Association of Jewish Libraries Publishing

Schwartz, Amy

AJL Book Award Acceptance Speeches 
Amy Schwartz: 
Picture Book Award Winner 
Introduction by 
Judy Greenblatt 
When I tallied the vote for the Picture Book 
Award, of the five books that formed a group 
at the top, three were published by Kar-Ben 
Copies, a small, relatively new publishing 
house. I believe that Judyth Groner and 
Madeline Wik/er deserve special commen-
dation for producing books of consistently 
high quality. I predict a Sydney Taylor Award 
for Best Picture Book will go to a book pub-
lished by Kar-Ben Copies ve,y soon. The fifth 
book was published by the Jewish Publica-
tion Society, which also produced our win-
ner. JPS, under the guidance of David Adler, 
Editor of JPS Books for Young People, has 
been doing an outstanding job of publish-
ing excellent books for children. 
Jewish Children's Books (continued) 
Spero, Moshe Halevi. Zedyeh. Simcha. An ex-
cellent book about dealing with death, with a 
very traditional outlook. 
Wolitzer, Hilma. Wish You Were Here. Farrar, 
Straus, Giroux. Bernie Segal, desperately 
lonely after the death of his father, has a se-
cret plan to visit his grandfather in Florida. 
Ill. For Young Adults-Grades 7-10 
Bober, Natalie S. Breaking Tradition: The Story of 
Louise Neve/son. Atheneum. The remarkable 
story of one of America's foremost sculptors; 
includes much on the development of Nevel-
son's art. 
Cowan, Ida and Gunter, Irene. A Spy for Freedom: 
The Story of Sarah Aaronsohn. Lodestar. Sarah 
Aaronsohn grew up in Palestine and led a spy 
ring against the Turks during World War I. 
lsaacman, Clara. Clara's Story, as told to Joan 
Adess Grossman. JPS. Another dimension is 
added to our knowledge of the Holocaust as 
we read Clara's story of survival in Antwerp. 
Kresh, Pau I. Isaac Bashevis Singer: The Story of 
a Storyteller. Lodestar. Emphasis on Singer's 
childhood in Poland. 
Singer, Isaac Bashevis. Stories for Children. Far-
rar, Straus, Giroux. Its title notwithstanding, this 
is a wonderful book for teenagers, containing 
many of the elements present in Singer's writ-
ing for adults. 
Tamar, Erika. Good-Bye Glamour Girl. Lippincott. 
Star-struck Liest, a refugee from Vienna, finds 
out that growing up means not running away. 
* Award winners 
Judy Greenblatt is Librarian of Temple B'nai 
Israel in Toledo, Ohio and Chairman of the 
AJL Book Award Committee for Children's 
Literature. 
Of the five at the top, one book stood way 
above the rest. Each of us found the criteria 
of excellence were best met by Mrs. 
Moskowitz and the Sabbath Candlesticks. 
Excellent writing, charming illustrations, and 
clear and positive Jewish values combine to 
produce a warm and delightful picture of the 
joys of Shabbat and of the value of observ-
ing mitzvot. Mrs. Moskowitz' problem is that 
she must give up the home in which she has 
spent the major portion of her adulthood. It 
is not a problem that is limited to Jewish 
grandmothers. Mrs. Moskowitz therefore has 
wide appeal beyond the Jewish community, 
which bespeaks the universality of the 
themes touched on. Thus many people out-
side the Jewish community will learn about 
our Shabbat and about Jewish values. 
The author of Mrs. Moskowitz and the Sab-
bath Candlesticks, Amy Schwartz, is a 
delightful Californian, who has taught art in 
her native state. Her home is now New York, 
where she has worked in the production 
department of a major publishing house. Ms. 
Schwartz has illustrated books, including 
one published this year written by Amy Hest, 
called The Crack of Dawn Walkers. She has 
also done illustrations for magazines and 
greeting cards. Her first book, Bea and Mrs. 
Jones, was widely acclaimed. It was a se-
lection of public TV's Reading Rainbow, and 
was listed in the New York Times and in 
School Library Journal as one of the best 
picture books of the year. Ms. Schwartz's 
next book will be titled Begin at the Be-
ginning. 
Mrs. Moskowitz was the first of Amy 
Schwartz's works to be published by the 
Jewish Publication Society; the next, a 
Chelm tale, is due out in the fall. I hope these 
two will be the first of many. It gives me great 
pleasure to present to you the winner of AJJ:s 
Sydney Taylor Award for Best Picture Book, 
Amy Schwartz. 
Remarks by Amy Schwartz 
I'd like to thank the Association of Jewish 
Libraries for giving me this award. It is quite 
an honor. 
In Mrs. Moskowitz and the Sabbath Can-
dlesticks, I wanted to express some of my 
feelings about the importance of a sense 
of home, and the idea that the holiday of 
Shabbat celebrates these feelings. 
The book is about an older woman who 
moves into a new apartment. She desper-
ately misses her old home. Mrs. Moskowitz 
feels so unhappy in her new apartment that 
she cannot even bring herself to unpack. 
Then her son comes by with a box that was 
overlooked in the move. The box contains 
a pair of tarnished Sabbath candlesticks. 
These candlesticks bring up strong feelings 
and memories for Mrs. Moskowitz. They 
serve as catalysts that lead her into unpack-
ing, cleaning, and, most important, feeling 
again. Mrs. Moskowitz sets up her apart-
ment and prepares for Shabbat. She makes 
her apartment into a home. 
The book began with a meeting with the ju-
venile book editor at the Jewish Publication 
Society, David Adler. My agent had shown 
David my artwork. David phoned me and 
invited me to come in and talk. He told me 
that he was interested in doing a picture-
book about the Sabbath. I listened, and 
responded that, Oh yes, I was very in-
terested. I'd have something to show him 
soon. I never tell a potential employer that 
I don't know how to do something. 
It is an understatement to say that I was wor-
ried when I got home. I knew very little about 
Shabbat.. And I'd never written anything 
from someone's suggestion. ~evertheless, 
I bravely put a sheet of paper in my type-
writer. I typed out the word "Shabbat:' Then 
I sat there. Then I typed two names, 'Llanet;' 
and "Beth:' 
Janet Seckel and Beth Pearson were neigh-
bors of mine when I moved to New York six 
years ago. They lived upstairs from me in 
a huge, impersonal, apartment building on 
the Upper West Side. Janet was working, 
Beth was a student, and they both were ob-
servant Jews. 
I met them during what was a difficult time 
for me. I was new in New York. I had come 
looking for work illustrating children's books. 
Manhattan seemed to me to be a city of 
twenty-one-year-olds working in advertising, 
living in studio apartments, thinking only of 
window offices and how to dress for suc-
cess. I desperately missed California. I 
missed my way of life there. I missed my 
home. 
Then I met Janet and Beth. I loved visiting 
them. Their apartment felt different from any 
other apartment I'd been in in Manhattan. 
Something was usually cooking on the 
stove. We talked about feelings, friends, and 
family. Their apartment felt like a home. 
I clearly remember the first time I visited on 
Shabbat. I remember finding Beth, who was 
in the middle of a difficult college semes-
ter, lying on her sofa, reading a novel. She 
explained to me that she kept the Sabbath. 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. 1-2 Spring 1985 27 
No matter what was going on in the rest of 
her life, Beth told me, Shabbat was a day 
to relax and feel peaceful with herself. We 
talked about what Shabbat meant to her. I 
r_emember feeling deeply surprised, re-
lieved, and happy that I'd found this peace-
ful retreat in the middle of Manhattan. Here, 
every week, Janet and Beth reaffirmed for 
themselves what was important. I thought 
perhaps this is why this apartment feels like 
a home. 
Thinking about Janet and Beth and that first 
year in New York brought up more memo-
ries. I remembered one night when I couldn't 
sleep. I remembered getting out of bed and 
taking out my journal. I expected to write 
regretfully about friends I'd left in Califor-
nia, or of my worries about finding work. In-
stead, I found myself making a list similar 
to the list Mrs. Moskowitz makes when she 
is _first left alone in her new apartment. "I 
miss my blue chair;' I wrote, "I miss my sofa;' 
and so on. When I was done, I felt comfort-
ed, and could fall asleep. 
. I also remembered my frequent trips back 
to California. I remembered returning to 
New York each time with a suitcase full of 
favorite things from home. Just as Mrs. 
Moskowitz begins to feel happy when she 
unpacks her candlesticks, as I unpacked 
each item, I felt just a little bit more at home. 
The few words I'd typed out had brought up 
many feelings and memories, but they did 
not make up a picturebook. I was stuck. I 
talked to my agent. We decided that I was 
probably not the right person to write this 
book. I put the project aside. 
Around this time another friend of mine, 
Nancy, was getting married. I bought her 
a little handmade pillow as a wedding pres-
ent. It was very pretty. Before wrapping it, 
and giving it up to Nancy to put.on her sofa 
I decided to test it out on my sofa. It looked 
lovely sitting there. But, my sofa didn't mea-
sure up to the pillow. My sofa suddenly 
looked very shabby. And, somehow now 
the picture above my sofa didn't look right 
either. My rug looked worn, and the pottery 
on the coffee table didn't look right either. 
I felt very agitated. I rearranged the pottery. 
I adjusted the picture. I swept the rug and 
cleaned the living room. When I was done, 
I felt centered and calm. And, I had a struc-
ture for my Sabbath story. 
I wrote up a story proposal and sent it 
to David at JPS. He liked the proposal, 
and, with his help, I began writing Mrs. 
Moskowitz. 
That's the story behind my story. Mrs. 
Moskowitz is a book about some simple 
(continued in column 3) 
Uri Orlev: 
Children's Book Award Winner 
Introduction by 
Judy Greenblatt 
This year, among the candidates for the Chil-
dren's Book Award, was one whose author 
clearly shared our goals. Immediately after 
World War II, there was a great silence on 
the part of survivors as they attempted to 
come to terms with what they had experi-
enced. After a period of many years, they 
slowly began to find their tongues. Uri Orlev 
is one who has found an eloquent and 
powerful voice indeed. It was a Jong time be-
fore he could give expression to his ex-
periences. 
Uri Orlev was born in Warsaw in 1931. His 
father was captured by the Russians at the 
start of the war, and Uri spent the years 
1939-1941 hiding in the Warsaw ghetto, to-
gether with his mother and younger brother. 
His mother was killed, and he and his brother 
were sent to Bergen-Belson. 
The Island on Bird Street, winner of AJL:s 
Sydney Taylor Best Book Award for 1984 is 
the story of Alex, a boy left alone in a Polish 
ghetto, based on Mr. Or/ev's childhood ex-
perien~es. The horrors of war are clear, yet 
the pomt of view maintained is optimistic. 
Alex, age 11, survives the winter in a ruined 
house in the ghetto. Not blind hope, but faith 
based on the words of his parents and of his 
f~ther's friend, Boruch, guide him through 
his darkest days. The Island on Bird Street 
was published in Hebrew in 1981, and won 
the Mordechai Bernstein Award for Children's 
Literature, given by Haifa University. 
Mr. Orlev immigrated to Israel after the war. 
and at first worked on a kibbutz in the /owe~ 
Galilee. He is the author of an adult novel 
The Lead Soldiers, but for the past five year~ 
has concentrated on writing for children. 
Mr. Orlev lives with his wife and three chil-
dren in Jerusalem, so you will understand 
that he could not be with us tonight. He has, 
however, sent us a letter. 
Remarks by Uri Orlev 
I wish to express my deep gratitude to your 
Association for presenting The Island on 
Bird Street with your Best Book Award. 
I feel privileged to have been able in this 
book to share some of my experiences in 
the Holocaust with others. 
! fe_el privileged to have been able to speak 
m 1t for all those who perished. 
Miriam Chaikin: 
Body-of-Work Award Winner 
Introduction by 
Judy Greenblatt 
The 1984 recipient of the Sydney Taylor 
Body-of-Work Award is Miriam Chaikin. Ms. 
Chaikin has won a place of deep affection 
and respect in all our hearts and minds as 
well as in those of our children. When' the 
books started to arrive at our door in great 
numbers last fall, my daughter Miriam -who 
was ~hen te~ - could be counted on to ap-
pear_ImmedIately after the mailman, asking 
longmgly if another Molly book had arrived. 
Mir~am Chaikin was born in Jerusalem, grew 
up m Brooklyn - home of the Molly books -
and now lives in Manhattan. She was 
br~ught up i~ a close-knit Orthodox family. 
This upbrmgmg has been a major influence 
on her writing. That she feels holidays renew 
family ties and spirit, and link us with a 
shared past, is clearly evident in her work. 
Earlier in her career, Ms. Chaikin worked for 
two U.S. Senators. She entered publishing 
via the subsidiary rights area, and was then 
a book editor and later editorial director for 
a major publishing house. Now a writer and 
a free-lance editorial consultant, Ms. Chai-
kin has authored the text of several picture 
books and has poems in various anthol-
ogies. 
'!Aolly, h_eroine of the series about a girl grow-
mg up m an Orthodox family in Brooklyn in 
the 1940s, initially appeared in I Should 
Worry, I Should Care, Miriam Chaikin's first 
novel. But the four Molly books have not 
(continued on next page) 
Amy Schwartz (continued from column 1) 
feelings, but, to me, important ones. I'm 
happy that what has touched me has 
touched others also. 
I'm grateful to the Jewish Publication Soci-
ety for publishing my story. I'd like to thank 
my editor David Adler for his editorial help 
his patience, and encouragement. ' 
Thank you for inviting me here and thank 
you for this award. 
Uri Orlev: (continued from column 2) 
the Nazis to destroy the human spirit in even 
But perhaps, above all, I feel privileged to a little boy. 
have demonstrated in it the total failure of· I am sorry to have been unable to attend 
this festive occasion and wish to thank you 
once more for the prize you have honored 
(continued in column 3) me with. 
28 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. t-2 Spring 1985 


