Association of Jewish Libraries Publishing

Dreyfuss, Ricky

English

Library of Congress Classification for Judaica: Recent Changes (1988-89)

Lazinger, Susan S.

I 
EPISTLE FROM ISRAEL 
The Hebrew University's Jewish 
National and University Library: Ex-
hibitions and Acquisitions 
Exhibitions 
In 1988, an unusually large number of ex-
hibitions were mounted at the Jewish Na-
tional and University Library (JNUL), 
displaying recent acquisitions from all over 
the world and from the entire course of 
Jewish printed history. The first of the ex-_ 
hibitions featured some 50 extremely rare 
Jewish books printed in Poland in the 16th 
and 17th centuries exhibited in conjunction 
with the International Conference on Po-
lish Jewry, which was held at The Hebrew 
University during the first week of Febru-
ary. Most of the books were printed in 
Krakow or Lublin by printers who came to 
Poland from Germany, Czechoslovakia, 
and Italy. The books are in Hebrew and 
Yiddish. The highlight of the exhibition was 
a book on Kabbalah, Magid Mesharim, 
written in Safed by Rabbi Joseph Caro, au-
thor of the ShullJan 'Arukh, and printed, of 
course, in Poland (Lublin: Tsevi Yafeh, 
1646). 
In June, the JNUL opened an exhibition of 
unknown manuscripts and documents by 
writer S.Y. Ag non, in honor of the 100th 
anniversary of his birth. This exhibition 
was also connected with a conference, 
organized for the occasion by the Depart-
ment of Hebrew Literature of The Hebrew 
University, and entitled, "The Heritage of 
Agnon-One Hundred Years Since His 
Birth." 
Another anniversary-500 years since the 
publication of the first Hebrew textbook in 
1488-occasioned a special exhibition at 
the National Library of 101 Jewish text-
books dating from the 15th century. Open-
ing in September, the exhibition was 
organized by the Jewish Education Library 
of the Rav Kook Institute in Jerusalem, and 
featured Makrei Dardekei, a textbook for 
the study of Hebrew, printed in Naples, 
Italy in 1488 (of which there are only five 
known extant copies in the world). The ex-
hibition included, in addition, books on Ju-
daism, mathematics, science, and a 
textbook on the Arabic language written for 
soldiers in the Jewish Legion during the 
First World War. Other books of particular 
interest from the exhibition were a textbook 
Susan S. Lazinger 
Hebrew University 
Jerusalem 
on Esperanto written by the language's 
creator, Dr. Ludwik Zamenhof, and a text-
book for the study of Hebrew printed in 
Bombay, India, in 1882. [See entry no. 24 
in Libby Kahane's article in the Reference 
Dept. of this issue for a description of the 
published catalog of the exhibition.-Ed.] 
The final exhibition of the year, marking the 
official visit to Israel of Russian poet 
Yevgeny Yevtushenko in December, was a 
display in the JNUL of a manuscript of Yev-
tushenko's poem "Babi Var." Yevtushenko 
penned a copy of his famous poem from 
memory while on a visit to the West in 
1960. In 1969, the signed manuscript was 
sold by Sotheby's to Leo Graham of 
London, who gave it to the JNUL. Accord-
ing to Rafi Weizer, of the JNUL Manuscript 
Department, Yevtushenko's hand-written 
text differs somewhat from the published 
version of the poem. The manuscript 
makes a direct appeal for an end to the 
antisemitism that was rife in the Soviet 
Union at the time he composed the poem, 
whereas the published version refers to 
antisemitism as a phenomenon of the Rus-
sian past. 
Acquisitions 
Two significant acquisitions were pub-
licized by the JNUL during the latter part of 
1988, although not put on exhibition. Both 
of these were collections rather than a sin-
gle item-one of manuscripts, and the 
second of books. The first collection, a 
group of rare letters of famous Jewish 
composers, which belonged to Dr. Otto 
Loewenberg, were donated to the Manu-
script Department of the JNUL by his 
widow. It includes letters by Felix Men-
delssohn, Gustav Mahler, Ernest Bloch, 
and Arnold Schoenberg. The JNUL re-
ported that the 46 letters of Mahler were of 
particular significance for the understand-
ing of his personality, and that musi-
cologists and Mahler scholars from all over 
the world have already begun requesting 
information on the letters, some of which 
were unknown until now. 
The second collection recently acquired by 
the JNUL comprises 200 rare items of Ju-
dea-Americana from the 18th and 19th 
centuries, among which are the very ear-
liest books of Jewish interest printed in 
America. These include the first Hebrew 
grammar (Monis, Judah. A Grammar of 
the Hebrew Tongue. Boston, 1735), the 
first complete Jewish prayerbook ( The 
Form of Daily Prayers According to the 
Spanish and Portuguese Jews. New York, 
1826), and the first Passover Haggadah 
( Service for the Two First Nights of Pass-
over. New York, 1837) printed in America. 
Judea-Americana from this period is rare, 
because at the end of the 18th century 
there were only 3,000 Jews living in North 
America. Most of the books were printed in 
Boston or New York, where there were al-
ready relatively large concentrations of 
Jews at that time. The collection includes 
prayerbooks, sermons, belles-lettres, 
grammar books, polemics and missionary 
tracts, and dictionaries of the Hebrew and 
Aramaic languages. 
New Memorial Libraries 
In April 1988, in the Axelrod House in 
Jerusalem, a new library was dedicated to 
the memory of Likud Party activist Gaby 
Aviram, who died recently at age 33. Avi-
ram was a central figure in _the protest 
movement against Israeli withdrawal from 
the Sinai. He staged protests in the hot 
Yamit sun for long hours, in spite of the fact 
that he was already ill with the disease that 
was to claim his life. The library will collect 
books on the philosophy and activities of 
the Israeli National Front, from the days of 
the Underground to the present. 
A significant portion of the private library of 
the well-known educator Akiva Ben Ezra 
was transferred in July from his home in 
Brooklyn to the Yeshiva "Birkat Mosheh," 
located in the Jerusalem suburb Ma'aleh 
Adumim. Akiva Ben Ezra was for many 
years a Hebrew instructor in Brooklyn 
schools and a scholar of the Bible and the 
Hebrew language. His articles were widely 
published in respected professional jour-
nals in Israel and throughout the world. His 
large collection of books on Biblical re-
search and the Hebrew language was do-
nated to the Yeshiva by his son, Aharon 
Ben Ezra, who recently emigrated to Israel 
from the United States. 
