Salon Jewish Studies Blog

Photographs from the Paul Trevor Collection are available online via VADS: "Academics and artists at London Metropolitan University worked with photographer Paul Trevor to make a selection of his images of East London digitally available to artists, students and researchers. The Collection includes 500 images (chosen from a total of 120,000) of the Spitalfields area from the 1970s to the 1990s, a period of rapid social and physical change." The online collection contains a few pictures documenting Jewish daily life in the area.

In the framework of the Historic Jewish Press project at the JNUL the Jewish newspapers Davar (1925-1968), Ha-Zvi (1884-1915) and La Liberté / El Horria (1915-1922) have been digitized. Now ten newspapers are available online.

A list of a wikipedia user reveals that (among others) publications of Theodor Herzl and Max Brod are available through the website of the Austrian National Library (ÖNB). Furthermore some Juedische Presse issues of the year 1938 can be found within the huge collection of Austrian historical journals and newspapers - ANNO.

The written work Konrad von Grünenberg: Beschreibung der Reise von Konstanz nach Jerusalem (1487) describes a typical journey of a society of pilgrims during the 15th century. Besides beautiful hand drawings the book reveals many topographic details of the holy land. The book was digitized by the Badische Landesbibliothek, Karlsruhe. (via Archivalia@Twitter)

"Today, on April 21, 2009, the World Digital Library, one of the most significant projects refering to digital primary sources on different cultures across the world, was launched.

The mission:

"The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.

The principal objectives of the WDL are to:

Promote international and intercultural understanding;
Expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet;
Provide resources for educators, scholars, and general audiences;
Build capacity in partner institutions to narrow the digital divide within and between countries."

In cooperation with the Jewish Museum of Maryland (JMM), the Baltimore Jewish Times is helping to identify unidentified individuals in historical photographs by presenting them on their webpage.

"The Jewish Museum of Maryland has the largest single collection of regional Jewish Americana in the U.S. Our collections include works of art, historical photographs, clothing, ceremonial items, rare books, everyday objects, documents, oral histories, and memorabilia. The collections embody the story of Jewish life in Maryland - immigration, family history, business, congregational and organizational life, leisure, consumption, and contemporary culture." The JMM hosts a searchable database to the museum collections.

"The Jewish Art Salon (New York) is an open and unique inter-disciplinary group of artists. We meet informally once every four weeks to discuss our work, life, the Jewish themes inherent in our work and the multiplicity of impetus and inspiration for our work. We engage in interactive dialogues that address important and provocative issues facing our society.
We are dedicated to the preservation of an open forum where all opinions and viewpoints are listened to and respected. Together, we are working to create a Jewish art community where work and issues are discussed and information and resources are shared.
Seeing a need for such a forum, Yona Verwer, visual artist, and Holly Wolf, writer, convened the group along with co-founders Laura Kruger, curator of the HUC-JIR Museum, Richard McBee, visual artist and art critic, and David Wander, visual artist."

From May 2009 two titles edited by the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute (Leipzig) will be published online:

1) Die rheinischen Juden im Mittelalter
2) Jüdische Friedhöfe in Deutschland – Eine Einführung für Lehrer und Schüler

For more information on the titles see section Mitteilungen of Kalonymos I, 2009

A PDF-version of the Kedem Auction House is available online. It includes not only a list of the 529 titles for sale but also an index and front covers of selected items.

"Kedem Auction House was established in 2008 by Meron Eren, Avishay Geller and Eran Reiss. The owners have been dealing for many years with antique Jewish books and manuscripts, and items related to the history and culture of the Jewish people. Avishay specialized in Religious books (Sifrei Kodesh) and rabbinical manuscripts, while Meron and Eran specialized in modern day Jewish history and culture." (Kedem Auction House website)

"This April 24-26, 2009, students from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, and the Illinois Institute of Technology will present “Chai-Art”, a collection of works exploring Jewish Identity. “Chai” (pronounced “high”) is the Hebrew word for life, and echoes the mission of Hillels Around Chicago: to foster vibrant Jewish life in a welcoming and pluralistic atmosphere.
The title also plays off the term 'High Art', often used to distinguish traditional art disciplines from craft and the decorative arts.
Student artists were asked to approach their work from a Jewish perspective. 'What does it mean to be a Jewish artist? What does it mean to be a Jew?' Explained Erin Jones, Program Director of Hillel Arts in the Loop, 'Art can be an invaluable way of processing these questions of identity and purpose.” Hillel Arts in the Loop challenges students to express their histories, ethnicities, and identities through fine arts, performance, writing, and new media.' (via JUF News)