English

Amy Schwartz: Picture Book Award Winner

Cohen, Barbara

Where Have All the Children Gone?

Posner, Marcia W.

IN THE BEGINNING ■ ■ ■ 
Marcia W. Posner 
Co-Editor 
Judaica Librarianship is expressive of the relationship between large academic Judaica libraries and 
smaller school, synagogue, and community center libraries. It offers articles specific to each and relevant 
to both. As Judaica librarians become more sophisticated because of the discipline demanded by the 
new technology; better educated as more universities and schools of continuing education offer courses 
in Judaica librarianship and Jewish studies; and more in touch with each other through organizational 
contacts, networking, and workshops, the dichotomy between the academic library and the small library 
narrows .... Like the Children of Israel, Judaica libraries, despite their differences, are One. We have similar 
. goals: to encourage Jewish learning and to transmit its values and practices regardless of the size of our 
collections and staff and whether or not we are organized to support a faculty or teach in the library 
through reader guidance, with book discussions and other media. 
Too often, the lib.rarian of the smaller Judaica library-professional or volunteer-feels apart from the 
larger library world. Nothing could be further from the truth. The article on the history of Jewish librdries in 
the Encyclopedia Judaica (V.11, pp. 190 ff.) describes how a modest Talmud Torah in Verona of 1650 
matured into the present vast library of the Roman Jewish community, and how other major Judaica 
libraries developed similarly or even from a single individual's collection. No library, despite its size, should 
be taken casually or be regarded as unimportant. This statement carries implications for the library's 
selection policy and for its organization and administration. A too broad, simplified classification scheme 
which does not lend itself to expansion as the library grows often has to be. completely redone. Each 
library must regard itself with the utmost respect, dignity and seriousness of purpose even when fiction 
composes a large part of its collection; for that fiction mirrors the Jewish experience. The thirst for learning 
and romance with the written word is characteristic of Jews. Regardless of size, the Judaica library is part 
of that tradition. • 
I am continually surprised and edified to learn of the variety of Judaica libraries and to see how they tailor 
their collections and programs to fit their agenda and clientele. Most of us are familiar with the types of 
libraries mentioned above, but possibly not with the types of libraries I have recently come to know as 
Library Consultant for the Task Force on Art and Literature in Jewish Life of the Commission on Synagogue 
Relations of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York. Jewish Old Age and Nursing Homes have 
Judaica collections which feature large print and talking books. The demand for Yiddish materials in 
these formats has not yet been met, however, much to the consternation of inhabitants of such Homes. 
Some Federation hospitals also have Judaica collections in their patients' and staff libraries; and 
residences for exceptional Jewish children hope to develop Judaica libraries suitable for the 
handicapped and emotionally disturbed Jewish child. Jewish social workers need a library of resources 
about the Jewish perspective on social problems so that their counseling of clients is consonant with 
Jewish ethics and values. Jewish summer residential camps for children have Judaica libraries and 
informal book discussio[) programs. 
Some innovative changes are occurring among the diverse Judaica libraries. The widely separated 
day and synagogue supplementary Hebrew schools of Suffolk County, New York, will soon benefitfroma 
Judaica bookmobile service complete with traveling librarian, who will also be in charge of a large 
central Judaica library for the county under the initiative of the Suffolk Association of Jewish Schools. The 
libraries of the Central Queens and the 92nd Street YM/YWHA's and the Jewish Community Center of 
Bensonhurst have been asked to add popular Judaica in the Hebrew and Russian languages for Jews for 
whom those are first languages. Two of the most interesting libraries I have visited are the Jewish Youth 
Library in Boro Park and the library of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. One has been established to serve the 
young children and parents of a traditional community; the other to maintain the memory of a sacrificed 
one. I will share my visits to these and other libraries with you in this and succeeding issues. 
We need each other's help and sense of fellowship. In this and future issues of Judaica Librarianship we 
will share knowledge, techniques, and insights into the special world of Judaica libraries. We want to hear 
from you. What articles would you like to see on these pages? Please let us know. 
Judaica Librarianship Vol.1 No. 2 Spring 1984 47 