Torah Libraries for the Twenty-
First Century 
Two computerized Torah libraries were es-
tablished during 1988 in Israel, one a 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 5 No. 1 Spring 1989-Winter 1990 71 
l 
I 
Haifa-based project of Bar-llan University, 
and the second a commercially-available 
system being tried out in B'nei Brak. 
The first library was established within the 
framework of the David Assaf Institute for 
Maimonides Research in Haifa. Con-
nected to the central computer of the Re-
sponsa Project of Bar-llan University, it will 
provide services in Haifa and the north of 
Israel to scholars requiring computerized 
information from the database, which con-
tains hundreds of Responsa works. Future 
plans of the Maimonides Institute include a 
computer hookup and service to central 
Torah libraries in the United States. The 
computer system of the Institute is 
projected to include all the medical works 
of Maimonides, indexed and arranged-by a 
specially-appointed group of experts. 
The second computerized Torah library, 
funded by Haredi donors from abroad, and 
ca!led simply "The Computerized Torah Li-
brary," opened in October 1988 in B'nei 
Brak. The Library contains the Bible, the 
Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Tal-
mud, Maimonides' Yad Hazakah, and the 
Shu/1:,an 'Arukh. The ent.ire library and its 
software, which will run on any IBM PC or 
PC-clone with a 40-megabyte disk, is 
available for $3,000 from Leshen Com-
puters, 9 Nachum St., Jerusalem 95507; 
telephone: 02-380412. [Further details on 
this software are found at the end of Libby 
Kahane's article in the REFERENCE DEPT 
of this issue. -Ed.] 
International Agreements and 
Disagreements 
Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz, returning to Israel 
from a visit to the Soviet Union at the end 
of 1988, signed an agreement pledging the 
cooperation of the Talmudic Publication In-
stitute (which he heads) in computerizing 
Soviet libraries, in exchange for permis-
sion to photograph manuscripts and rare 
Judaica in Leningrad, Moscow, and other 
cities in the Soviet Union. At this stage, it is 
not yet clear what portion of the agreement 
it will be possible to implement, owing to 
limitations imposed by the U.S. govern-
ment on exporting American technology to 
the U.S.S.R. The Russians are interested 
in advanced library technology: optical 
disks, optical scanners, laser printers, mi-
croreproduction equipment, and manage-
ment information systems. The Talmudic 
Publication Institute has considerable ex-
perience in several of these areas; the In-
stitute runs its operations in Israel on a 
series of Digital VAX computers. 
In a less felicitous international incident, 
the Secretary of the Committee of Middle 
Eastern Libraries resigned in protest after 
the head of the organization bowed to 
pressure to withdraw the invitation to 
Cecelia Panzer, Director of the Hebrew 
University's Truman Institute library, to par-
ticipate in an international conference that 
the Committee\ had organized. Ms. Panzer 
was invited to speak at the Committee's 
Tenth International Conference in Paris, 
and her name and topic were printed on 
the Conference program. The conference 
was held in and partially funded by The 
Arab World Institute, whose management 
objected to the participation of an Israeli 
librarian. The Committee Chairman, Dr. 
D. Hopwood of Great Britain, sent Ms. 
Panzer a telegram informing her that the 
invitation had been cancelled, and as a re-
sult, the General Secretary of the organi-
zation, a West German, decided to resign 
from office. 
Finances: the Good News and the 
Bad News 
In my last column, I included a piece on a 
new Israeli government program of sub-
sidies to writers of Hebrew-language 
books whose works are heavily borrowed 
from Israeli libraries. A few months after 
the implementation of this program, the 
government announced that Arab writers 
would also be granted payments accord-
ing to the number of times their books are 
borrowed from public libraries. In February 
1988, Minister of Education Yitzhak Navon 
decided to initiate a system of payments 
during the next two years for authors of 
Arabic-language books, in order to encour-
age the writing of original Arabic literature 
in Israel. A count of the number of times 
the books are borrowed from public librar-
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72 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 5 No. 1 Spring 1989-Winter 1990 
ies will be conducted by means of a spe-
cial survey, which the Ministry of Education 
will carry out in libraries in the Arab and 
Druze areas of the country. 
In the same month that Minister Navon an-
nounced the subsidy program for Arab 
writers, Dan Simon, Director of the Central 
Library of Tel Aviv University, announced 
that as a result of a budget cut in the range 
of 100,000 shekels, the library would be 
able to acquire only about half the number 
of books that it acquired last year. Another 
reason for the drastic decrease in acquisi-
tions is that, in addition to the budget cut, 
the prices of books and journals from 
abroad have risen significantly in 1988. Si-
mon further stated that the library, which 
houses more than a million volumes, ex-
pects to acquire about 10,000 books in 
1989, while in order to serve the academic 
community adequately, it needs to acquire 
40,000 books every year. "An American 
university on the level of Tel Aviv Univer-
sity, with the same number of students, ac-
quires about 100,000 books per year," he 
continued. "In my opinion," he concluded, 
"if there is no change in the next few years, 
Tel Aviv University will drop to the level of a 
four-year college." 
Dr. Susan Lazinger is Head Librarian and 
part-time Lecturer at the 'Graduate School 
of Library and Archive Studies at The 
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 
I 
J. Robinson & Co. Booksellers 
31, Nachlat Benjamin St. 
Tel-Aviv 65162 
P.0.B. 4308 
Tel-Aviv 61042 
ISRAEL 
Tel.: (03) 615461 ; (03) 611626 
New, old, and rare books 
on the following subjects: 
Land of Israel, Hebrew 
poetry and I iteratu re, 
Judaica, Hebraica, memorial 
books of Jewish communities, etc. 
in the following languages: 
Hebrew, Yiddish, English, German, 
and French. 
A monthly catalog with 
transliteration in Latin characters 
will be sent free of charge to 
all interested. 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 5 No. 1 Spring 1989-Winter 1990 73 


