Subject Guides
Judaic Studies
Resources for Judaic Studies.
Guide Contents
Photographs
Photo taken from centropa.org
Interactive database which lets you explore Centropa's large collection of photographs, which are linked to individual oral histories about the Jewish experience in twentieth-century Europe.
Photo taken from YIVO
YIVO: People of a Thousand Towns
A selection from YIVO's large photo archive of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. You must register to use the search feature.
Archives
- American Jewish Committee ArchivesHas more than a million documents and hundreds of movies and radio shows.
- The Berman Jewish Policy ArchiveOpen access to a growing library of 20,000+ policy-relevant Jewish communal documents from leading authors, journals, and organizations.
- GharamophoneGharamophone is a digital archive dedicated to the preservation of North Africa's Jewish musical history.
- Human Rights Studies OnlineA research and learning database providing comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide from 1900 to 2010. The collection includes primary and secondary materials across multiple media formats and content types for each selected event.
- Jewish Life in America, c1654-1954This collection contains a "diverse range of records which can be used to explore the history of Jewish communities in the United States of America."
- Jewish News Archive1923-2008. From the archive of the Jewish Telegraph Agency, an international, daily wire service for covering news about the Jewish people since the early 20th Century
- Medici Archive Project: Jewish HistoryThe Eugene Grant Research Program on Jewish History and Culture in Early Modern Europe is one of the youngest research programs of the Medici Archive Project.
- Nazi Bank and Financial Institutions: U.S. Military Government Investigation Reports and Interrogatoins of Nazi Financiers, 1945-1949These collections consist of memorandums, letters, cables, balance sheets, reports, exhibits, newspaper clippings, and civil censorship intercepts on the financing of the German war effort and German financial institutions; reports on Nazi gold; the use of Swiss banks; links between German and Swiss banks; and more
- USC Shoah Visual History Archive
Contains video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of genocide, crimes against humanity, and related persecution.
BU Special Collections Resources
- David Bernstein PapersBernstein had a rich and varied career as an editor, public relations specialist, journalist and publisher.
- H. Warner Waid CollectionThe Waid Collection consists of over 700 German books, periodicals and government documents.
Other Online Options
- AHEYM: The Archive of Historical and Ethnographic Yiddish MemoriesExplores Jewish life in Eastern Europe during and after World War II. The archive consists of nearly 400 interviews, conducted primarily in Yiddish, and mostly in small towns throughout Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. The videos are captioned with English translations.
- Brooklyn Daily EagleCurrently, this digital archive makes available newspaper issues from 1841-1955. The paper was edited by Walt Whitman from 1846-1848
- Cairo GenizahCollection of medieval Jewish manuscripts
- Center for Jewish History Digital CollectionsThe Center Digital Collections provides access to the digital assets of the Center for Jewish History and its five partner organizations, the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
- Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive: Jewish AmericansPrimary documents that tell the story of ethnic groups along the Columbia River Basin (encompassing areas of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah and and British Columbia).
- Experiencing History: Jewish Perspectives on the HolocaustThis digital primary source presents original source material that is fully translated,
contextualized, and annotated. The resource presents materials from the
victims’ perspective, such as diaries, letters, and film. - Foreign Relations, 1964-1968: Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967This volume of the official Foreign Relations of the United States documents U.S. policy immediately before, during, and after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
- Historical Jewish PressThis site contains a collection of Jewish newspapers published in various countries, languages, and time periods.
- Internet Sacred Texts Archive: JudaismFull text of public-domain editions of the Talmud, Tanakh, Kabbalah, and miscelleous texts from other eras, including Flavius Josephus, Maimonides; other documents from the modern era
- The Joint Distribution Committee ArchiveInstitutional records of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee since its founding in 1914.
- Middle East, 1916-2001: A Documentary RecordGovernment documents, transcripts of speeches by government leaders and UN resolutions. Arranged by year.
- New York Heritage Digital CollectionGateway to hundreds of digital collections about New York State's people, places, and institutions. NewYorkHeritage.org brings together freely accessible digital collections from libraries, museums and archives from all over the state
- New York Public Library Digital Collection700,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.
- New York Public Library Picture Collection Online30,000 images of New York City, costume, design, U.S. history, etc. from books, magazines and newspapers, as well as original photographs, prints and postcards, mostly created before 1923
- Posen Library of Jewish Culture and CivilizationThe Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization is a vibrant, growing collection of text and images curated by leading Jewish Studies scholars. It offers unprecedented direct access to excerpts from thousands of primary sources reflecting Jewish creativity, diversity, and culture world-wide, spanning biblical times to the 21st century when complete. Content is free, but requires making an account.
- Smithsonian Global Sound for LibrariesAudio tracks and related texts documenting the world's musical traditions, also spoken word recordings such as political speeches, as well as nature sounds. The music ranges from remote cultures worldwide to famous folk musicians. Over 35,000 tracks.
- Speilberg Digital Yiddish LibraryIncludes 10,000 Yiddish books, digitized as a project of the National Yiddish Book Center and the Internet Archive. Browse by turning pages or download as PDF files.
- Wexler Oral History ProjectA "growing collection of more than 1,300 in-depth video interviews about Yiddish language and culture."
- Yiddish Language PlayscriptsFrom the Hebraic Section of the Library of Congress; 77 unpublished manuscripts in the original Yiddish characters (not transliterated). Part of the American Memory collection of American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920.
Books
The Jew in the Medieval World by Call Number: DS124 .M34 1999ISBN: 9780878202171Publication Date: 1999To gain an accurate view of medieval Judaism, one must look through the eyes of Jews and their contemporaries. First published in 1938, Jacob Rader Marcus's classic source book on medieval Judaism provides the documents and historical narratives which let the actors and witnesses of events speak for themselves.
The Jew in the Modern World by Call Number: DS102 .J43 2011ISBN: 9780195389067Publication Date: 2011Tracing the dramatic changes in Jewish religion, culture, and identity from the seventeenth century to 1948, The Jew in the Modern World, Third Edition, remains the most complete sourcebook on modern Jewish history available.
Inquisitorial Inquiries by Call Number: DS135.S8 A155 2011ISBN: 9781421403403Publication Date: 2011In the first edition of Inquisitorial Inquiries, Richard L. Kagan and Abigail Dyer collected, translated, and annotated six of these autobiographies from a diverse group of prisoners. Now they add the fascinating life story of another victim of the Inquisition: Esteban Jamete, a French sculptor accused of being a Protestant. Each of the autobiographies has been selected to represent a particular political or social issue, while at the same time raising more intimate questions about the religious, sexual, political, or national identities of the prisoners. Among them are a politically incendiary prophet, a self-proclaimed hermaphrodite, and a morisco, an Islamic convert to Catholicism.
Church, State and Jew in the Middle Ages by Call Number: DS102 .C48ISBN: 9780874413021Publication Date: 1979The political status of Jews in medieval society as revealed in both source and contemporary documents.