The Library of Yad Vashem

Goldberg, Isaac

Tracking Translations: 
the BibUography of Modern Hebrew Literature in Translation 
Isaac Goldberg 
The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature 
Tel-Aviv, Israel 
Some countries have an agency, govern-
mental or private, which undertakes to 
stimulate the translation into other lan-
guages of outstanding works of their own 
literature. In Israel, the year 1962 saw the 
establishment of the Institute for the Trans-
lation of Hebrew Literature, a non-profit 
government corporation whose aim is the 
stimulation, promotion, and dissemination 
of translations of the best in contemporary 
Hebrew belles-lettres. 
Inasmuch as there was no bibliographical 
control of translations from modern Hebrew 
literature and no checklist of existing • 
translations-except for random listings of 
individual titles in issues of Kiryat Sefer (for-
merly romanized as Kirjath Sepher), the 
quarterly bibliographical journal of the Jew-
ish National and University Library in 
Jerusalem-the fledgling Institute was 
faced early on with the problem of determin-
ing what translations were available so as 
to avoid duplication of effort. To a very great 
extent, this difficulty was overcome by the 
publication in 1968 of Yohai Goell's Bibliog-
raphy of Modern Hebrevv Literature in English 
Translation (Jerusalem: World Zionist Orga-
nization; Israel Universities Press). Based 
almost entirely on the holdings of the Jew-
ish National and University Library, this in-
valuable reference work lists more than 
three thousand entries covering poetry, fic-
tion, drama, essays, and children's literature 
issued through the end of 1965. (Two sig-
nificant anthologies, namely Ruth Finer 
Mintz's bilingual Modern Hebrevv Poetry and 
Avraham Birman's An Anthology of Modern 
Hebrew Poetry, though published in 1966 
and 1967 respectively, were also included.) 
Impressed by Goell's bibliography, and 
desiring to extend its basic idea-recording 
translations from modern Hebrew literature 
into other languages- Nilli Cohen, director 
of the Institute, commissioned Goell to com-
pile a bibliography of modern Hebrew liter-
ature translated into all languages. This 
work, listing seven hundred books in lan-
guages ranging from Arabic to Yiddish, ap-
peared in 1975 under the imprint of the In-
stitute. 
Aside from the fact that Goell's 1968 bibli-
ography was limited to translations into En-
glish, there are other differences between 
that bibliography and the 1975 publication. 
The first bibliography lists items found in 
periodicals, anthologies, and newspapers; 
it also gives separate bibliographic entities. 
It does not list historical and critical mate-
rial on Hebrew writers and Hebrew litera-
ture. The 1975 bibliography is limited to 
books. Translations appearing in periodicals 
and general anthologies are not included, 
except for special issues or sections of peri-
odicals devoted exclusively to modern He-
brew literature. Appendices contain lists of 
surveys of modern Hebrew literature (in lan-
guages other than Hebrew), works on spe-
cial fields of Hebrew literature, and studies 
of individual authors. 
With more and more translations of poetry, 
short stories, and other belles-lettres ap-
pearing in periodicals, anthologies, and 
other collections, Cohen realized that the 
lnstitute's bibliography of books, though very 
useful, was less than adequate. There was 
no bibliographical control or recording of all 
these translations on an ongoing basis. 
The 1960s and 1970s saw a tremendous in-
crease in the number of universities de-
veloping departments of Hebrew studies, 
thus most of the studies on individual 
authors listed in the 1975 bibliography were 
academic dissertations or theses. This 
period also witnessed significant growth in 
the number of journals devoted to Jewish 
studies, including Hebrew literature. Rele-
vant material found here also needed to be 
documented. The Modern Language As-
sociation's International Bibliography of 
Books and Articles on Modern Languages 
and Literatures does not cover translations 
and is not current for critical material. Co-
hen's solution was to issue a serial bibliog-
raphy listing modern Hebrew literature in 
translation, and including bio-critical mate-
rial on Hebrew writers, book reviews, and 
essays on the history and criticism of the 
various phases of modern Hebrew literature 
and its gen res. 
78 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. 1-2 Spring 1985 
As a first step in the attainment of complete 
coverage, a list was developed of Judaica 
journals and society publications which in-
clude modern Hebrew literature as one of 
their fields of interest. Relevant data on ap-
propriate items were then transferred to 
cards, pending publication. Augmented 
constantly and updated regularly, this card 
file, now arranged chronologically, serves 
as our current and comprehensive multilin-
gual database for the Bibliography. Within 
each grouping, the entries are arranged first 
by genre (poetry, fiction, drama, essays, and 
humor), then alphabetically by author. 
Works by a given author are followed by bio-
graphical and/or critical material. There is 
a rubric for general history and criticism of 
modern Hebrew literature; as well as one 
for each genre. 
Two basic decisions were made before pub-
lication of the first issue in the Spring of 
1979. It was arbitrarily agreed that the be-
ginning date would be 1972, and there 
would be two issues per year-a Spring is-
sue listing material in English, and an Au-
tumn issue listing material in other lan-
guages. It is interesting to note that Catalan, 
Chinese, Japanese, and Slovenian have 
been represented in the Bibliography; 
Serbo-Croatian appears with some 
regularity. 
In addition to listing the material noted 
above, each issue contains three indexes: 
1) an index of Hebrew authors (as author 
or subject), 2) an index of translators, edi-
tors, etc., and 3) a Hebrew index arranged 
by author and original Hebrew title of the 
translation listed. The compilation of this last 
index necessitates a great amount of 
sleuthing. 
The compilers of the Bibliography have 
been sensitive to consumer reaction. 
Several subscribers had inquired early on 
about the period between the close of 
Goell's bibliography (for English transla•" 
tions)-1965 and our beginning date of 1972. 
To fill this gap, each Spring issue-
beginning with the one for the year 1981-
includes retrospective material. The 1981 
issue covers 1971; the 1982 issue includes 
1970 entries; and so on retroactively until 
coverage will have been completed. Vari-
ous subscribers had inquired about mate-
rial in foreign languages published before 
1972. To satisfy this request, each Autumn 
issue, beginning with the one for the years 
1979-80, includes material for the period 
1948-49 (the establishment of the State of 
Israel) onward. 
Visitors to the Institute wonder at the 
amount of time and effort sometimes spent 
in locating a specific item or piece of infor-
mation. When we describe our modus oper-
andi, we are frequently asked why we don't 
computerize our files. We are working on 
that, but right now, mainly for financial rea-
sons, we must be content with a manual 
operation. 
We would welcome any comment from 
readers of this journal; it is only by knowing 
what bibliographers in the field want to see 
in this bibliography that we can improve it 
and make it more useful. 
Acknowledgment 
No description of the Bibliography would be 
complete without grateful acknowledgment 
to Amnon Zipin, of Ohio State University 
Libraries, who has, since the outset of the Bib-
liography, covered English-language journals 
of Jewish interest published in the United 
States. 
Prof. Isaac Goldberg is Bibliographer at the 
Institute for the Ti'anslation of Hebrew Liter-
ature in Tel Aviv, where he compiles the bi-
annual Bibliography of Modern Hebrew 
Literature in Translation. Before settling in 
Israel in 1968, he held positions in several 
major Judaica libraries throughout the 
United States. He was a co-founder, in 1946, 
of the Jewish Librarians Association-a fore-
runner of AJL. 
Index of Advertisers 
Name Page 
Alpha Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 
Enjoy-A-Book-Club .................. 64 
Garland Publishing Inc. . ............. 76 
Ideal Book Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 
Jerusalem International Book Fair ...... 56 
Oxford Paperbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n 
Pacific Press ....................... 77 
Rogow Ltd. . ....................... 54 
Shofar ............................ 30 
Markus Wiener Publishing ............ 67 
The editors gratefully acknowledge the help of the gradu-
ate assistants of the Division of Library and Information 
Science at St. John's University in the preparation of this 
issue, notably Salome Cory and Lynn Dombek. 
Compiling the Boo:k-length B,ibliography: 
Concepts and Strategies* 
Robert Sin,german 
University of Florida 
Gainesville, FL 
Although their working environments vary, 
librarians in the typical seminary, university, 
or synagogue setting are all in constant di-
alogue with the users of their collections. 
In the process of providing reference ser-
vice to students and researchers, librarians 
often discover that the existing bibliographic 
coverage is woefully inadequate for locat-
ing frequently sought information in many 
specialized areas. Recognizing that impor-
tant topics in the field of Jewish studies lack 
bibliographical guides, librarians can make 
a lasting contribution to their profession 
through the compilation of book-length bib-
liographies. 
In contrast to analytical or critical bibliof;.:·a-
phy, wherein the objective is the descrip-
tion and identification of printed texts as 
physical entities (e.g., typography and de-
sign, textual variants, and watermarks), our 
concern here is enumerative or systematic 
bibliography, the purpose of which is the 
preparation of a "list or sequence of descrip-
tions of graphic materials on a given sub-
ject or area'' (Bates, 1976, p. 9). An aspiring 
bibliographer should possess the ability to 
conceive, plan, and organize a project, as 
well as the tenacity to carry the project 
through to a successful conclusion-often 
after the passage of several years. Even 
more important are those most basic of 
requirements-accuracy and attention to 
detail. The bibliographer's potential for suc-
cess will be enhanced by such traits as curi-
osity, objectivity, skepticism, intuitiveness, 
and the sleuthing skills of the detective. A 
working knowledge of foreign languages 
and library practices will reap many divi-
dends, as will a thorough comprehension 
of the issues and scholarly literature of the 
subject matter being brought under biblio-
graphic control (adapted from Harmon, 
1981, pp. 26-27). 
Having perceived the lack of an adequate 
bibliography, e.g., in the case of Karaites 
and Karaitic literature, the bibliographer 
must then ascertain that the prospective 
work will meet a significant need while not 
duplicating any existing bibliographic tools. 
Once these considerations related to the 
new work's purpose are resolved, the com-
piler will then decide on the book's scope; 
i.e., languages covered, chronofogicatand 
,.geographic parameters, or possible format 
·exclusions, such as juvenHe and tlolograph 
materiats. A bibliographer may, tn addttion, 
choose to limit the domain of the .project to 
the holdings of one Ubrary or only the 
fibraries in 'the United States. Given the pau-
city of adequate book-length bibtiographies, 
the new book should be as complete as pos-
sible within its stated limitations. While bib-
liographies need not be annotated, it is 
nonetheless true that the most useful (and 
most favorably reviewed) ones are anno-
tated. n is recommended that when describ-
ing primary source material$, the bib-
liographer should provide an indication of 
the holding repository for each item. If the 
bibliographer continually keeps the needs 
of the book's users uppermost in his/her 
mind during the early planning stages, 
many of the basic questions related to the 
scope and organization of the material will 
be resolved with little difficulty. All bib-
liographers should become familiar with the 
concise "Guidelines for the Preparation of 
a Bibliography;' prepared by the American 
Library Association's Reference and Adult 
Services Division, Bibliography Committee 
("Guidelines;' 1982). 
Locating all of the pertinent material for the 
bibliography is a challenge for even the 
most experienced compiler. Needless to 
say, there is no substitute for on-site visits 
to libraries with relevant collections, if the 
bibliographer is to examine each and every 
item. In order to maximize the return on time 
invested in traveling to libraries, begin with 
those that have open-stack collections and 
self-service photocopying. 
The search strategy should include a close 
examination of all the appropriate author 
and subject cards (analytics are especially 
useful). The shelflist is an often forgotten 
*Originally presented at the Convention of 
the Association of Jewish· Libraries held in 
Cleveland, June, 1985. 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. 1-2 Spring 1985 79 


Tracking Translations: the Bibliography of Modern Hebrew Literature in Translation

Lazinger, Susan S.