Epistle from Israel

Baker, Zachary

If r 
REFERENCE DEPARTMENT 
The winner of this year's Reference Book 
Award is Joan G. Bratkowsky, author of -
Yiddish Linguistics: a Multilingual Bibli-
ography, which was published in 1988 by 
Garland. Yiddish Linguistics is a detailed 
and wide-ranging, 400~page classified 
subject bibliography containing over 2,000 
citations. 
Scope 
Conceived as a supplement to Uriel and 
Beatrice Weinreich's 1959 bibliography, 
Yiddish Language and Folklore, which was 
a mere 60 pages long, the scope of 
Yiddish Linguistics is quite broad. Included 
in it are sections devoted to the structure 
and history of the Yiddish language, the 
etymology of Yiddish words, early texts in 
the language, dialectology, the inter-
action of Yiddish with other languages, 
onomastics (the study of names), styl-
istics, semiotics, the history of Yiddish lin-
guistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguis-
tics, and applied linguistics. These chapter 
headings represent only the main subjects 
covered in the bibliography. Each chapter 
contains a number of subheadings as well. 
The contents of Yiddish Linguistics 
represent a gold mine of information for 
all sorts of people: linguists, cultural and 
literary historians, ethnomusicologists, 
folklorists, genealogists, and Yiddish-
lovers everywhere. 
The work undertaken first by the Wein-
reichs and then by Joan Bratkowsky is, as 
is usually the case with bibliographies, not 
finished (in large part because of the time 
lag between the conclusion of the research 
and the publication of this work). In her 
preface, Ms. Bratkowsky takes note of 
some of her book's lacunae, sketches the 
steps necessary for its continuation, and 
*Remarks made at the Banquet of the 24th 
Annual Convention of the Association of 
Jewish Libraries held in Washington, DC, 
June, 1989. 
Association of Jewish Libraries 
Reference Book Award, 1988* 
Zachary M. Baker 
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 
New York, NY 
generously welcomes any efforts that fu-
ture scholars may be able to make "to 
complete the work which we have only be-
gun," as she puts it. 
The Award 
Publication of the Bratkowsky bibliography 
represents the culmination of five years of 
painstaking research. As a witness to the 
progress of this project as it unfolded, it is a 
pleasure for me to see its end-product rec-
ognized and honored by our Committee 
and, by extension, by the Association of 
Jewish Libraries. As chairperson of AJL's 
Reference Book Award Committee, I'd like 
to thank the Committee's members-
Charles Cutter (of the Brandeis University 
Library), Norman Gechlik (of the New York 
Public Library's Jewish Division), and 
Adaire Klein (of the Simon Wiesenthal 
Center Library)-for their active participa-
tion in the choice of this year's Reference 
Book Award winner. I hope they will be able 
to continue on the Committee during this 
coming year. I would also like to thank our 
Association's President, Marcia Posner, for 
arranging the funding of both this and next 
year's AJL Reference Book Award. On be-
half of Marcia, I am pleased to announce 
that Ivan Tillem, a New York City at-
torney-and the publisher of the Jewish 
Almanac and Yellow Pages-has agreed 
to fund next year's Reference Book 
Award.** 
Remarks of the Recipient 
Joan Bratkowsky is unable to be present 
among us tonight, having been pressed 
into jury duty this past week. But when I 
spoke with her last Friday afternoon, she 
passed along some remarks that I would 
like to relate to you, in acceptance of this 
award. First, she expressed her heartfelt 
**In August 1989, Mr. Tillem died tragically 
in an airplane crash while on a phi-
lanthropic mission in Ethiopia. The status 
of the funding of the award is indetermi-
nate. 
thanks to the Association for tendering this 
year's Reference Book Award to Yiddish 
Linguistics. She apologized for not being 
able to accept the award in person, be-
cause of her jury duty. She thanked the 
many people who helped her in preparing 
the bibliography-the legion of research 
assistants and secretaries without whose 
assistance this work could not have been 
compiled. She expressed the hope that 
Yiddish Linguistics will prove useful to re-
searchers (and I can assure her that, on 
the basis of our experience at YIVO, it is 
already a well-worn volume). Finally, sec-
onding her remarks in the book's preface, 
she urged that an update of this bibliogra-
phy, including citations for the most recent 
works in the field, be prepared in the not-
too-distant future, by another bibliog-
rapher. 
Zachary M. Baker, Head Librarian of YIVO 
Institute for Jewish Research in New York 
City, is Vice-President of the Research and 
Special Libraries Division of the Associa-
tion of Jewish Libraries. 
As we were going to press, we 
learned that the following work 
had been selected to receive the 
1989 AJL Reference Book 
Award: 
The Talmud: the Steinsaltz edi-
tion: a reference guide, by Rabbi 
Adin Steinsaltz. New York: Ran-
dom House, 1989. 
The Award will be presented at 
the First International Con-
ference of Judaica and Israeli 
Librarians, to be held in Jeru-
salem, July 1990. 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 5 No. 1 Spring 1989-Winter 1990 85 


