Guides @ UF: Jewish Studies: Primary Sources

Sefaria

Sefaria is a free, open source, digital database offering 3,000 years of Jewish texts in Hebrew and in translation. Sources include the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), Talmud, Rabbinic commentaries, prayerbooks, philosophical works and more. Learn more about Sefaria

HOLY LAND MAPS

Holy Land Maps at the Map & Imagery Library
Most of the antique maps of the Holy Land in the University of Florida Map & Imagery Library are from the collection donated by Dr. James and Adina Simmons in memory of their parents; Levy and Zenia Pevzner and Eugene and Irma Simmons. However, the Library already possessed some significant maps of the Holy Land before the gift and continue to add others. The non-Simmons gift maps are identified by an * in front of the entry and the donor or source is noted.

JEWISH RESOURCES IN THE GOVT. DOCUMENTS LIBRARY!

The Government Documents Library at UF is a wonderful resource for primary research and a great place to look for material relating to US & Florida Jewry. The departmental website also provides links to the databases of International Organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union as well as to Foreign Government documents.

The Documents Department of the George A. Smathers Libraries is located on the first floor of Marston Science Library at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Below are links to just a few of the searches possible on the Government Documents Department Website.

Manuscripts online

Databases

Chapters of the Talmud - Chapters of the Babylonian Talmud are often referred to by their opening words. To determine the tractate and chapter number of a chapter identified only by its title, click on the Hebrew letter which begins the name of the chapter, and then on the name itself. This will bring up the Hebrew name of the chapter in both Hebrew script and romanized form as well as the established name of the tractate and the number of the chapter.

Online Responsa Project - a database containing the world's largest electronic collection of Jewish texts in Hebrew ever recorded, including the Bible, Talmud, major commentaries and Responsa literature

Rabbinic Resources Online - a database of Rabbinic texts in their original language

Online Digital Collections

Compact Memory This link opens in a new window
Valuable resource of German Jewish Periodicals from the 18th to the 20th centuries

Digital Collections of the Jewish Theological Seminary
Collections of archives, manuscripts, portraits and musical scores held in the Jewish Theological Seminary. These primary sources are available online as part of The Sylvia and Harry Rebell Digital Collections
Digital Collection of the Price Library of Judaica, University of Florida
Digitized Manuscripts - from the collections of the Jewish National Library
Hebrew Books Online
42,977 Classical Hebrew Books are available to freely download at this site
Yizkor Books Online
The New York Public Library's Digital Yizkor Book Viewer provides page-turner technology to read or consult crystal-clear digital images of complete Holocaust memorial books, exactly as issued. 650 of the 700 postwar yizkor books at The New York Public Library are accessible online in their entirety.

Online Digital Archives

American Jewish Committee Archives: Filled with more than a million documents and hundreds of movies and radio shows, the New York-based American Jewish Committee Archives house an extraordinary range of resources on the past century of American Jewish history.

Einstein Archives: The Einstein Archives Online Website provides the first online access to Albert Einstein’s scientific and non-scientific manuscripts held by the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem andto an extensive Archival Database, constituting the material record of one of the most influential intellects in the modern era.

FAU Judaica Sound Archives: The primary mission of the Judaica Sound Archives at FAU Libraries is to collect, preserve, and digitize Judaica sound recordings; to create educational programs highlighting the contents of this rich cultural legacy; and to encourage the use of this unique scholarly resource by students, scholars and the general public.

Internet Archive

Internet Archive

Genealogy

Ellis Island ship lists
Links to tools created by Stephen P. Morse to search for passenger names on ships to Ellis Island.
JGSCO: Jewish Genealogical Society Newsletters from around the world
JewishGen
Our free, easy-to-use genealogy website features thousands of databases, research tools, and other resources to help those with Jewish ancestry research and find family members.
IAJGS: international association of Jewish genealogical societies

Southern Jewish Life

See photographs of Southern Jewish Life in Bill Aron's Shalom Y'all held in the Price Library of Judaica

Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life
The Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL) is dedicated to providing educational and rabbinic services to Southern Jewish communities, documenting and preserving the rich history of the Southern Jewish experience, and promoting a Jewish cultural presence throughout a thirteen state region.
A Portion of the People - Exhibit
A major museum exhibition, A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life spearheaded by the Jewish Heritage Project, College of Charleston. The exhibit opened at McKissick in January 2002, beginning a two-year national tour.

Yiddish Book Center

The Yiddish Book Center works to rescue Yiddish and other modern Jewish books and open up their content to the world.

The Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library was launched in 1998 by a major grant to the Yiddish Book Center by Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation. The grant enabled the Book Center to digitally preserve popular Yiddish titles in short supply, as well as many rare and fragile titles.

1000 Essential Books in Yiddish

Living History

Photo: Gail-Farber Image Collection on 'Clarinet Stories'

Composing a Heart | Clarinet Stories
Dedicated to the children of immigrants, this performance combines spoken word, taped recordings, music box, original music for clarinet and piano, and photographs. Co-created by composer/pianist Craig Ames and clarinetist/storyteller Bess de Farber, the presentation engages the audience in a series of skillfully-delivered and captivating stories about de Farber’s life and family history ... de Farber’s interactive discussion connects the audience to her story and their own.
Ellis Island immigrants
From 1892 to 1924, more than 22 million immigrants, passengers, and crew members came through Ellis Island and the Port of New York. The ship companies that transported these passengers kept detailed passenger lists, called "ship manifests." Thanks to the generous efforts of volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, these manifests have been transcribed into a vast electronic archive, which you can easily navigate in search of an individual passenger.
Jewish Genealogy Databases
JewishGen is committed to ensuring Jewish continuity for present generations and the generations yet to come. Our free, easy to use website features thousands of databases, research tools and other resources to help those with Jewish ancestry research and find family members.
Jewish immigration exhibition
From Haven to Home is a Library of Congress exhibition marking 350 years of Jewish life in America. The exhibition features more than two hundred treasures of American Judaica from the collections of the Library of Congress, augmented by a selection of important loans from other cooperating cultural institutions.
Sephardi Genealogy
This site contains the Genealogy of the Major Sephardi Families from the Ottoman Empire and beyond, a Message Board, a Forum & Documents as submitted by members of the Fleurs de l'Orient. The genealogy databases include all families that are related to them by marriage regardless of their country of origin & religion. Each additional branch is listed with their its own ancestors and descendants.

Archive Collections

American Jewish Archives - The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, located on the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, houses over ten million pages of documentation. It contains nearly 8,000 linear feet of archives, manuscripts, nearprint materials, photographs, audio and video tapes, microfilm, and genealogical materials.