Hachaim Hajehudim is an internet photo library of over 15,000 pictures showing exteriors and interiors of synagogues, people, stained glass, Tallitot & Kippot, Siddurim & Toroth, Holocaust memorials, cemeteries as well as architecure details from 80 countries. All photos were taken by Jono David, "a British-American (born, May 1966) freelance photographer and writer based in Osaka, Japan." He wrote about the project on the website:

"In the autumn of 1987, I read an article about the Jewish community of Manaus, Brazil. A synagogue in the Amazon struck me as most unexpected. The story intrigued me enough to add a visit there to my South American travel itinerary during my year-end university recess.
My close friend, Heidi, and I managed to find the synagogue and a few members of the community. Later, I published “One Man’s Fight to Keep Judaism Alive in the Amazon” in the The Jewish Telegraph in the UK. Neither the text nor the photographs were well polished but I was thrilled to have documented for myself the Amazonian community I had been introduced to in a newspaper in Washington, D.C.
Those experiences unwittingly sparked a commitment to visiting and photographing Jewish communities of the world that continues to this day (please see Mission).
Perhaps my biggest discovery of all is this: While each Jewish community is unique, all are bound by common threads of cultural identity. Hence, a visit to a Jewish community in even the most unexpected places like Manaus is somehow familiar. With few exceptions, I have been warmly welcomed by these communities, even when I arrived unannounced. Such welcomes are testament to the ties that bind Jews the world over together.
It is a privilege to have a sense of belonging in places where I am otherwise a mere stranger. The remarkable people that I have met along the way have made that possible. They have generously given me their time, secured access to synagogues, cemeteries, and museums, guided me round their towns and villages, and fed me in their homes."

“It is important to keep the images available for public access for future researchers and historians,” Jono David cited in Photographer includes Portland in online library of Jewish images (Jewish Review, April 6, 2009)

The German newspaper Spiegel published in its online version the brief article Experte fordert Ende der Raubkunst Debatte [expert ask to end the debate about looted art] today. It includes information based on an interview with the long-standing curator of the Royal Academy of Arts (London) - Sir Norman Rosenthal:

"'Unfassbar Furchtbares ist geschehen. Wie wollen Sie das vergeben? Indem Sie einen Tizian einpacken?', sagte der langjähriger Kurator der Royal Academy in London im SPIEGEL-Interview. Er verstehe, dass sich viele Museumsdirektoren nicht nur in Deutschland gegen Restitutionsansprüche wehren, sagte Rosenthal, der selbst aus einer jüdischen Emigrantenfamilie stammt. Seine Mutter flüchtete aus Deutschland. [...] Bei der ganzen Diskussion müsse man im Auge behalten, dass der Kunstmarkt in den vergangenen Jahren explodiert sei und Begehrlichkeiten geweckt habe. "Die Leute, die da mitverdienen wollen, erinnern mich an Aasgeier", sagte er dem SPIEGEL. Oft genug werde ein Bild sofort nach der Restitution veräußert, 'und so mancher Anwalt erhält 50 Prozent des Erlöses'."

Rosenthal, one of the main critics of restitution processes was also cited in the online version of the NEW YORK Jewish Week on April 1, 2009:

"If we were still in 1950 and the people who owned the Manet or the Monet were still alive, then it would surely be correct to give these paintings back [...] but not now and not to grandchildren and great-grandchildren"


For more information on looted art

http://www.lootedart.com/ (site contains a information database on looted art from forty nine countries and a object database with which contains details of 25,000 objects)

http://www.beutekunst.de/ (pilot project, at the moment information on looted art in Saxony-Anhalt)

A new podcast Leon Merrick: Importance of Work in the Lodz Ghetto is available on U.S. Holcaust Memorial Museum website.