Association of Jewish Libraries Reference Book Award, 1988

r 1 
Q. Where can the article "The Jewish 
Parasite," by Alex Bein, be found? 
A. The correct answer to this question is 
that Alex Bein's article, "The Jewish Para-
site: Notes on the Semantics of the Jewish 
Problem, with special reference to Ger-
many," appeared in vol. 9 of the Leo Baeck 
lnstitute's Year Book (1964), on pages 
3-40. 
If the answer were all that is of interest, we 
could stop here and say no more. But it is 
the purpose of this column to convey the 
joy of the hunt as well as the quarry, to de-
scribe methods as well as results. It should 
therefore be instructive to discuss alter-
nate search strategies for obtaining this in-
formation. 
The basis of this query was a telephone 
call from an information specialist at a cor-
porate library. She was inquiring on behalf 
of a reader seeking an article by Bein that 
he thought had been published "around 
ten years ago, in a Jewish scholarly jour-
nal," and that-to the best of his recollec-
tion-bore the title "Jewish Parasite." 
Periodical Indexes 
Given these three bits of informatioo-au-
thor' s name, approximate title of article, 
and period of publication-it was decided 
to consult the two indexes to .1udaica pe-
riodical literature that cover English-lan-
guage serials: Index to Jewish Periodicals 
(with coverage from June 1963) and Index 
of Articles on Jewish Studies (with 
coverage in numerous languages from 
1966; sometimes referred to as RAMBI, 
after its Hebrew name). Although the date 
of publication was supposedly circa 1978, 
the search was extended to encompass 
the earliest volumes of these two indexes, 
because it has often been my experience 
that when a reader of a certain age recalls 
a citation for an item published "about ten 
years ago," it can actually mean-as 
turned out to be the case here-upwards 
of a quarter century ago. Unfortunately, no 
RESPONSA 
On Indexes to Jewish Periodicals 
Zachary M. Baker 
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 
New York, NY 
citation for the sought article was located 
_ in either of the two indexes, from their very 
first volumes through 1980. 
While a citation for "The Jewish Parasite" 
was not found in these tools, a potentially 
helpful citation was noted in vol. 1 of 
RAMBlfor an article by Bein in French, en-
titled "La question juive dans la litterature 
antisemite moderne," which appeared in 
vol. 7 of Dispersion et Unite (1966), a pe-
riodical issued by the World Zionist Organi-
zation. Its English-language counterpart 
has been called, variously, In the Disper-
sion, Dispersion and Unity, and Forum on 
the Jewish People, Zionism and Israel. 
The English version of "La question juive 
... " first appeared in issue no. 4 of In the 
Dispersion (Winter 1964/65), under the ti-
tle "The Jewish Question in Modern Anti-
Semitic Literature: Prelude to 'The Final 
Solution"' (pp. 126-154). In a footnote, 
Bein refers readers to "my essay, 'Der 
j0dische Parasit: Observations on the Se-
mantics of the Jewish Problem,' to be pub-
lished in Year Book No. IX of the Leo 
Baeck Institute" (Bein 1964/65, p. 136, 
footnote 22). With this reference in hand, it 
was now easy to locate Bein's article in the 
Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, where (as 
we have seen) it bears the English title 
"The Jewish Parasite." 
So much for Search Strategy No. 1 . While 
ultimately successful, this roundabout ap-
proach illustrates a couple of the short-
comings of Judaica periodical indexes: 
(1) Lack of cumulation: A volume-by-vol-
ume search over a span of 15 years can be 
extremely tedious, in the absence of either 
printed index cumulations or online 
databases covering the field. This par-
ticular search was expedited by the fact 
that the author of the article and its approx-
imate title were both known. Nevertheless, 
as Menahem Schmelzer pointed out in his 
presentation on "Research Services" at 
the 1988 Harvard conference Judaica Li-
brarianship: Facing the Future, "All users 
appreciate the comprehensiveness and 
the detailed and easy classification of the 
Index of Articles on Jewish Studies 
[RAMBI], but the fact that there are now 
twenty-seven volumes of this important 
work makes cumulative indexes arranged 
by author and subject and published at 
regular intervals, desirable." (Schmelzer, 
1989, p. 29) 
(2) Selective coverage: The article in 
question turns out to have been published 
in an annual that is not covered by the 
Index to Jewish Periodicals, and it ap-
peared too early to be covered in RAMBI. 
(Moreover, the LBI Year Book is covered 
only from vol. 2 [1967] of that in~ex.) 
