Ets Haim library

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Handbook for Learning the Hebrew Language , 17th Century. Issued as “Treasure of the Month”, August 2016. Open page: the letter Aleph .

The library Ets Haim - Livraria Montezinos ( etz chajim Heb: "Tree of Life"; for Montezinos see below) is a Sephardic library in Amsterdam with a long tradition. It is considered to be the oldest still active Jewish library.

history

The library was founded in 1616. She was connected to the "Academia y Yesiba ets Haim", the yeshiva of the Portuguese community in Amsterdam. Since 1675, the library has been located in the community building complex near the Portuguese Synagogue .

The addition to the name “Livraria Montezinos” goes back to the librarian David Montesinos, who in 1889 donated valuable manuscripts and books to the library.

The inventory was taken to Germany by the National Socialists during the occupation of the Netherlands, but was recovered largely undamaged after the war.

Since the community lacked the necessary means for preservation, the manuscripts and valuable prints were brought to the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem on loan . After the library had been restored in 1998 with financial help from the Dutch Monuments Office, the loaned documents were returned in 2000.

Also in 1998 the library was added to the list of national cultural assets of the Netherlands . It has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2003 .

Duration

The inventory includes around 500 manuscripts and 30,000 printed works in 20,000 volumes, mainly Judaica , more than half of them in Hebrew script. The library also has works in Portuguese, Spanish, Latin, Dutch, German and Yiddish. Most of the manuscripts were written by members of the yeshiva. The library's most valuable holdings include six Hebrew incunabula as well as 400 unique Hebrew, Spanish or Portuguese items. The oldest manuscript is a partial copy of the Mischneh Torah des Maimonides from 1282. An electronic cataloging of the holdings is currently (2009) in progress.

The yeshiva

The "Academia y Yesiba ets Haim" trained rabbis and teachers for the Sephardic communities in the Netherlands and their colonies. The students mostly came from the poorer strata of the Amsterdam community as scholarships were made available exclusively for them. The lessons were given in age-graded classes in separate rooms and included translation exercises from the Torah into Spanish and Hebrew grammar for beginners and Talmudic studies for advanced students.

The model was based on medieval Spanish traditions and, in its external form, probably borrowed from the Jesuit colleges that had attended some of the Conversos in Spain.

Since 1753 the school published a series of publications with responses (legal opinions) under the title Pri ets hayim (“Fruits of the Tree of Life ”).

Literature / catalogs

  • M. Kayserling Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica. Dictionnaire Bibliographique des Auteurs Juifs, de leurs Ouvrages espagnols et portugais et des Œuvres sur et contre les Juifs et le Judaïsme. Avec un Aperçu sur la Literature des Juifs espagnols et une Collection des Proverbes. Charles J. Trübner, Strasbourg 1890 (Reprint: Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica and other studies in Ibero-Jewish bibliography. Selected with a Prolegomenon by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi . Ktav Publishing House, New York NY 1971, ISBN 0-87068-146- X ( Studia Sephardica )).
  • Jacob S. da Silva Rosa: The Spanish and Portuguese printed Judaica in the library of the Portuguese Jewish seminary "Ets Haim" in Amsterdam. A supplement to Kayserling's "Biblioteca española-portugueza-judaica". Hertzberger, Amsterdam 1933 (Reprint in: Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica and other studies in Ibero-Jewish bibliography. Selected with a Prolegomenon by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi. Ktav Publishing House, New York NY 1971, ISBN 0-87068-146-X ( Studia Sephardica )).

Remarks

  1. ^ JCH Blom, RG Fuks-Mansfeld, I. Schöffer: The History of the Jews in the Netherlands. The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford 2002, ISBN 1-87477-451-X , p. 135.
  2. ^ JCH Blom, RG Fuks-Mansfeld, I. Schöffer: The History of the Jews in the Netherlands. The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford 2002, ISBN 1-87477-451-X , p. 135.

Web links