I. Program Information

II. Collection Description

The Center for Judaic Studies Library, located at 420 Walnut Street, comprises over 150,000 volumes including a substantial rare book component, and a significant corpus of manuscript materials ranging from Geniza fragments to twentieth-century manuscript and archival collections; it forms the core of Penn's research level collections in Judaic Studies. The collection is exceptionally rich in the history and literature of Judaism, including the Hebrew Bible, Rabbinica, Karaitica, philology, and Jewish thought in general from late antiquity through the eighteenth century. The core of the collection is in Hebrew and Yiddish.

Collection development at CJS concentrates principally on the Hebrew Bible and the thought and literature of pre-modern Judaism, while Van Pelt contains the major research collections on Jewish Studies in the modern period, i.e. ca. 1800 to the present, and on the broader fields of relevance to the history and cultures of Jews, especially the Greco-Roman, early and medieval Christian, and Islamic contexts of Jewish Studies. The library of the University Museum supports the study of Biblical archaeology and the ancient Near East.

III. Guidelines for Collection Development

1. Chronological

2. Formats

3. Geographical

4. Language

5. Publication Dates

IV. Principal Sources of Supply and major Selection Tools

V. Subjects Collected and Levels of Collecting

 

Subjects Collected                               Levels of Collecting     Subject ID
--------------------------------------------     --------------------     ----------
Art History (Ancient and medieval only)          3F/3F 
    Synagogue art and archaeology                4F/4F 
Folklore/Folklife (Ancient and Medieval only)    3F/2F 
Hebrew Bible (Includes Apocrypha,
  Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls)              4F/4F 
Hebrew Language (Biblical through Medieval)      4F/4F 
Hebrew Literature 
    Medieval through Early Modern                4Y/4Y 
    Modern                                       2Y/2Y 
Holocaust Studies                                3F/2F                    PAR137 
Israel (Modern)                                  3F/2F 
Jewish History 
    Ancient                                      4F/4F 
    Europe (Medieval through Early Modern)       4F/4F 
    Middle East                                  4F/4F 
    North America                                3F/2F 
Jewish Thought (Includes ethics, Hasidism,
  Kabbalah, philosophy)                                                   PAR12 
    Medieval through Early Modern                4F/4F 
    Modern                                       3F/3F 
Karaitica                                        4F/4F 
Liturgy                                                                   PAR140 
    Ancient                                      4F/4F 
    Medieval through Early Modern                4F/4F 
    Modern                                       2F/2F 
Rabbinica (Includes customs, exegesis, laws, gaonica, responsa)           PAR122,125 
    Ancient                                      4F/4F 
    Medieval through Early Modern                4F/4F 
    Modern                                       3F/3F 
Samaritan Studies                                4F/4F 
Sephardic Languages & Literatures 
    Judeo-Arabic                                 4F/4F 
    Judeo-Persian                                3F/3F 
    Ladino                                       3F/3F 
Social Sciences                                  3F/2F 
Yiddish Language & Literature (Principally the
  history and philology of Yiddish)              3F/3F                    LLL263 
Zionism                                          3F/2F                    HIS379 


The following subjects form part of the larger contexts of the study of pre-modern Judaism
and are represented in the CJS Library at the levels indicated.

Ancient Languages 
    Akkadian                                     4F/3F 
    Aramaic/Syriac                               4F/4F 
    Armenian                                     2F/2F 
    Coptic & Egyptian                            3F/2F 
    Ethiopic                                     2F/2F 
    Sumerian                                     3F/2F 
    Ugaritic/Phoenician                          4F/3F 
Ancient Near East & Archaeology 
    Egyptology (Greco-Roman period)              3F/4F 
    Syro-Palestinian (Greco-Roman period)        4F/3F 
Arabic & Islamic Studies (Medieval period only)  3F/3F 
Early & Medieval Christianity                    2F/2F 
Semitic Languages & Linguistics                  4F/4F 

VI. Subjects Excluded

VII. Cooperative Arrangements and Related Collections