Bein's article might have been included in 
Palestine and Zionism, an index prepared 
at the Zionist Archives and Library in New 
York and printed by the H. W. Wilson Com-
pany; however, this index, described by 
Shimeon Brisman in his excellent survey 
of "Indexes to Jewish Periodicals and 
Monographs" as "the most comprehensive 
and professionally executed of its kind in 
the Jewish field" (Brisman 1977, p. 209), 
ceased publication in 1956. 
For ten years thereafter, index coverage of 
a large body of Judaica periodicals was ei-
ther altogether nonexistent or (for the 
years prior to publication of vol. 1 of 
RAMBI, during which the Index to Jewish 
Periodicals alone appeared) inadequate. 
In the end, then, by using the Judaica pe-
riodical index route to track down Bein's 
essay, it was purely serendipitous that the 
actual citation was located. 
Had there been reason beforehand to sus-
pect that "The Jewish Parasite" was pub-
lished in the LBI Year Book, the cumulative 
index to that annual could have been con-
sulted. In his survey, Brisman includes a 
list of "Indexes to Individual Jewish Pe-
riodicals: Retrospective and Current" (Bris-
man 1977, pp. 239-241 ). But at the time of 
his book's publication, the LBI had not yet 
issued a cumulative index to its Year Book. 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 5 No. 1 Spring 1989--Winter 1990 99 
A General Index to Year Books I-XX 
(1956-1975), compiled by Eli Rothschild, 
was only published in 1982. In it, Bein's es-
say is accessible through the Index of Au-
thors, Index of Persons (i.e., authors and 
persons as subjects of articles), and the In-
dex of Subjects, under the heading 
"Antisemitism." Given the sketchy nature 
of the information provided over the tele-
phone, it did not occur to me to check this 
cumulative index, however. 
How else might one have located this refer-
ence? One method, which is not readily 
available to librarians working in small or 
specialized Judaica collections, would be 
to scan general periodical indexes in which 
the LSI Year Book is indexed. The 13th 
edition ( 1987-88) of Irregular Serials and 
Annuals indicates that the LBI Year Book is 
indexed in the following sources: American 
Bibliography of Slavic and East European 
Studies (which began publication in 1967, 
as a continuation of the American Bibli-
ography of Russian and East European 
Studies, covering the years 1956-1966), 
Historical Abstracts (in Part A, Modern His-
tory Abstracts, and Part B, Twentieth Cen-
tury Abstracts), and America, History and 
Life. Historical Abstracts and America, His-
tory and Life are both published by ABC-
Clio, in Santa Barbara, California, and in 
these tools the LBI Year Book is indexed 
from 1963. ABC-Clio indexes are available 
both in print and online. 
Subject Bibliographies 
Another avenue of approach would be to 
check subject bibliographies. Given its 
presumed title, one might assume (cor-
rectly) that Bein's essay had something to 
do with antisemitism, and then proceed by 
consulting bibliographies on antisemitism 
and the Holocaust. Citations for ''The Jew-
ish Parasite" are in fact found in three such 
bibliographies: Prejudice: Racist-Re-
ligious-Nationalist (no. 5 of The Wiener 
Library's Catalogue Series, 1971 ); the re-
cently published Bibliography on Holo-
caust Literature, compiled by Abraham J. 
Edelheit and Hershel Edelheit (1986); and 
The Holocaust and After, compiled by 
Jacob Robinson (1973). 
Consultation of these bibliographies, how-
ever, reveals an inconsistency in the sub-
ject approach of one and an indexing error 
in a second. 
In Prejudice: Racist-Religious-Na-
tionalist, the German and English versions 
of "The Jewish Parasite" are classified in 
two separate chapters: under the heading 
General Works. Antisemitism in Section 
11.C (item 493: "'Der jOdische Parasit': 
Bemerkungen zur Semantik der Juden-
frage"; the adjacent items 492 and 494 are 
citations for articles by Bein on related top-
ics), and under Individual Countries. Ger-
many. Antisemitism. History and Sociology 
in Section 11.K.2.a (item 2637: "The Jewish 
Parasite ... "). 
At least three references to articles by Bein 
appear in Robinson's bibliography, The 
Holocaust and After, which covers English-
language publications only. The phrase "at 
least three" is used here, because Bein's 
name appears only once in the index (item 
154: "Modern Anti-Semitism and Its Effect 
on the Jewish Question"), whereas two ad-
ditional citations for articles by Bein ap-
pear on the same page as the indexed 
reference (items 159-160: "The Jewish 
Parasite ... " and "The Jewish Question in 
Modern Anti-Semitic Literature"). 
Conclusions 