EPISTLE FROM ISRAEL 
Library Openings 
Yiddish Culture Club 
A new library, containing 3000 volumes, has 
been dedicated in the Yiddish Culture Club 
in Rehovot. The establishment of the library 
was made possible by a sizable donation 
of books by a Belgian Jew and later, by a 
Parisian Jew, who also donated a large an-
cient book cabinet. The opening of the li-
brary in May 1984 was attended by the 
mayor of Rehovot, Yehezekiel Harmelech; 
the Chairman of the Club, Professor Pin-
chas Ehrlich; and several members of the 
National Council for Yiddish Culture. 
Yad Menachem Zvl Torah Library 
In August 1984, the Yad Menachem Zvi To-
rah Library-the restored private library of 
the late Rabbi Menachem Zvi Eichenstein, 
the former chief rabbi of the Orthodox Jew-
ish community of St. Louis-was dedicated 
in Jerusalem. The library, complete with fur-
niture, shelves and several hundred vol-
umes, was moved from the former Eichen-
stein home near St. Louis to a renovated 
apartment in Jerusalem, which serves as 
an annex to the Mishkan Hatorah Yeshiva, 
headed by Rabbi Dov Eichenstein, the elder 
son of the former chief rabbi. The dedica-
tion marked the third anniversary of the 
former chief rabbi's death. The restored 
Eichenstein library will serve both students 
of the Yeshiva and other Torah scholars in 
Jerusalem. 
Wiener Library 
Another library which moved to a new home 
to mark an anniversary was the Wiener Li-
brary, Alfred Wiener's authoritative collec-
tion on anti-Semitism, the rise of the Third 
Reich, and other topics related to Jews and 
Judaism in twentieth-century Europe. To 
mark Wiener's 100th birthday, the library he 
had amassed in part by smuggling mate-
rial out of Germany was moved from its tem-
porary home (since 1980) in the Tel Aviv 
University Library to a permanent home on 
the campus. The library contains 40,000 
Susan S. Lazinger 
Hebrew University 
documents relating to the Nuremberg and 
Eichmann trials and records of the Gestapo 
and of Arab propaganda offices. The 
Wiener Library was recently the venue of 
an international conference on extremist po-
litical movements chaired by Prof. Saul 
Friedlander. 
Genazim 
Finally, the Tel Aviv archive known as Gena-
zim (meaning a collection of records or 
documents, usually stored in a hiding place; 
the best-known example is the Genizah of 
ancient Hebrew manuscripts found in a 
Cairo synagogue dating from 882 B.C.) 
moved from the basement of the Writer's 
House in Tel Aviv, where it had been housed 
since it was begun by the late novelist Asher 
Barash in 1951, to a suite of spacious, sunny 
rooms on the top floor of the building. The 
move was made possible by a grant from 
the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. The 
archive is presided over by Dov Ben-Ya'acov 
and is the world's largest collection of mod-
ern Hebrew manuscripts and related docu-
ments-some two million items constitut-
ing a priceless record of the rebirth of 
Israel's national language and literature. 
Cairo and Cremona Genizahs 
Two other genazim were in the news in Is-
rael recently: the afore mentioned Cairo 
Genizah and the Cremona (Italy) Genizah. 
The world-famous Cairo Genizah was dis-
covered at the end of the last century, in the 
attic of the Ezra Synagogue in Cairo by 
Solomon Schechter, Reader in Rabbinic 
Studies at Cambridge University. It contains 
such treasures as fragments of the Book of 
Wisdom by Ben Sira, written about 200 B.C.; 
a letter written in Spain by Rabbi Yehuda 
Halevi, one of the greatest Hebrew poets 
and philosophers; and a legal opinion by 
Maimonides, written in his own handwrit-
ing in Cairo. Its discovery-or rediscovery-
by Schechter not only shed light on religious 
literature, but also provided a fascinating 
view of daily life in the Jewish community 
of the Arab world in the Middle Ages. Part 
of this treasure-a collection of manuscripts 
lent by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 
t-Jew York-was displayed in an exhibition 
at the Israel Museum alongside the Dead 
Sea Scrolls, which are referred to as "the 
elder sister'' of the Cairo manuscripts by the 
curator, Magen Broshi. In an interview pub-
lished in the Jerusalem Post, Broshi stated 
that the love letters and bills of lading found 
in the Cairo Genizah were every bit as im-
portant as the major documents in revising 
our conceptions of medieval Judaism. 
A genizah which is still waiting to be 
researched in Europe is the treasure of six-
to-seven-hundred-year-old manuscript frag-
ments used as binding and wrapping ma-
terial for books and documents on the 
shelves of the Cremona State Archives in 
Italy. An effort to bring to light such frag-
ments has been initiated by Dr. Josef 
Baruch Sermonetta, Chairman of the 
Department of Jewish Thought at the He-
brew University of Jerusalem. He was in-
strumental in obtaining a grant from the Ital-
ian National Research Center to finance the 
search for ancient Hebrew fragments in 
Italy. With the aid provided by the grant, 
Benjamin Richler, Deputy Director of the In-
stitute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts 
at Hebrew University, and his Italian col-
league, Dr. P. Francesco Fumagalli, recently 
searched through ancient documents at the 
State Archives in Cremona and found 
dozens of old Hebrew manuscript fragments 
pasted to the bindings of non-Jewish books. 
Most of the fragments were bound into 
documents compiled after 1559, the date of 
a major burning of Jewish books in Cre-
mona. The fragments are now being pains-
takingly removed and restored by nuns from 
the Abbazia di Viboldone in Milan and will 
be sent for photographing at the Institute 
of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts. 
Publication 
The Catalogue of the Dr. Israel Mehlman 
Collection, presented to the Jewish National 
and University Library (JNUL) about fifteen 
years ago, was published at the end of 1984. 
The collection contains about 2,000 books 
and pamphlets, most of them in Hebrew; 24 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. 1-2 Spring 1985 55 
incunabula, and other rare printings from 
over 200 printing houses in Europe, North 
Africa and the East. About half of the items 
are traditional works of religion, and the rest 
are popular works on religion or on secular 
subjects. The Catalogue, which is 400 pages 
in length, gives full bibliographical details 
of the edition and of the specific copy in the 
collection. 
Gifts and Grants 
A rare and very valuable medieval Hebrew 
manuscript of a decorated Mahzor (prayer 
book) of the Roman rite for the Succot holi-
day, followed by Halakhic treatises and 
selichot, written in Italy on parchment about 
1400, was donated to the JNUL by Mrs. Pei-
rina Corgnier Jona. Other recent gifts to the 
JNUL include four important Hebrew 
manuscripts purchased at an auction at 
Sotheby's in New York on June 26, 1984 by 
Mr. Ludwig Jesselson. A 242-page manu-
script of five chumshei torah, written in 1485 
in Yemen, and acquired by the Chavshush 
family of Tel Aviv seventy-five years ago, was 
contributed by them in honor of the 500th 
anniversary of its composition. An entire 
collection-focusing mainly on Judaica, 
Oriental studies, and history and philoso-
phy of the sciences- has been left in a be-
quest by the late Prof. Meir Martin Pless-
ner of the Hebrew University. This 
strengthens the JNUL'.s large research col-
lections in each of these fields. 
A grant of 340,000 marks by the Volkswa-
gen Fund of Germany has been awarded 
to the Hebrew University for the cataloging 
of 23,000 books on Kaballah and Jewish 
mysticism in the private collection of the late 
Professor Gershom Scholem, which is 
housed in the JNUL. The Volkswagen Fund 
was established in 1961 from profits of the 
Volkswagen company to encourage re-
search in new and pioneering areas of world 
science and culture. 
Exhibitions 
In commemoration of the centenary of the 
birth of Prof. S. H. Bergman, first director 
of the JNUL (1920-1935), an exhibition 
reflecting his varied activities as teacher, 
philosopher, librarian and Zionist was held 
in Berman Hall of the library. A book exhi-
bition on the cultural heritage of Hungar-
ian Jewry was also held in Berman Hall, fol-
lowing the Bergman exhibition. 
Two exhibitions were sponsored by the 
JNUL in connection with the Twelfth Inter-
national Book Fair held from May 5-10, 1985 
in Jerusalem: a display of manuscripts and 
books relating to R. Moshe ben Maimon 
(Maimonides) on the 850th anniv!3rsary of 
his birth, and another of some fifty rare He-
brew manuscripts from the Palatine Library 
of Parma, ltalv. The Maimonides manu-
scripts included the Commentary on the 
Mishnah in Maimonides' own handwriting, 
written between 1158 and 1168. The Parma 
manuscripts, which had never before been 
shown outside of Parma, were from a col-
lection of more than 1,500 Hebrew manu-
scripts from the Middle Ages donated to the 
library in 1816 by Giovanni B. de Rossi, 
professor of Oriental languages at the Uni-
versity of Parma. 
Anniversary Celebrations 
Both the Maimonides exhibition and the 
Parma exhibition, in addition to coincidin,g 
with the International Book Fair, were part 
of anniversary celebrations-the former of 
850 years since Maimonides' birth, and the 
latter of sixty years since the establishment 
of the Hebrew University. In addition to 
these exhibitions, many other events of in-
terest to Judaica librarians were held in con-
nection with these two jubilees. Festivities 
were held in the Rambam (Maimonides) Li-
brary in Tel Aviv to celebrate both the 850th 
birthday of its namesake and the fiftieth an-
niversary of the library's founding. The 
68,000-volume library was founded by the 
Tel Aviv municipality in 1935 to mark Mai-
monides' 800th birthday. 
The Israeli organizations involved in mark-
ing Maimonides' 850th birthday include the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Education 
Ministry; the National Science Academy; 
the Justice Ministry; the Hebrew University; 
Tel Aviv University; the Central Institute for 
, Cultural Relations between Israel and Latin 
America, Spain and Portugal; the Rambam 
Institute; and the Tiberias municipality. 
Events in addition to those mentioned above 
included an international conference of Ju-
daic studies dedicated to the philosophy of 
Maimonides held in August, 1985; a sym-
posium on his teachings during the Jerusa-
lem Book Fair; a wide range of educational 
activities about Maimonides in Israeli 
schools and universities; and an exchange 
of academicians, artists and musicians be-
tween Israel and Spain. 
Finally, the Hebrew University and the Jew-
ish National and University Library, which 
was established along with it in 1925, 
marked their sixtieth birthdays with a vari-
ety of gala events. One of the events of par-
ticular interest to Judaica librarians, how-
ever, was an exhibition on the history of 
these two institutions. 
Dr. Susan S. Lazinger is Librarian of the 
Graduate School of Library & Archive 
Studies, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 
56 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. 1-2 Spring 1985 
MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!!! 
Jerusalem Book Fair Next April 
The 13th Jerusalem International Book Fair 
will be held in Jerusalem, April 6-12, 1987. 
Over the past 26 years, the Jerusalem Book 
Fair has become one of the most important 
literary events on the international publish-
ing calendar, with attendance of over 1000 
publishers from some 42 countries. 
At each fair, more exhibitors from all over 
the world, publishers, writers, scholars, liter-
ary agents, librarians and book lovers dis-
cover the commercial and cultural benefits 
of this unique Book Fair in the unique City 
of Jerusalem. 
Highlights of the next Fair will include: 
- The Awarding of the distinguished Jerusa-
lem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual 
in Society (The Prize was last awarded to 
Czech writer Milan Kundera) 
- The Third Forum of the Aspen Institute 
for Humanistic Studies on the topic: ''The 
Future for Publishing Across Language 
Frontiers:' 
- The Jerusalem Philosophical Encounters, 
and 
- The Third Jerusalem Symposium on En-
couraging Reading-a worldwide gather-
ing of reading specialists. 
The Fair, which is held biennially at the 
Jerusalem Convention Center, Binyanei 
Haooma, is a joint project of the Jerusalem 
Municipality, the Israel Book Publishers' As-
sociation, and the Isreal Ministry of Indus-
try & Trade. 
For more information, please contact: 
Ms. Michal Meryn 
c/o Government of Israel Trade Center 
350 Fifth Avenue 
Empire State Building, 19th Floor 
New York, NY 10118 
Telephone (212) 560-0695 or 560-0660 


