Israel’s National Library has launched an online database aggregating tens of thousands of digitized Jewish manuscripts belonging to collections from across the globe.
From Wednesday, scholars and laypersons can access almost half of the known handwritten Jewish texts from Spain to Afghanistan, which have been digitized and cataloged online.
The National Library partnered with some of the largest collections of Jewish manuscripts, including the British Library, Parma’s Palatina Library and the Vatican Library, in an effort to bring the nearly 100,000 known texts under one digital roof.
The archive currently contains nearly 4.5 million images from 45,000 manuscripts, including prayer books, biblical texts and commentary, philosophy, literature and scientific writings, in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic and more.
Work is ongoing to get the remaining thousands of volumes online.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the
terms
Is our work important to you?
Do you rely on The Times of Israel for accurate and insightful news on Israel and the Jewish world? If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6/month, you will:
Join the Times of Israel Community
Join our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel eleven years ago - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this