Serious gaps exist in the coverage of Ju-
daica periodical indexes. First, there is the 
gap in chronological coverage, ranging 
from 1956 (the demise of Palestine and 
Zionism) to 1963 (the inception of the 
Index to Jewish Periodicals) or 1966 (the 
advent of RAMBl)-not to mention 
the total lack of coverage for Judaica pe-
riodicals issued prior to 1946. It is devoutly 
to be desired that index coverage be retro-
spectively extended to include at least the 
1956-1966 period, and that coverage be 
provided on a cumulated basis. Second, 
there is a gap in the completeness of 
coverage of serials in the field (the LBI 
Year Book is indexed only from vol. 2 of 
RAMBI, and not at all in the Index to Jew-
ish Periodicals). What this means, is that a 
search of Judaica indexing tools alone will 
yield incomplete results when one is faced 
with the sort of research problem posed 
here. Judaica index searches need to be 
supplemented both by searches of Juda-
ica subject bibliographies and of non-Ju-
daica indexes. 
The indexing field has embraced computer 
technology, and today one finds not only 
printed indexes, but also online indexes 
and indexes in CD-ROM format. This trend 
toward online or optical disk databases 
has not yet affected Judaica periodical in-
dexes, though both RAMBI and the Index 
to Jewish Periodicals make use of com-
puterized typesetting techniques, and their 
future may well lie in the direction of online 
or optical disk formats. It is unclear, how-
ever, at this time whether the biblio-
graphical data included in these as-yet-
unrealized tools will become part of a 
retrospective database (including cover-
age of the "missing years" between 1956 
and 1963 or 1966), or whether only newly 
created bibliographic records will form part 
100 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 5 No. 1 Spring 1989-Winter 1990 
of the database. For the time being, it ap-
pears that a creative and improvisational 
search strategy will be necessary to yield 
satisfactory results in inquiries such as the 
one that inspired the present column. 
References 
America-History and Life. Vol. 1- Santa Bar-
bara: American Bibliographical Center-Clio 
Press, 1964-
American Bibliography of Slavic and East Euro-
pean Studies. Vol. 1-Bloomington: Indiana 
University Press, 1967 [from 1972, Colum-
bus: Ohio State University Press]. (Con-
tinuation of: American Bibliography of 
Russian and East European Studies, 
1956-1966. Bloomington: Indiana University 
Press, 1957-1967.) 
Bein, Alex. "The Jewish Question in Modern 
Anti-Semitic Literature: Prelude to 'The Final 
Solution'," In the Dispersion, no. 4 (Winter 
1964/65), pp. 126-154. 
Brisman, Shimeon. A History and Guide to Ju-
daic Bibliography. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union 
College Press, 1977. (His Jewish Research 
Literature; vol. 1 ). (Bibliographica Judaica; 7). 
Edelheit, Abraham J.; Edelheit, Hershel. 
Bibliography on Holocaust Literature. 
Boulder: Westview Press, 1986. 
Historical Abstracts, 1775-1945. Vol. 1- Santa 
Barbara: ABC-Clio, March 1955-
lndex of Articles on Jewish Studies. Vol. 1-
Jerusalem: Magnes, 1969-
lndex to Jewish Periodicals. Vol. 1- Cleveland, 
June 1963-
lrregular Serials and Annuals: an International 
Directory. 13th edition, 1987-88. New York: 
R. R. Bowker Co., 1987. 
Leo Baeck Institute of Jews From Germany. 
General Index: Year Books I-XX. London: 
East and West Library, 1982. 
Palestine and Zionism: a Cumulative Author, Ti-
tle and Subject Index to Books, Pamphlets 
and Periodicals. Vol. 1-11. New York: Zionist 
Archives and Library, 1946-1956. 
(Continued on p. 102, bottom of col. 3) 
fl 
Hebrew and Bilingual Serials 
,,n,w '11m-< ,w '1V :is,:, :a,,) .2 .,,!>~m r,g,r, ,,,.,!>tm 
,~,,vr, f!)"'j~r, 1lN'-':1 :'f'"'jN '!>"'j1 .3 
.(:i,ti) 11:i,~-tl"'jN ,,,.,r,, 11YJ"'j,~, 
.n,1v .4 
,v ,,.,,~ ,, 11,,w, ,,,,,v : ti!>'t7D .5 
. 11m:3Nl tl"'j'VJ '"'j!)t, 
· ')'-'.,'-'t7N 11113\/J .6 
1 . Asupot: Annual for Jewish Studies. 
v. 1- 1987/1988- Editor: Meir 
Benayahu. Yad Harav Nissim, 44 Jab-
otinsky Street, Jerusalem, Israel. Annual. 
$25.00. 
A scholarly publication devoted to Jewish 
studies. The initial volume includes arti-
cles about the history of the Hebrew calen-
dar; messianism and astrology in the 
thought of Rabbi Isaac Abravanel; and the 
legal status of the Jews of Livorno in 1593. 
Of particular note is a bibliography de-
scribing 118 Hebrew manuscripts, parts of 
which are found in various collections. 
2. Ga/im: Literary Magazine. Gilayon 
1- 1987/1988- Editors: Ada 
Aharoni, Mordehaj Steinberg. Galim, 
PO.B. 9137, Haifa 31091, Israel. Annual. 
$3.00. 
This annual, published by Agudat Shot,are 