Epistle from Israel

Friedman, Mark

APPROBATIONS 
The Jews in Poland and Russia: Bibliographical Essays, 
by Gershon David Hundert and Gershon C. Bacon. Bloomington: 
Indiana University Press, 1984. 276 p. 
Reviewed by: 
Mark Friedman 
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 
New York, NY 
Scope 
The volume consists of two bibliographical 
essays. Hundert's is on the Jews in Poland-
Lithuania to the first Partition of Poland, and 
Bacon's essay covers the period from the 
first Partition to the present. The volume can 
serve as a point of departure for research 
in that it provides a listing of recent, signifi-
cant, and indispensable works in Western 
languages. It is far from a comprehensive 
bibliography on the subject, as it employs 
great selectivity, particularly for pre-1945 
materials and for Slavic and Jewish lan-
guage materials. The authors did seek, 
however, to include everything of impor-
tance in English. The compilation of a com-
prehensive bibliography on the subject 
would have been a Herculean task requir-
ing major institutional support. 
Critique 
A lacuna exists in Bacon's essay on the 
modern period, in that there is no consider-
ation given to the Jews in the three Baltic 
states-Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia-
during their period of independence. 
Properly speaking, the Baltic states were 
neither part of Poland, nor of the U.S.S.R., 
during the interwar years or the Nazi occu-
pation, but as they were very much a part 
of the totality of Polish-Russian Jewry for 
most of this millenium, they should have 
been included. Some titles on the Jews of 
Lithuania and Latvia will be found scattered 
in Hundert's essay, but this does not suffice. 
Neither essay has references to the works 
of '!Judenforschers; Nazi researchers of the 
Jewish question. A number of them devoted 
their efforts to Eastern European Jewry. 
While their motivations were maniacally 
practical and offensive from our point of 
view, some of the works of Sommerfeldt, 
Seraphim and Guenzenhauser are useful, 
and have been· cited in such works as 
Shunami's Bibliography of Jewish Bibliog-
raphies. 
Bacon devotes more attention to the sub-
ject of Jewish historiography than does Hun-
dert, but omits some useful books, includ-
ing Isaiah Trunk's Geshtaltn un gesheenishn 
- (Buenos Aires, 1962) and S.K. Mirsky's 
Ishim u-demuyot be-hokhmat yisrael be-
eropah ha-mizrahit lifne shekiatah (New 
York, 1959). Inclusion of the bibliographies 
of the writings of the major historians of 
Eastern European Jewry such as Dubnow, 
Mahler, Ringelblum, Schipper, Shatzky, and 
Gelber would have been appropriate. 
Despite the stated selectivity of this volume, 
several additional reference works should 
have been included. 0. Schmelz's pioneer-
ing Jewish Demography and Statistics: Bib-
liography for 1920-1960 (Jerusalem, 1961) 
is invaluable. Bibliographies of local history, 
such as Philip Friedman's on Lodz and 
Abraham Pekler's on Vilna, would have 
helped Bacon's relatively weak section on 
this subject. Hundert, having included Ba-
ron's Bibliography of Jewish Social Studies, 
1938-1939, should have also included 
YIVO's attempt at a version of Kirjath Sepher, 
its Bibliografishe yorbikher fun YIVO (War-
saw, 1928) and the valiant, but unsuccess-
ful, attempt by Edward Poznanski to start 
a Jewish bibliographical annual in Poland, 
Sefer ha-shanah le-bibliografiyah yehudit be-
polanyah (Warsaw, 1936). Both Hundert and 
Bacon fail to mention the important supple-
ment to Shunami's Bibliography of Jewish 
Bibliographies, published in 1975. 
Two important works on the Jewish press 
that should have been included are Abra-
ham Kirzhnitz's Di yidishe prese in der 
gevezener rusisher imperye (1823-1916) 
(Moscow/Kharkov/Minsk, 1930) and Marian 
Fuks' "Z dziejow prasy zydowskiej w Polsce 
(1918-1939);' in Biuletyn Zydowskiego ln-
stytutu Historyczniego, no. 75, 1970. 
Bacon might also have offered a section on 
lexicons, where, among others, he could 
have described two interesting books on 
Poles of Jewish origin, Teodor Jeske-
Choinski's Neofici Polscy. Materialy 
historyczne (Warsaw, 1904) and Mattheus 
Mieses' Polacy Chrzescijanie pochodzenia 
zydowskiego (Warsaw, 1938). The Zionist 
and Bundist lexicons, also not mentioned, 
contain much material on Eastern European 
Jews. 
Certain bibliographic data of potential im-
portance to the researcher were omitted. 
Neither Hundert nor Bacon indicate in their 
sections on journals that some of the titles 
have ceased publication. The one-time an-
nual on Russian Jewry, He-avar, has not ap-
peared since 1975; Behinot, a journal on 
Jews in Eastern Europe, has not been pub-
lished since 1979. It would have been help-
ful for the authors to have mentioned the 
existence of indices to such journals as So-
viet Jewish Affairs, Bleter far Geshikhte, and 
Biuletyn Zydowskiego lnstytutu Historycz-
niego. Besides these omissions, there are 
several errors of commission in the book-
mangled titles, incorrect bibliographic infor-
mation, etc. 
This volume would have benefited from the 
consolidation of the bibliographic sections 
• of both essays, as this would have brought 
all of the entries for any given author to-
gether in one place, and would doubtlessly 
have made it possible to shorten the book 
somewhat. A secondary benefit would have 
been the forced standardization of transliter-
ations. 
The reader is advised to check the relevant 
parts of both essays for information on spe-
cific subjects. Gaps or weak points in one 
essay are often compensated for in the 
other. 
Conclusions 
On the whole, Hundert's essay is the more 
successful of the two. This may be due in 
part to the greater complexity of the mod-
ern period which Bacon handled, and to the 
much greater number of primary and sec-
ondary works he had to analyze and de-
scribe. 
All too often, authors fail to fulfill the goals 
they set in writing their books. In this case, 
two young scholars of Eastern European 
Jewish history, Gershon Hundert and Ger-
shon Bacon set modest, practical goals and 
(continued on page 14, column 3) 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. 1-2 Spring 1985 9 
P. 44 Rosenthal, J. L . Toledot 
Hevrat Marbei Ha-Haskalah 
be-Yisra'el. St. Petersburg, 1885, 1890. 
Rosenthal is the editor of this collection of 
documents. 
More information is needed for some of the 
more obscure and esoteric items listed by 
IDC. 
For example: 
P. 37 Pines, Y. M. Shimu Harim Rivi. 
Jerusalem, 1882. 
This item is a two-page broadside published 
by Pines to defend himself against his 
detractors. No indication is given in the cata­
log as to the nature of this item. 
P. 37 Schlesinger, A. J. Kol Nehi 
mi-Ziyyon. Jerusalem, 1872. 
This item was published anonymously, and 
no clue to its authorship appears in it. For 
confirmation, see Malachi, 1971, pp. 287-89; 
Gat, 1973/4, p. 143. Proof of authorship 
would have been helpful. 
At least one item reprinted by IDC is of ques­
tionable value. This is: 
P. 69 Sha'arei Berakhot. By Samuel 
ben Hophni (Ed. I. Wiess [i.e. , Weiss]). 
Vienna, 1882. 
This item is an extract from the journal Bet 
Talmud 2 (1882): 377-386, a fact which 
should have been mentioned. The text was 
later edited and included by B. M. Lewin in 
his collection Otsar ha-ge' onim to Berakhot 
(Haifa, 1928), pp. 65-77. In his introduction, 
Lewin refers to Weiss' edition as containing 
a few corrections and many deficiencies, as 
well as extraneous material. In light of this 
assessment, I wonder how valuable Weiss' 
edition is to scholars, and whether it was 
worth reprinting. 
Finally, there are many typographical errors 
and errors in transliteration in the catalog, 
which detract from its usefulness and can 
cause catalogers problems. 
Some examples: 
P. 69 Sefer Rav Amram Gaon 
(A. L. Framkin, Ed.) 
This should read Sidur tefilah . . .  'im Seder 
Rav Amram Gaon (Ed. A. L. Frumkin). 
P. 68 Re'umah attributed to Nashhon 
Gaon. 
The name should be Nahshon. 
P. 36 Horowitz, H. Hibbat Ziyyon. 
Jerusalem, 1844. 
The title actually is Hibbat Yerusha/ayim. 
P. 37 Mishpat l'Ekolei Yaakov. 
This should read Mishpat l'Elokei Yaakov. 
P. 42 Dubnow, S. (Ed.) Pinkas Medinat 
Lita. Berlin, 1928. 
The title should read Pinkas ha-medinah. 
The title given is the running title. 
P. 66 Loew, L. Graphische Requisiten 
und Erzeugnisse bei den Juden. 
Leipzig, 1869-1870, 1870-1871, v.1-2. 
This item is part of the author's Beitrage zur 
JOdischen Alterthumskunde, and is usually 
entered under the latter title. While the en­
try is not wrong, mention of the main title 
should have been made, since many 
libraries would not have an added entry un­
der the above title, and unnecessary dupli­
cation may result. 
Conclusion 
The aforesaid notwithstanding, I would not 
like to discourage libraries from purchasing 
material from IDC. IDC is providing an in­
valuable service to the scholarly commu­
nity, and most of its publications are in good 
order. My purpose in this paper is to alert 
libraries to the problems they may encoun­
ter in cataloging some of the items IDC is 
marketing. I also hope to bring to IDC's at­
tention the concerns of librarians who are 
involved in purchasing and cataloging these 
materials. IDC would be well advised to en­
gage the services of a qualified Judaica 
librarian to help them correct the errors in 
their catalog and to prevent the occurrence 
of such errors in the future. Finally, Judaica 
librarians who come across major errors in 
IDC's catalog are urged to bring them to the 
attention of other librarians by publishing 
their findings in Judaica Librarianship. 
References 
[EJ] Encyclopaedia Judaica. Jerusalem: Ency­
clopaedia Judaica, 197 1-72. 16 v. 
Gat, Ben-Zion. Ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi be-Erets-Yis­
ra'el bi-shenot 5600-5641 (1840-1881). Jerusa­
lem: Yad Y itsbak Ben-Tsevi, 1973/4.1 
[IDC] Inter Documentation Co. Jewish Studies: 
Research Collections on Microform. Zug, Swit­
zerland: IDC, [ 1983]. 
Kressel, Getzel, Leksikon ha-sifrut ha-·Jvrit ba­
dorot ha-abaronim. Merbavyah: Sifriyat po'a­
lim, 1965-67. 2 v.3 
Malachi, Elieze_- Raphael. Perakim be-to/dot ha­
Yishuv ha-yashan. Tel-Aviv: Universitat Tel-Aviv, 
197 1.2 
Malter, Henry. Saadia Gaon: His Life and Works. 
Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of 
America, 1921. 
Marmorstein, Arthur. Studies in Jewish Theology: 
The Arthur Marmorstein Memorial Volume. 
Edited by J. Rabbinowitz and M. S. Lew. Lon­
don, New York: Oxford University Press, 1950. 
[ NUC] National Union Catalog: Pre-1956 Imprints. 
London: Mansell, 1968- 198 1. 754 v. 
14 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No.  1-2 Spring 1985 
Hebrew Bibliographic Data 
,N,'ll'-�iN:i ,.,n,,n !ll'll'tl -�P�-p ,m . l 
. ( 1881-1840) N">lint1-i"nt1 nu'O:i 
.1"?\!J!l ,''.J�-p pn�, 1' :O'?l!J)"P 
.,'ll'tl !ll'll'tl n,1,,n:i 0,p,!1 .,.N ,':>N'.Jn .2 
.N"?\!J!l ,'.J''.JN-'.Jn !l\J'\?'l'.J')1N :'.J''.JN-'.Jn 
n,,:ivn n,,!ltm ,,;,,1,p, .'.J�:1 ,'.Jo,p .3 
,o,'.JYt!:l n,,.!:io :n''.ln,n .0m,nNt1 n,,n:i 
.',:, 2 .1967-1965 
Acknowledgment 
I would like to acknowledge the help of my as­
sistant, Tamar Baxter, who cataloged most of the 
items from the IDC collection purchased by the 
University of Toronto Library and first brought to 
my attention many of the problems discussed in 
this paper. 
Dr. Barry Walfish is Hebraica and Judaica 
Cataloguer and Bibliographer at the Univer­
sity of Toronto Library, Toronto, Canada. 
Friedman (continued from p. 9) 
have succeeded admirably. This volume is 
extremely useful for everyone but the seri­
ous specialist. The Anti-Defamation League 
of B'nai B'rith should be applauded for sup­
porting this project, although the book is not 
as handsomely produced as earlier ADL 
bibliographic guides on Jewish history and 
Judaism. 
The above reservations notwithstanding, 
Professors Hundert and Bacon deserve our 
thanks for a book that will be useful for 
many, many years. 
Mark Friedman is Director of the Institute for 
Public Affairs of the Union of Orthodox Jew­
ish Congregations of America, based in New 
York. As a fellow of the Max Weinreich Cen­
ter for Advanced Jewish Studies of YIVQ he 
specialized in East European Jewish history. 


The Jews in Poland and Russia: Bibliographical Essays

Feldman, Louis H.

