (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 253–271.

40. On this idea see Giuseppe Veltri and Libera Pisano, “Community of Archives: German-Jewish Authors in Israel,” Tsafon. Revue d’études juives du Nord, hors-série 11 (2023), 211–231, 228.

41. Quote and paraphrase taken from Talia Einhorn, “The Rights to the Kafka Manuscripts – A Vintage Kafkaesque Story” [Hebrew], Wealth Management Law Review 2, no. 1 (2016), 1–65, 28, https://ssrn.com/abstract=2764165. On Cohen’s deposition see also Ofer Aderet, “Librarian: Brod Wanted to Give Kafka Papers to Jerusalem Archive,” Haaretz, February 7, 2011, https://www.haaretz.com/2011-02-07/ty-article/librarian-brod-wanted-to-give-kafka-papers-to-jerusalem-archive/0000017f-f656-d460-afff-ff76e6110000.

42. Chaim Nahman Bialik, The Hebrew Book. An Essay, transl. Minnie Halkin (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1951), 8–9.

43. Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness, transl. Nicholas de Lange (London: Vintage, 2005), 3.

44. On this policy and the poetic responses to it see Sebastian Schirrmeister, “Broken Hebrew. Poetic Incursions in the National ‘War’ for Linguistic Normativity,” in Zukunft der Sprache – Zukunft der Nation?, ed. Carmen Reichert, Bettina Bannasch and Albrecht Wildfeuer (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), 355–377, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110755138-019.

45. ”Full text of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People,” Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Full_text_of_Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People, accessed December 15, 2023.

46. Quoted from the administrative file of the Moritz Lazarus Archive, no call no.

47. Misrati, “48 Years of Personal Archives,” 31.

48. Wilhelm Dilthey, “Archive für Literatur,” in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. XV, ed. Ulrich Herrmann (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 1–16, 4.

49. See Balint, Kafka’s Last Trial, 106–108.

50. Lloyd P. Gartner, “The Great Jewish Migration. Its East European background,” Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 27 (1998), 107–133.

51. See Jewish Culture and History 15,1–2 (2014), Tsafon. Revue d’études juives du Nord, hors-série 11 (2023), “The Return to the Archive: Dispersal, Transmission, and Anticipation in Personal Archives between Germany and Israel,” ed. Lina Barouch, Dubnow Institute Yearbook 17 (2018), 299–516.

52. On the necessity to study the histories of these archives see James Lowry (ed.), Displaced Archives (London: Routledge, 2017).

53. Lustig, A Time to Gather, 44.

54. Veltri, Pisano, “Community of Archives,” 230.

55. See correspondence in the administrative file of the Rudolf Kayser Archive, no call no.

56. Cf. the letters in file ARC. 4* 1751 13 3316, https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL997011546594505171/NLI, accessed December 19, 2023.

57. Cf. G. J. Ormann, “A First Glance at the History of the Lazarus Archive” [Hebrew], in: Essays and Studies in Librarianship: presented to Curt David Wormann on his 75^th birthday, ed. Mordekhai Nadav and Jacob Rothschild (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975), 11–17.

58. Rafael Buber to Sidney L. Regner, 6.11.1980, administrative file of Gustav Landauer Archive, no call no.

59. The inventory is copied from Waltraud Bumann, Die Sprachtheorie Heymann Steinthals (Meisenheim: Glan, 1965), 147.

60. See structure of Heymann Steinthal Archive, https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990026897530205171/NLI, accessed December 15, 2023.

61. See structure of Ludwig Strauss Archive, https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990026487990205171/NLI, accessed December 15, 2023.

62. See file ARC. 4* 1749 2 22, https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990031510730205171/NLI, accessed December 18, 2023.

63. See file ARC. 4* 1749 2 4, https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990031507510205171/NLI, accessed December 18, 2023.

64. See e.g., file ARC. Ms. Var. 418 3 24, https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990037677140205171/NLI, accessed December 18, 2023.

65. This happened with letters from Franz Kafka to Felix Weltsch, see file ARC. Ms. Var. 418 3 99, https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990037839400205171/NLI, accessed December 18, 2023.

66. Cf. his comments on the digital ‘re-construction’ of the YIVO archive and the Friedberg Genizah Project. Lustig, A Time to Gather, 158–173.

67. See for example the Visual Pattern Detector (VPD) developed by Hussein Mohammed at the CSMC, https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/software/vdp.html, accessed December 18, 2023.

68. A full video recording of the public event is available (in German): https://lecture2go.uni-hamburg.de/l2go/-/get/v/67698, accessed December 19, 2023.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy - EXC 2176 `Understanding Written Artefacts: Material, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures’, project no. 390893796. The research was conducted within the scope of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at Universität Hamburg.

Notes on contributors

Sebastian Schirrmeister

Sebastian Schirrmeister is a literary scholar with a focus on Jewish literatures, German-Hebrew studies, archives, and translation. He studied Jewish Studies and German Literature in Potsdam and Haifa and has held positions and fellowships in Hamburg, Jerusalem, Göttingen, and Munich. Currently, he is a post-doctoral research associate at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg. In addition to various articles, he has published the study Begegnung auf fremder Erde. (Metzler 2019) on German-Hebrew literary entanglements in Palestine/Israel and has co-edited the Yearbook for European-Jewish Literature Studies 10 (De Gruyter 2023) on positions of the third generation. He is also the editor of this special issue.