ha-Sifrut f:iefah veha-Tsafon (loosely 
translated: Association for Promotion of 
Literature of Haifa and the North), seeks to 
make modern literature accessible to a 
wider public, and to encourage beginning 
authors and poets by publishing new 
Hebrew poetry and prose. The first issue 
includes an interview with Saul Bellow, an 
essay about the depiction of Arabs and 
Jews in Arab-Israeli literature, and an arti-
cle about the Jewish problem as a theme 
in French novels. Prose, poetry, and 
drama by new authors appear throughout 
the issue. A final section lists activities of 
the Association. 
3. Darchey Eretz: Journal of the World 
Centre for Aleppo Jews Traditional 
Culture. no. 1- September 1986-
Editor: Moshe Cohen. World Center for Al-
eppo Jews Traditional Culture, 118a Ben 
Yehuda Street, Tel-Aviv 63401, Israel. Ir-
regular. $8.00 per issue. 
The World Center for Aleppo Jews Tradi-
tional Culture was established in Israel in 
1985, "to document, to promote and to dis-
seminate" the cultural heritage of Aleppo 
Jewry. Their journal "reflects the many fac-
ets of the Aleppo Jewish community," 
through stories, biographies, photos, leg-
end, and poetry. Each issue includes book 
reviews. 
4. Edut (Testimony). v. 1- June 
1987- Editors: Aryeh Fialkov, Yudke 
Helman. Joint publication of Bet Lo~ame 
ha-Geta'ot and Kibuts ha-Me'uhad Pub-
lishing House, 102 Arlosoroff sfreet, Tel-
Aviv 62097, Israel. Irregular. $5.00 per 
issue . 
This journal continues Yedi'ot, issued by 
Bet Lo~ame ha-Geta'ot (Ghetto Fighters 
House) from 1951 to 1960. "The broaden-
ing of the activities of" Bet Lo~ame ha-
Geta'ot, the expansion of its archives, and 
the establishment of the Zuckerman Study 
Center for Jewish Resistance in Nazi-
Occupied Europe led to the renewal of the· 
journal. The editors see "the deepening of 
an awareness of the Holocaust among the 
young generation" as their mission. The 
lead article of the premier issue is about 
the "Final Solution." The author is Zvi 
Shner, one of the founders of Bet Lohame 
ha-Geta'ot. Much of the rest of the pe-
riodical is devoted to personal narratives 
from the archives of Bet Lohame ha-
Geta'ot. Included also are book and pe-
riodical reviews. 
5. Pesetas: '/ton le-Shirah ule-Meda' 'al 
Sifre Shirah ve-Omanut. Gilayon 1-
December 1987- Editor: ltamar 
Ya'oz-Kest. Eked, 29 Bar-Kokhba, Tel-Aviv 
61111, Israel. Quarterly. $20.00. 
A magazine devoted to poetry. The first is-
sue includes articles about Aba Kovner, an 
interview with Louis Aragon, and an essay 
on poetic sensibility in the thought of Rav 
Kook. New Hebrew poetry is interspersed 
throughout the periodical, which includes a 
section for children's poetry as well as 
book reviews. 
6. Shenaton Estrategi. 1986- Edi-
tor: Yosef Alter. Joint publication of ha-Mer-
kaz le-Me~karim Estrategiyim 'a. sh. Yafeh 
and Kibuts ha-Me'u~ad Publishing House, 
P.O.B. 16040, 39 Hayetzira Street, Ramat 
Gan 52521, Israel. Annual. Price not avail-
able. ISBN 965-02-0023-1. 
Includes articles pertaining to Israel's mili-
tary policy and other issues of strategic in-
terest to Israel. The first volume includes 
pieces about the Lebanon Campaign of 
1982, the sale of Israeli weapons---to other 
countries, and the attitude of the Soviet 
bloc towards terrorist organizations. 
102 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 5 No. 1 Spring 1989-Winter 1990 
Rita Lifton is a cataloger at the Library of 
the Jewish Theological Seminary of Amer-
ica in New York City. 
BAKER (Continued from p. 100) 
Prejudice: Racist-Religious-Nationalist. 
London: Published for The Institute of Con-
temporary History by Vallentine, Mitchell, 
1971. (The Wiener Library; Catalogue Series 
no. 5). 
Robinson, Jacob; assisted by Mrs. Philip Fried-
man. The Holocaust and After: Sources & Lit-
erature in English. Jerusalem: Israel 
Universities Press, 1973. (Yad Vashem Mar-
tyrs' and Heroes' Memorial Authority, 
Jerusalem; YIVO Institute for Jewish Re-
search, New York: Joint Documentary 
Projects, Bibliographical Series; no. 12). 
Schmelzer, Menahem. "Research Services." In: 
Berlin, Charles, ed. Judaica Librarianship: 
Facing the Future; Proceedings of a Con-
ference Held at Harvard University on May 
2-3, 1988 on the Occasion of the Twenty-
Fifth Anniversary of the Judaica Department 
of the Harvard College Library. Cambridge, 
Mass.: Harvard University Library, 1989, pp. 
27-32. Reprinted in: Jud~ica Librarianship 
Vol. 4 No. 2 (Spring 1988-Winter 1989), pp. 
128-130. 
Zachary M. Baker is H€Jad Librarian of 
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New 
York City, which provides extensive refer-
ence services in the field of Holocaust re-
search. 