Acceptance Speech by the Recipient of the Judaica Reference Book Award 
Louis H. Feldman 
I want to express my sincere thanks to Mrs. 
Sarah Levy, the Judaica Reference book 
Award Committee, and the Association of 
Jewish Libraries for this.special honor. Com-
ing as it does from bibliophiles, guardians 
of and guides to the kingdom of books, it 
is especially appreciated. 
I have been asked to say something about 
my book, Josephus and Modern Scholar-
ship, upon which I worked for approximately 
thirty years. My goal was to provide a tool 
for the scholar and for the layperson in the 
field, not only of Josephus, but also of the 
history of the Second Commonwealth 
generally. For the period extending from 
1937 through 1980, I have tried to indicate 
and, in most cases, to evaluate critically all 
work, both scholarly and popular, that has 
been done in the following areas: 
• bibliography of Josephus and of the 
Second Commonwealth 
• the text of Josephus 
• translations into modern languages 
• the Latin· and Syriac versions 
• the Slavonic version 
• the Hebrew paraphrase known as 
Josippon 
• Josephus' life 
• general accounts of Josephus 
• Josephus' paraphrase of the Bible 
• Josephus as historian of the post-
Biblical period 
• Josephus as historian of the Roman 
period 
• Herod 
• the period after Herod until the out-
break of the war against the Romans 
• the war against the Romans 
• special problems in connection with 
Josephus' works 
• Josephus' sources 
• views on the Jewish religion 
• interpretation of Halakhah 
• views on the Samaritans, the 
Pharisees, and the divergent Jewish 
sects 
• Josephus and Christianity 
• Josephus on proselytes and sym-
pathizers 
• Josephus and archaeology 
• vocabulary and style 
• influence. 
Each topic is subdivided, with a total of 428 
subtopics and 5543 entries, for which the 
chief problems, the state of the question in 
modern scholarship, and my own views are 
presented. There are 78 pages of indices, 
Yeshiva University 
New York, NY 
which- I want to assure this assemblage-
were not compiled by a graduate assistant, 
but by myself, and which contain references 
to specific passages in Josephus and other 
writers, to individual words in Greek, Latin, 
Hebrew, Aramaic, and other languages, and 
to the names of all cited scholars. 
If the student is writing a paper on any topic 
directly or indirectly connected with 
Josephus-Josephus' conduct as a general 
in the Galilee; the relationship between the 
Jews and the Spartans; the question as to 
whether the Jews were citizens of Alexan-
dria; Josephus versus the Talmud on the 
treatment of animals; the relationship of the 
Zealots to the Essenes and to the Dead Sea 
Sect; the Arabic version of the Testimonium 
Flavianum (the passage about Jesus in 
Josephus); or the questions as to whether 
there was a suicide at Masada and whether 
it was justified-there are separate entries 
for each. Moreover, there are no abbrevia-
tions of titles of periodicals and no op. cits.; 
if a work is referred to under more than one 
heading, the full entry is repeated. The book 
also contains a section of fourteen pages 
on work that remains to be done-
suggested topics for doctoral dissertations 
or other research, why they are important, 
and how they should be carried out. 
Three years ago, a special symposium was 
held in Israel devoted solely to Josephus as 
historian of Eretz-lsrael, to which eighteen 
scholars contributed papers. Two weeks ago 
I, together with several others, received an 
invitation to contribute to a symposium 
which will be published in Midstream maga-
zine on the question of the reliability of 
Josephus. 
In December, a symposium on the subject 
of Josephus as a historian will be held un-
der the auspices of the American Philolog-
ical Association in Washington where I shall 
be joined by four other panelists. Why this 
interest? I believe that there are five major 
reasons: 
1) Josephus is our most important source, 
by far, for Jewish history of the Second Com-
monwealth, even if one must read him with 
a critical eye: To appreciate this, one should 
compare what we know of the revolt against 
the Romans in 66-74, about which he 
writes, with what we know· of the War of 
Quietus in 115-117 or the Bar Kochba re-
bellion in 132-135. 
2) Josephus is our chief guide to the geog-
raphy and topography of Israel; and in the 
land where archaeology is the national 
hobby, one digs, as Yadin did at Masada, 
with Josephus in one hand and a spade in 
the other. 
3) Josephus in his paraphrase and expan-
sion of the Bible is a most important source 
for our knowledge of Halakhah and Ag-
gadah, antedating the codification of the 
Mishnah by a century and the Midrashim 
usually by several centuries. 
4) Josephus is one of the most important 
historians of the Graeco-Roman world, a 
major commentator on the last century of 
the Roman Republic and on the first cen-
tury of the Roman Empire (against which 
he led an army and to which he ultimately 
surrendered). He occupies a significant 
place in the Hellenistic-Roman histori-
ographical tradition and is one of the few 
major sources for our knowledge of 
Hellenistic Greek. 
5) Josephus is the quintessential modern 
Jew, who, as I have tried to show, like a re-
cent American president, has left us in his 
Autobiography (the first extant autobiogra-
phy from antiquity, by the way) and in his 
Jewish war the tapes with which we may 
indict him. Like the proponents of the Peace 
Now movement in modern-day Israel, 
Josephus sought an accommodation with 
the Palestinians. Moreover, he sought a mo-
dus vivendi with the two great powers of his 
day-the Romans to the West and the Par-
thians (in modern Iraq and Iran) to the East. 
Like the Ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta and 
Satmar Hasidim of our day, he regarded the 
Jews as a religious rather than as a national 
group. He was particularly vehement in his 
opposition to the fanatics of his day, the 
ultra-nationalist revolutionaries, such as 
John of Gischala and his followers, who 
were intent on provoking a confrontation 
with the Palestinians of their day and who 
sought to expel them from the land of Israel. 
To these five sources df interest we may per-
haps add a sixth factor: Josephus is sim-
ply fascinating to the point of supplying ma-
terial for several past and future Hollywood 
movies or TV extravaganzas. He is the one 
who tells us, for example, and at length, how 
a black Ethiopian princess surrendered her 
(continued on page 76, column 3) 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. 1-2 Spring 1985 73 
Sperber, David. A Dictionary of Greek and 
Latin Terms in Rabbinic Uterature. Ramat-
Gan: Bar-llan University Press, 1984. 230 
p. ISBN 9652260509. $32.50. 
A specialized dictionary consisting of al-
most 200 Greek and Latin legal terms in 
Rabbinic literature. The author provides 
the user with the following types of infor-
mation for each term: definition in En-
glish; illustrative texts in translation; 
parallels; related references; variant read-
ings; comparative material from Hellenis-
tic, Roman and juristic papyrological 
sources; and full bibliographic refer-
ences. The work includes a Greek and 
Latin index. Rabbinic scholars, philolo-
gists and students of ancient law will_ find 
this dictionary helpful. 
Wallach, Jehuda L. Israeli Military History: 
a Guide to Sources. New York: Garland, 
1984. 291 p. ISBN 0824090616. $40.50. 
A bibliography of books published largely 
in the 20th century, in Hebrew or West-
ern languages, pertaining to the military 
history of the Jewish people from antiq-
uity to the present. Each chapter includes 
an essay on the historical period under 
discussion, as well as a description of the 
major sources in the accompanying 
detailed bibliography. Relevant archives, 
libraries, and museums in Israel, as well 
as selected journals, are listed in an ap-
pendix. The work is indexed by author. 
Dr. Charles Cutter is Head, Judaic Depart-
ment, Brandeis University Libraries. Micha 
F. Oppenheim, is Senior Cataloger, Jewish 
Theological Seminary of America. They are 
co-authors of Jewish Reference Sources: A 
Selective, Annotated Bibliographic Guide. 
(New York: Garland Publishing, 1982). 
Judaica Reference Book Nominated 
(continued from p. 72, column 3) 
American Ubraries might have been accom-
panied by corresponding Freimann num-
bers and more usefully placed with each 
text as opposed to constituting a separate 
index. Nonetheless, Gershon Cohen has 
done. a commendable job in the prepara-
tion of this catalog, and Yeshiva University 
can be proud of its fine incunabula holdings. 
[See related cover story by Menahem 
Schmelzer in this issue:-Eds.J 
(continued in column 2) 
Books Nominated (continued) 
de Lange, Nicholas. Atlas of the Jew• 
ish World. New York: Facts on File, 
1984. 
This beautifully illustrated work, intended 
to chronicle the history of the Jewish peo-
ple, is divided into three sections. The first, 
dealing with the historical background of the 
Jewish people, is highlighted by maps 
depicting the distribution of Jewish popu-
lation. The second focuses on the cultural 
heritage of the Jews throughout the ages 
and around the world. The final section is 
devoted to the Jewish world today, provid-
ing a survey of world Jewry by regions and 
countries. 
Appended reference materials include a 
gazetteer, glossary, bibliography and index. 
While this lovely book will find its rightful 
place on most Judaica library shelves, its 
value is primarily pictorial. Textually, most 
of the information is cursory at best, and can 
be found in many other sources. 
Feldman (continued from p. 73) 
capital city to Moses out of her love for him; 
how Cleopatra attempted to seduce the in-
famous Herod; how a certain Mary 
devoured her own child during the siege of 
Jerusalem by the Romans; and, of course, 
how 960 religious fanatics committed 
mutual suicide rather than surrender to the 
Romans at Masada, the original Jonestown. 
Moreover, Josephus is by far our most im-
portant source for our knowledge of that 
strange, monastic-like sect, so reminiscent 
of the later Christians, known as the Es-
senes, who refused to marry to protect 
themselves against women's wantonness, 
as Josephus puts it, being persuaded that 
no woman ever keeps her pledge to one 
man. He is, in short, one of the most unlov-
able of men, except that at least three 
women did marry him. 
I shall close with the anecdote which I cite 
in my introduction from Cicero (Pro Archia 
10.25), about the worthless poet who had 
composed an epigram about the Roman 
dictator Sulla, and who was rewarded by 
him with a gift of property from proscribed 
.. persons, on the condition that he should not 
Zubatsky, David; Berent, Irwin. Jew- write anything thereafter. On the basis of my 
ish Genealogy: A Sourcebook of critical evaluation of the scholarship in the 
Family Histories and Genealogies. field, perhaps I shall be forgiven for express-
New York: Garland, 1984. ing the hope-or prayer-that one of the 
The authors attempt to provide a com pre- wealthier and more merciful foundations will 
hensive bibliography of "published and un- establish a fund to give grants on similar 
published Jewish genealogies, family his- conditions, or, at the very least, on the con-
tories and individual family names:• Similar dition that scholars will read what has been 
in format to Dan Rotten berg's Finding Our written in their field before they embark with 
Fathers (New York: Random, 1977), this pen in hand. 
book has been researched more extensively 
and refers readers to archives as well as ar-
ticles and monographs. 
The body of the work is arranged alphabet-
ically by family name. Entries in the bibli-
ography are cross-referenced. Annotations 
and/or biographical descriptions are 
provided to aid the user in identifying the 
cited family. Locations of cited materials are 
given, except for journal articles. Coverage 
is world-wide. The work is enhanced by the 
authors' use of the genealogical entries in 
the ·~udaica Americana'' section of the jour-
nal American Jewish History, with citations 
of family histories and their location in the 
American Jewish Historical Society. 
Only a limited number of foreign and 
domestic repositories were surveyed, and 
the authors do not provide a clear statement 
of scope, leaving doubt as to the compre-
hensiveness of the work. Inconsistent trans-
literations are an additional weakness of the 
book. 
Nevertheless, until something better re-
places it, this will prove a standard biblio-
graphic tool for the genealogic researcher. 
Reference Books in Jewish Studies 
from Garland 
* Jewish Genealogy: a Sourcebook of Fam-
ily Histories and Genealogies, by Davis S. 
Zubatsky and Irwin M. Berent. 452 pp. $33. 
* Jewish Mysticism: An Annotated Bibliog-
raphy, by Sheila A. Spector. 426 pp. $50. 
* Josephus: a Supplementary Bibliography, 
by Louis H. Feldman. 712 pp. $90. 
Watch for These: 
* Encyclopedia of Jewish American History 
and Culture, edited by Sanford Pinsker 
and Jack Fischel. 
* Bibliography of Antisemitism, 1984-85, 
edited by Sue Fox, for the Vidal Sassoon 
International Center for the Study of An-
tisemitism. 
Garland Publishing Inc. 
136 Madison Avenue 
New York, N.Y. 10016 
76 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No_. 1-2 Spring 1985 


Acceptance Speech by the Recipient of the Judaica Reference Book Award

Baker, Zachary M.