"Everybody had to have a job. Because if you had a job you get an extra bowl of soup in the place of wherever you work. So my father worked in the main hospital, we had five hospitals in the ghetto. They were clinics before the war, but then the Jews came in when they formed the ghetto, so they made a hospital. And my father worked in the hospital and my mother got a job in the orphanage. And of course later on, in a couple years or so, I wanted to get a job too. I’d seen these young fellows going around with satchels delivering mail so I told my father, “Maybe I can do…maybe I can do this.”
But later on, so for the first year and a half I had no jobs. My mother worked, and from the place of employment she got an extra bowl of soup so she can share the remaining ration with us. My father he also worked, he also got some food." (fragment of the transcript)

(via USHMM@Twitter)

The exhibition Sent to their death, the deportation of Jews, Roma and Sinti from Hamburg 1940 to 1945 (Kunsthaus [Arthouse], Hamburg] "is designed with a conceptual focus on the perspectives of more than 7,500 deportees and what happened to them at the sites of deportation. It includes video and audio interviews with survivors, photos, documents such as letters and diaries, and original memento items. These exhibition items help give back to the victims their faces and their life stories, which have been obscured by the anonymous lists, standardized forms, and the administrative operations of the perpetrators, with their seemingly 'correct' division of labor.
" (www.deportationsausstellung.hamburg.de)

(via H-Soz-u-Kult)

The Rothschild Haggadah (Ms. Heb 4° 6130; also called : "Murphy Haggadah") is a "Passover Haggadah according to the Ashkenazi rite." [The] Manuscript on parchment. Northern Italy. ca. 1450. 47 fols. 33.5 x 23 cm. Ashkenazi square script. Copied and illuminated by (or in the workshop of) the famous scribe-illuminator Joel b. Simeon. [...]
[The Haggadah] has a fascinating history. Until 1939 it was in the possession of the Rothschild family, but during World War II it was looted by the Nazis and disappeared. After the war, the Haggadah was acquired by a distinguished Yale alumnus, Dr. Fred Towsley Murphy who bequeathed it to the Yale University Library in 1948. In 1980 it was identified as a Rothschild manuscript and returned to its former owners who donated it to the Jewish National and University Library (now the National Library of Israel) where it is now preserved."(JNUL Digitzed Manuscripts Website via H-Judaic)

"The Michigan State University Library and the MSU Museum have partnered to create an online collection of some of the most influential and important American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. The goal of this project is to make these materials available to a wider audience. Digital images of the pages of each cookbook are available as well as full-text transcriptions and the ability to search within the books, across the collection, in order to find specific information." The online collection contains following historic Jewish cookbooks:

(clipping from Bransten family scrapbook, Judah L Magnes Museum collections)

"The Judah L. Magnes museum is a museum of art and history focused on the Jewish experience located in Berkeley, California. Since late 2007 the museum has been posting their digital assets both on their website and on their Flickr account. On Flickr, all of the high resolution images are licensed under our [Creative Commons] Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license. [...]

More information on Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org

The project holocaust.cz (English short version available) developed by the Terezin Initiative Institute aims to provide information on the history of the Holocaust (and related information) to the Czech public, including interviews with survivors, documents and texts. holocaust.cz was especially designed for use in Czech schools with the focus on the history of the "Final Solution" in Czech Lands and of the Terezin Ghetto.

"Princeton University has placed a new digital library of 200 Islamic manuscripts online for scholars to consult and study. [...]
These manuscripts were selected from some 9,500 volumes of Islamic manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and other languages of the Muslim world in the University Library's Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Princeton's extraordinary holdings constitute the premier collection in the Western Hemisphere and among the finest in the world, according to Don Skemer, curator of manuscripts.
The digitized manuscripts date from the early centuries of Islam until the fall of the Ottoman Empire. They originated in all parts of the Islamic world, from Moorish Spain and northern Africa in the West, through the Middle East, and to India and Indonesia in the East. Subject coverage is fairly encyclopedic, including history, biography, philosophy and logic, theology (based both on the Quran and tradition), law and jurisprudence, language, literature, book arts and illustration, magic and occult sciences, astrology, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and other aspects of the spiritual and intellectual life of the Islamic world.
While the digital library emphasizes rare or unique texts of academic research interest, it also includes a selection of Persian illuminated manuscripts and Mughal miniatures, such as a magnificent 18th-century Indian album of miniatures and calligraphy.
Princeton expects to add more manuscripts to the digital library in the future, besides producing the online bibliographic descriptions." (News at Princeton via Archivesopen)

In 2005 the Stanford University Libraries aquired from the antiquarian bookseller Eliasaf Robinson a collection on the early history of Tel Aviv. By now, significant portions of this collection are digitized and accessible online. Concentrating on materials that date before 1948, the collection includes books, pamphlets, journals, documents, photographs, posters, maps, architectural plans, and ephemera relating to the history of the „First Hebrew City“. Part of the collection are also several Ottoman land deeds (kushans) for lots purchased in 1909 by the first Jewish settlers, who built Tel Aviv as a new Jewish suburb outside of the Arab city of Jaffa.