On Indexes to Jewish Periodicals

March, Susan F.

The Synagogue Library and The Housebound Reader: A Suggested Outreach Program

Baker, Zachary M.

Reinventing the Jew in Absentia: Recent Judaica Publishing Trends in Poland

Association of Jewish Libraries

Back Matter

Kahane, Libby

New Reference Books from Israel, 1988/89

Grossberg, Aileen  D.

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE 
AJL's Sydney Taylor Awards for Children's Literature* 
Aileen D. Grossberg 
We are here tonight to honor books, es-
pecially Jewish children's books. During 
the past months, the members of the Syd-
ney Taylor Book Award Committee have 
carefully read almost 50 books; that repre-
sents thousands of pages and probably 
millions of words. We began to dread the 
arrival of the mail and the UPS truck, for 
just when we thought that we had read our 
last book, another would arrive. We truly 
sought to leave no page unturned in our 
search for literary excellence, positive 
Jewish focus, authenticity, and accuracy. 
I'd like to thank Rachel Glasser, Geraldine 
Powers, Annette Ratkin, Maureen Reister, 
and Sherri Rice for the timeliness, 
thoughtfulness, and quality of their re-
views. They have done a superb job. 
While a children's book award has been 
given for twenty years, it is only since 1979 
that it has been awarded in the name of 
Sydney Taylor. Sydney Taylor was an ac-
complished woman-an actress, a dancer, 
a mother, a wife, a counselor, and a 
writer-but almost by accident. Her first 
stories were based on her own childhood, 
and were written to give her daughter a 
sense of family history. Her husband sub-
mitted them for publication, unbeknownst 
to her, and thus began almost thirty years 
of wonderful Jewish family stories. 
*Remarks at the banquet of the 24th an-
nual Convention of the Association of Jew-
ish Libraries, held in Washington, DC, 
June 20, 1989. 
Congregation Shomrei Emunah 
Montclair; NJ 
Like Sydney Taylor's books, many of the 
books the committee read this year dealt 
with the traditional values of family, love, 
and perseverance. Among the outstanding 
books for younger readers are Yaffa 
Ganz's From Head to Toe: A Book About 
You. It is a book about the body, which ex-
plains each system in clear and simple 
terms, and discusses each within the 
framework of Jewish values, observances, 
and relationship to God. 
The Ark, by Arthur Geisert, is a meticu-
lously illustrated retelling of the familiar 
Bible story. Simply told and beautifully 
illustrated with architectural-like drawings, 
this book will invite close scrutiny and will 
bring a smile to many a face. 
If Little Bear and mice and rabbits can cel-
ebrate Christmas, why can't Beni the bear 
celebrate Hanukkah? Beni's First Cha-
nukah, by Jane Breskin Zalben, takes 
Beni, a young bear, through holiday prepa-
rations and celebration with words and 
softly colored, detailed pictures. 
For older readers, the committee has high-
lighted Jacqueline Dembar Greene's Out 
of Many Waters, which uses the genre of 
historical fiction to relate the seldom-told 
story of how the first Jews came to New 
Amsterdam. 
Barry Cytron's Fire! the Library is Burning 
brings to life the story of the disastrous fire 
and rescue of thousands of books burned 
at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 
1966. 
The Holocaust colors much of Jewish liter-
ature, as we can see from other outstand-
ing books. In David and Max, Gary and 
Gail Provost have written a sensitive story 
of teenage David and Max, his grandfather, 
and the secret that Max, a Holocaust sur-
vivor, has kept for many years. 
48 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 5 No. 1 Spring 1989-Winter 1990 
Milton Meltzer's Rescue chronicles how 
non-Jews risked their lives to save Jews 
during the Holocaust. The use of first-hand 
sources makes this history come alive. 
Comprehensive and passionate, Barbara 
Rogasky's Smoke and Ashes is a well 
organized, methodical, and comprehen-
sive study of the Holocaust, enhanced by 
numerous thoughtfully chosen pictures. 
Finally Touch Wood, Renee Roth-Hano's 
autobiographical novel, t~lls of the Roth 
family's three daughters, refugees from Al-
sace in occupied France, who found a 
haven in a Catholic women's residence in 
Normandy. 
These and other books chosen from those 
submitted for consideration appear on the 
AJL list of "Jewish Children's Books Too 
Good To Miss." 
Before I turn to our first honoree, I'd like to 
introduce two very special people. We are 
indeed fortunate to have with us tonight 
Ralph Taylor, Sydney Taylor's husband, 
and Henny Davis, one of the sisters so viv-
idly portrayed in the Sydney Taylor books. 
Aileen D. Grossberg, Librarian of Con-
gregation Shomrei Emunah in Montclair; 
New Jersey serves as chairman of the AJL 
Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee for 
Children's Literature. She is also the Chil-
dren's Librarian and Assistant Director of 
Elmwood Park Public Library in Elmwood 
Park, New Jersey. 


AJL's Sydney Taylor Awards for Children's Literature

Vol. 5:1 Table of Contents

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