Q. How many Jewish families are there 
in Canada? 
This sounds like a perfectly simple "ready-
reference'' question, and one might assume 
that a quick and easy answer is available. 
Alas, in the world of reference librarianship 
nothing is to be taken for granted, and this 
recent telephone query is a case in point. 
While fairly accurate statistics on the num-
ber of Jews in Canada exist, it would take 
the skills of an accomplished demographer 
to ascertain precisely how many Jewish 
families there are in that country. Here are 
a few questions to be considered, while pon-
dering this inquiry: 
1} In an age of high divorce rates, late mar-
riages, one-person households, single-
parent families, and low fertility (yielding 
zero-or even negative-population growth), 
how might one quantify the concept of "fam-
ily''? (These general population trends, char-
acteristic of advanced, urbanized, post-in-
dustrial societies, affect Jews even more 
profoundly, as numerous studies attest.) 
2) In the same vein, what, statistically speak-
ing, constitutes a ':Jewish family"? Are we 
able to extrapolate the number of Jewish 
families in a given country from the availa-
ble, overall Jewish population estimates? 
3) Our reader was evidently familiar with the 
common use of the family unit as a yard-
stick for measuring synagogue member-
ship; did he then assume that the entire 
Jewish community of Canada (affiliated and 
unaffiliated alike) could be neatly sub-
divided and measured by the same index? 
Or rather, was he merely interested in ob-
taining a reasonably accurate and current 
population estimate for Canadian Jewry as 
a whole? 
As far as Canada's overall Jewish popula-
tion is concerned, census practices yield an 
ambiguous result. Canadian census-takers 
offer respondents two options for declaring 
themselves Jews: by ethnicity and by relig-
RESPONSA 
Zachary M. Baker 
Jewish Public Library 
Montreal, Quebec 
ion. Most Jewish respondents-though not 
a/I-choose to define themselves as Jews 
both religiously and ethnically. (By contrast, 
an Italian-Canadian Catholic would likely 
define him- or herself as Italian by ethnicity 
and Catholic by religion. U. S. census forms 
omit any reference to religion, and ques-
tions regarding national origin refer to the 
country of one's birth, or of one's ancestors' 
birth, and not necessarily to one's ethnic 
origin:) 
Thus, the 1981 Canadian census reveals 
that 264,020 individuals declared them-
selves to be ethnically Jewish, while 296,425 
stated that they were adherents of the Jew-
ish religion. One can probably assume that 
a number of "ethnic Jews" declined to iden-
tify themselves as Jewish by religion, and 
it is obvious that a sizable proportion of 
those designating themselves as Jews ac-
cording to religion declined to declare them-
selves ethnically Jewish. Moreover, it can 
be assumed that a small number of nomi-
nally Jewish respondents (however defined} 
declined to identify themselves as Jewish 
under either classification. Beyond that, we 
won't even attempt to delve into the ques-
tion of "who is a Jew:' 
The overall Jewish population figure for 
Canada, therefore, amounts to approxi-
mately 304,000, according to the 1985 Amer-
ican Jewish Year Book (AJYB). Is it possi-
ble to derive the number of Jewish families 
from this figure? Unfortunately, while the 
most extensive treatments of Jewish 
demography appearing in the AJYB in re-
cent years contain detailed tables on vari-
ous fertility measures, mixed marriages, di-
vorce and remarriage rates, mortality, and 
age composition of the Jewish communi-
ties of various countries (including Canada), 
they give no comparable figures for aver-
age household size-which would consti-
tute the closest approximation of family size 
that one would be likely to obtain. Thus we 
were left up in the air regarding our reader's 
question, and were able to provide only the 
overall estimate of Canadian Jewish popu-
lation, as based on the figure reported in 
the 1985 AJYB. That may, indeed, have 
been what he had in mind to begin with. 
Reference Tools for Jewish Demography 
The American Jewish Year Book has long 
been distinguished for its current estimates 
of Jewish population in the U. S. and world-
wide (albeit, on a country-by-country basis 
only). Beyond that, readers of this column 
might not be aware of the in-depth back-
ground articles on Jewjsh demography that 
regularly appear within the AJYB's pages. 
Here is a list of the major contributions to 
Jewish demographic research published in 
the AJYB since 1980: 
• V. 81 (1981): ':Jews in the United States: 
Perspectives from Demography;' by 
Sidney Goldstein (pp. 3-59); and 
':Jewish Survival: the Demographic 
Factors:' by U. 0. Schmelz (pp. 61-117). 
• V. 83 (1983): "The Demographic Con-
sequences of U. S. Jewish Population 
Trends;' by U. 0. Schmelz and Sergio 
Della Pergola (pp. 141-187}. 
• V. 84 (1984): "The Social Characteris-
tics of the New York Area Jewish Com-
munity, 1981;' by Paul Ritterband and 
Steven M. Cohen (pp. 128-161). 
• V. 85 (1985): "The Demography of Latin 
American Jewry;' by U. 0. Schmelz and 
Sergio Della Pergola (pp. 51-102); 
"Recent Jewish Community Population 
Studies: a Roundup;' by Gary A. Tobin 
and Alvin Chenkin (pp. 154-178); and 
"Canadian Jewry: Some Recent Cen-
sus Findings:' by Leo Davids (pp. 191-
201). 
It may surprise readers to learn that while 
the AJYB is an excellent source of current 
population estimates for all major and mi-
nor Jewish settlements in every state of the 
Union, it does not provide annual popula-
tion estimates for local Jewish communities 
elsewhere in the world. Had our reader 
wished to learn how many Jews live in Win-
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. 1-2 Spring 1985 81 
nipeg, Strasbourg, or Ramat Gan he would 
not have found these figures in the Ameri-
can Jewish Year Book-though he would 
have encountered overall Jewish population 
estimates for Canada, France, and Israel 
respectively. 
The best and handiest-if highly selec-
tive- reference source for current popula-
tion estimates of individual Jewish commu-
nities worldwide is The Jewish Yearbook, 
published by the London Jewish Chronicle. 
In the 1985 edition, for example, we learn 
that there are an estimated 18,000 Jews in 
Winnipeg (an over-estimate, according to 
the 1981 Canadian census, which gives a 
figure of only 15,350 Jews residing in that 
city); 8,000Jews in Strasbourg; and 117,600 
Jews in Ramat Gan. The Jewish Yearbook 
provides especially comprehensive cover-
age for British Jewish communities-just as 
its U. S. counterpart does for American 
Jewry.2 
One other helpful source for population es-
timates of individual Jewish centers is The 
Jewish Communities of the World, published 
by the World Jewish Congress in several 
editions. This handy reference book 
presents, in capsule form, useful informa-
tion on the demography, organizations, 
educational institutions, and religious and 
cultural life of Jewish communities the world 
over. The arrangement is alphabetical by 
country, and under each country, popula-
tion estimates are provided for the major 
Jewish communities. The most recent edi-
tion of The Jewish Communities of the World 
that I have seen dates from 1971 (3rd edi-
tion), though a Hebrew-language version 
(Ha-Kehilot ha-yehudiyot ba-'olam) is known 
to have appeared two years later. The popu-
lation figures contained in this work may be 
somewhat dated. 
On a retrospective basis, there are a num-
ber of useful sources providing reasonably 
accurate estimates of the Jewish population 
of various countries, cities, towns, and even 
villages. 
The most inclusive such source for prewar 
European Jewish communities is the Yad 
Vashem Blackbook of Localities, which con-
tains population figures for 30,000 Jewish 
settlements in all countries later occupied 
by the Nazis. One caveat: where the avail-
able pre-World War II census data is 
ample-as is the case with Poland-the list-
ings are equally detailed; where census 
coverage is spotty-as is the case with the 
Soviet Union-population data is given only 
for the major centers. In other cases, only 
certain regions within particular countries 
-are included. One example of this is Roma-
nia, for which the Blackbook lists commu-
nities in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Tran-
sylvania, but not in the "Regat;' i.e., those 
sections of Romania that belonged to that 
country before World War I. (Mass depor-
tations of Jews from Old Romania did not 
occur during the Holocaust). Finally, an ad-
ditional problem with this reference work is 
that in order to look up a particular Jewish 
community's population, it is often neces-
sary to know in which province of a country 
it was located between the two world wars,· 
as well as the official spelling of the locale 
in question. 3 
Several Jewish encyclopedias are also ex-
cellent sources of information on the popu-
lation of Jewish communities worldwide. 
The Israeli Encyclopaedia Judaica is the 
most recent such source, and is tolerably 
good for Western, Central and much of East-
ern Europe-as well as for Asia, Africa, Aus-
tralia, Israel, and the Americas. Use of the 
index volume. is strongly recommended, 
since the text volumes proper do not em-
ploy cross-references for variant spellings 
of proper names. The EJ's German-lan-
guage namesake, which ceased publication 
at volume 10, in mid-alphabet-upon the ac-
cession to power of Adolf Hitler-has supe-
rior .;,;overage of Central and Eastern Euro-
pean Jewish communities, though the 
information is, of course, dated. 
The best . . . reference 
source for current popula-
tion estimates of individual 
Jewish communities world-
wide is The Jewish Year-
book, ... London . ... 
For the population of Jewish communities 
in the old Russian Empire, the best source 
is the pre-revolutionary, 16-volume, Russian-
language Evrerskala Entsiklopedila. Though 
broadly based on the English-language 
Jewish Encyclopedia, the EE diverges from 
its model in providing copious entries for in-
divid:..ial Jewish communities, not only in 
Russia proper, but in neighboring countries 
as well (especially Galicia and Bukovina, 
which were then in the Austro-Hungarian 
Empire). 
Finally, readers with access to complete 
runs of both the American Jewish Year Book 
and The Jewish Yearbook will find these to 
be excellent sources of population estimates 
over the decades for Jewish communities 
in the United States, Great Britain and the 
Commonwealth, and elsewhere. 
82 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 2 No. 1-2 Spring 1985 
Notes 
1Readers may be interested to learn that raw U.S. 
census data is much more readily accessible to 
researchers than is Canadian data. At present, 
social historians, demographers, and genealo-
gists have full and unrestricted access to all ex-
isting U. S. census files up to and including 1910, 
while Canadian census files are open only 
through 1881. From the standpoint of Jewish 
demographic research, the difference between 
these two cut-off dates is profound; in 1910 there 
were already approximately 2.3 million Jews scat-
tered throughout the United States, while in 1881 
there were a mere 2,443 Jews in all of Canada 
(by religion, that is; only 667 respondents identi-
fied themselves as Jews by ethnicity in that 
census year). 
2Since the American Jewish Year Book includes 
extensive lists of both American and Canadian 
Jewish periodicals, as well as of U. S. and Cana-
dian Jewish federations and national or~aniza-
tions, its editors might be well advised to con-
sider extending their annual population estimates 
to include provincial and city-by-city figures for 
Canadian Jewish communities and for sizable 
Jewish communities the world over. 
3Readers interested in search strategies for East-
ern European geographic names may consult my 
two articles, "Eastern European :Jewish Geogra-
phy': Some Problems and Suggestions;' and 
"More Eastern European :Jewish Geography'," in 
Toledot: the Journal of Jewish Genealogy, vol. 2, 
nos. 3 and 4 (Winter 1978-79 and Spring 1979). 
Bibliography 
American Jewish Year Book, prepared by 
the American Jewish Committee. (New 
York: The American Jewish Committee; 
Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication So-
ciety of America, 189911900- ). 
Blackbook of Localities Whose Jewish Popu-
lation Was Exterminated by the Nazis 
(Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1965). 
Encyclopaedia Judaica (Berlin: Eschkol, 
1928-34). 10 vols. (A-L) In German. 
Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 
1971-72). 16 vols. In English. 
EvreYskala Entsiklopedila (St. Petersburg: 
Brockhaus-Efron, 1906-13). 16 vols. In 
Russian. 
The Jewish Communities of the World. 3rd 
ed. (London: Institute of Jewish Affairs, 
World Jewish Congress, 1971). 
The Jewish Yearbook (London: Jewish 
Chronicle Publications, 1896- ). 
Rosenberg, Louis. Canada's Jews: a Social 
and Economic Study of the Jews in 
Canada (Montreal: Bureau of Social and 
Economic Research, Canadian Jewish 
Congress, 1939). • 
Zachary M. Baker is the Head of the Yiddish 
Department and Technical Services at the 
Jewish Public Library of Montreal and an au-
thority on Jewish geography and genealogy. 


Responsa

Harel, Cecilia

ALEF BIT 
Introduction 
Librarians and information specialists in 
Israel enjoy the benefits of computerized 
online access to hundreds of databases on 
a variety of subjects produced in the United 
States and Europe. This method of 
bibliographic retrieval has become 
commonplace the world over through the 
services of online vendors such as 
DIALOG, SOC, and BRS. 
As a librarian who has recently become 
active in online searching, I am amazed at 
the relative ease with which we in Israel 
have access to these distant resources. 
Concurrently, as a reference librarian in an 
• institution concentrating on the humani-
ties and social sciences, I am frustrated by 
the lack of online access to the growing 
number of databases produced in Israel. 
These are. of particular value to the 
researcher in Judaica and other subjects 
dealing with Israel. 
Is there a need for an onlinevendor in Israel 
to facilitate and systematize access to 
online databases within the context of the 
Israeli library scene? What efforts are 
underway to facilitate remote online 
searching of Israeli-produced databases? 
These are questions I wish to explore in 
this article witli the intent of making some 
recommendations for the future develop-
ment of online searching in Israel. 
The Online Vendor 
In the United States, the commercial 
vendor or "information utility" is the agent 
that catalyzed the existing hardware, soft-
ware and communication technologies in 
the 1960s to create online search services. 
Hoover (1980, p. 2) notes that the following 
techn9logies have been identified as 
contributing to the success of online 
services: 
Online Database Services in Israel: 
the State of the Art 
Cecilia Hare/ 
University of Haifa 
Vendor 
LoddlNd 
Dmbae 
Produc:en 
Vendor 
soc 
, Information 
c.m .. 
Special Acadanic 
Utnriel UbrariN 
1 
EndU... 
Vendor 
BRS 
Public 
Ubr--
''· 
Information 
On Demand 
Ccwnpanlet 
Figure 1. Flow of Information from Database Producers 
(From: Fenichel and Hogan, 1981, p. 5.) 
50 Judaica Librarianship Vol. 1 No. 2 Spring 1984 
~ 
I 
I 
* powerful time-sharing computers 
* machine-readable databases 
* •fast access disc storage devices 
* interactive· retrieval programs 
* fast, low-cost computer terminals 
* telecommunication networks 
The diagram in Figure 1 illustrates the 
model of online service that has developed 
in the United States to link available data-
bases to those who desire access to them. 
The vendor performs the following 
valuable functions for the online user 
community (Bahr, 1980, p. 68; Fenichel 
and Hogan, 1981, p. 21-22; Hall, 1977, p. 
202): 
General Services 
* provides access to numerous 
databases 
* provides fault-tolerant computer 
programs 
*· maintains routine and reliable service 
hours 
* conducts training for searchers 
* publishes user manuals and newsletters 
* lists available databases as well as 
search aids from producers. 
Special Services 
* presents records in uniform format 
* standardizes bibliographic element 
names 
* provides SDI (selective dissemination 
of information) services. 
These services are a tremendous advan-
tage for the searcher, but of course, are 
provided at considerable cost. 
State of the Technology in Israel 
To date no organization in Israel has 
assumed the role of vendor to coordinate 
and provide online services on a level of 
comprehensiveness comparable to that of 
any of the American vendors. Th is is the 
situation in spite of progress in the 
development of many of the elements 
required for such service, as listed above. 
Hardware and Software 
Significant progress has been made in 
recent years in the installation of computer 
hardware and the development of 
appropriate software suited to Israeli 
library applications. 
Adler (1983) reported that several 
computerized systems have been 
developed in Israel which host dozens of 
unique Judaica databases. Other 
databases have been produced which 
include social science research about 
Israel, such as the Szold lnstitute's Current 
Research in the Behavioral Sciences in 
Israel, and Mideast File, produced by the 
Shiloah Center for Middle Eastern and 
African Studies. Of these, only Mideast File 
has made the "big time," and has been 
available online as File 249 on DIALOG 
since 1983. 
Telecommunications 
A major element that is lacking, and which, 
as a result, has undoubtedly h~mpered the 
development of remote online access 
within Israel, is an effective telecommuni-
cation network. ISRANET, the Israeli 
public time-sharing network for data 
transmission, is now being installed, with 
nodes in place in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, 
Haifa and Beer-Sheva'. The linking of 
interested parties to the network is proving 
to be a lengthy process fraught with 
. technical difficulties. Once the network is 
operating satisfactorily, all subscribers, in 
Israel and elsewhere, will have access to 
each other's computers. 
BITNET is another privatetelecommunica-
tion network, established with the 
assistance of I.B.M. Israel, to connect the 
large computers of Israel's seven 
institutions of higher education and 
research. This network enables researchers 
in member institutions to directly access 
each other's main computer for data • 
transmission or database searching. 
BITNET is connected to the European 
networks, and via Europe to the United 
DatabaM 
Producw 
Dmbae 
Producer 
States, thus enabling direct communica-
tion between Israeli and foreign 
researchers. 
Searchers outside of Israel contemplating 
direct on line access to Israeli databases in 
Hebrew should note that this is not 
currently possible because of differences 
in Hebrew character coding and terminal 
hardware standards (Adler, 1982, p. 239). 
Cooperation as a Model for 
Online Services 
The institution most closely approaching 
the concept of a vendor in Israel is the 
University of Haifa Library, which, via its 
HbBITS system, hosts three online 
bibliographic databases (Adler, 1983, p. 9) . 
The University of Haifa Library has, on its 
own initiative, engaged in informal and 
experimental cooperative arrangements 
with several other interested institutions to 
provide online access to its databases. The 
Tel Hai College Library in the Upper 
Galilee has dial-up access to the Univer-
sity of Haifa's Index to Hebrew Periodicals 
(On the microfiche version of this tool, see 
Libby Kahane's article in the REFERENCE 
DEPARTMENT of this issue. - Ed.) The 
University of Haifa Library and the Shiloah 
Center Library at Tel-Aviv University have a 
mutual agreement whereby each has dial-
• Information Special ~ Pl,~ic 
Centen ~ UbrariN ~ Ubtarie1 8 Ubrariel ~ On DaNnd 
Compan;. 
,. 
EndU... 
Figure 2. Flow of Information from Database Producers in Israel 
(Adapted from: Fenichel and Hogan, 1981, p. 5.) 
Judaica Librarianship Vol. 1 No. 2 Spring 1984 51 
up access to the other's online database. 
The Shiloah Center, in turn, has a 
reciprocal arrangement for online access 
with the Truman Research Institute at the 
Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The 
searchers in each of these institutions were 
trained by colleagues in the host library. 
Relevant thesauri and search aids were 
provided when available. 
In spite of the view that interlibrary 
cooperation has been slow to develop in 
Israel (Sever, 1983), the exchanges just 
described indicate that prospects are good 
for coordination among institutions in the 
domain of online searching in Israel. The 
diagram in Figure 2 illustrates a possible 
configuration for database access. 
Advantages and Disadvantages 
The model of direct access may be entirely 
practicable in a country the size of Israel, 
where the number of database producers 
and/or hosts is relatively limited, and where 
site visits can easily be made for training on 
any system. Moreover, such a model of 
service ought to be more economical than 
that of Figure 1 since the fees imposed by 
the vendor, in the position of middleman 
between database producers and 
searchers, would be eliminated. 
Searchers would, of course, need to learn 
varying search programs and command 
languages for the various systems. This 
may not be a serious problem, as existing 
Israeli software packages are increasingly 
being applied to new computerized 
bibliographic projects. 
In order for such cooperative arrange-
ments to be established, we first need a 
comprehensive guide listing available 
Israeli-produced databases, and specify-
ing how and where they can be accessed. 
Directories of this nature have been com-
piled in the United States and Europe (Hall 
and Brown, 1983; William.Ji and Rouse, 
1976), but no such source--"exists for Israel. 
There is particular importance in having a 
local guide to serve the specialized needs 
of Israeli users and scholars abroad for 
Hebrew language and Judaic information. 
Such a guide might be commissioned by 
the Israel Academy of Sciences and 
Humanities as part of its efforts to 
coordinate Judaica automation projects 
(Adler, 1983, p. 10-:11). 
Conclusion 
Few attempts have been made to facilitate 
or promote remote on line access to Israeli-
produced databases. While some 
individual cooperative agreements exist, 
such arrangements are not yet pervasive. 
This may be due to a combination of 
factors: technical telecommunication 
difficulties, lack of initiative on the part of 
librarians, and a lack of knowledge of 
available databases. 
Because of a lack of systematic access, 
much valuable information is not retrieved, 
or is retrievable only at great expense and 
inconvenience. For those in scientific and 
technological areas in Israel, this situation 
may be tolerable, as their needs are readily 
met by services from abroad. 
We in the humanities and social sciences, 
and specifically Judaica, on the other 
hand, are faced with a definite handicap 
which we must strive to overcome. 
References 
Adler, Elhanan, ''1:-lebrew Cataloging and the 
Computer - The View from Israel," Information 
Technology and Libraries 1/3 (September 1982), pp. 
238-245. 
Adler, Elhanan, "Judaica Automation in Israel - An 
Overview," Judaica Librarianship 1/1 (Fall 1983), pp. 
9-11. 
Bahr, Alice H., "Producers and Vendors of Biblio-
graphic Online Services," In: The Library and 
Information Manager's Guide to Online Services, 
White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry Publications, 
1980, pp. 65-96. 
Fenichel, Carol; Thomas H. Hogan, Online 
Searching: A Primer, Medford, NJ: Learned lnforcna-
tion, 1981. 
Hall, James L., Online Information Retrieval 
Sourcebook, London: Aslib, 1977. 
Hall, James L.; Marjorie J. Brown, Online Biblio-
graphic Databases: A Directory and Sourcebook, 3rd 
ed., London: Aslib; distributed by Gale Research Co., 
1983. 
Hoover, Ryan E., "Overview of Online Information 
Retrieval," In The Library and Information Manager's 
Guide to Online Services, White Plains, NY: 
Knowledge Industry Publications, 1980, pp. 1-30. 
Sever, Shmuel, "Cooperation in Israel's Libraries," 
ISL/C Bulletin [Israel Society of Special Libraries and 
Information Centres] 13/1-2 (December 1983), pp. 57-
69. 
Williams, Martha E.; Sandra H. Rouse, comps. and 
eds., Computer-Readable Data Bases: A Directory 
and Data Sourcebook, Washington, DC: • American 
Society for Information Science, 1976. 
Cecilia Hare/ is a Reference Librarian at the 
University of Haifa. 
MOSES SCHREIBER 
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16 Meah Shearim Street 
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52 Judaica Librarianship Vol.1 No. 2 Spring 1984 
ERRATA 
JL Vol. 1 #1, Fall 1983 
ALEF BIT 
Judaica Automation in Israel - An Overview 
Elhanan Adler 
The sections "Hardware and Software," 
"Library Automation Systems," and "The 
Hebrew University of Jerusalem" on page 
10 should have appeared between the 4th 
and 5th paragraphs of page 9. In other 
words, paragraph 5 beginning "In libraries 
where ALEPH is fully implemented ... " is 
really the second paragraph of the section 
"The Hebrew University of Jerusalem." 
The editors sincerely regret the error which 
occurred at the final layout stage. We are 
pleased to note, however, that no one but 
the author noticed the error, which is a 
tribute to the quality of his writing. 
ARCHIVES 
Nashville Jewish Archives 
Richard W. Marcus 
The story was originally reported by 
Annette R. Levy, Director of Libraries/ 
Archives at the Jewish Federation of 
Nashville and Middle Tennessee. The final 
version was formulated by the column 
editor, Richard W. Marcus. We regret the 
omission of Annette Levy's b.y-line. 
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