Jewish Studies in the Cornell University Library  

The Western Wall (כותל המערבי) of the second Temple (בת המקדש) in Jerusalem (ירושלים), Israel (in the walled city). This remnant of the temple complex destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE is now the holiest site in Judaism. The temple complex (both the first and second Temples) stood above this wall on the Temple Mount (הר הבית). Islam refers to the Mount as الحرم القدسي الشريف  (the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem), in which the Dome of the Rock and the mosque al-Aqsa together comprise the third holiest site for Muslims. (photo: PJS, 1999.)

Jerusalem Virtual Library: The Academic Database on Historic Jerusalem is a collaborative project between Al-Quds University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem offering digital access to a range of archival materials reflecting the multilayered and diverse civilization of Jerusalem’s three thousand years.

Find e-Journals allows you to search 26,000+ electronic journals licensed by the Cornell University Library.

A selection of e-journals in Jewish Studies Cornell subscribes to, or that are available gratis via Internet:

·      American Jewish History

·      Israel Studies

·      Israel Law Review

·      Jewish Bible Quarterly

·      Jewish Chronicle

·      Jewish Daily Forward

·      Jewish Exponent

·      Jewish Quarterly Review

·      Jewish Scholarship in Eastern Europe

·      Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal (JSIJ)

·      Journal of Modern Jewish Studies

·      New York Jewish Week

·      Tablet

·      Jewish Ideas Daily

·      Juif.org

·      Europe-Israël

View of the Old City of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.

Creator of photograph not identified in information available; image found on Wikimedia Commons and available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

In 2013 Wednesday, 8 May corresponds with 28 Iyyar אייר 5773 on the Hebrew calendar; on this day during the Six-Day War in 1967, the Israel Defense Force צהל captured the section of Jerusalem ירושלים under Jordanian occupation since 1948, including the old city within the walls.

Jerusalem is now the unified capital of the State of Israel מדינת ישראל. The city, multiethnic and religiously diverse with, inter alia, large populations of religious Jews and Muslim and Christian Palestinian Arabs, is of critical significance to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

A further description of Jerusalem Day יום ירושלים, celebrated by many but not all, is at http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/israel/yom-yerushalayim.

Three Sa'ar 5 סער class missile corvettes of the Israeli Navy off the Israeli coast, 26 March 2012.

Image taken by the Israel Defense Force and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

It is a pleasure to welcome you to the guide for Jewish Studies resources in the Cornell University Library. Jewish Studies at Cornell include a dynamic program of building our library collections to reflect many of the Jewish communities and cultural achievements past and present the world over, in years of prosperity and in times of difficulty.

The modern State of Israel, with its capital in a unified, religiously and ethnically diverse Jerusalem, has an active literary and cinematic life well represented in the holdings of the Cornell University Library. These collections of literature (Library of Congress alphabetical prefix PJ) and film directly support the courses in the Jewish Studies Program, as do most of our acquisitions. Also of significance are the shelves upon shelves of studies in Tanakh (the Jewish canon of the Bible, prefix BS) and Rabbinical literature (prefix BM). Not only do these books provide first-line resources for the Jewish Studies Program, but also they serve members of the Cornell community who pursue studies of Judaisim on their own initiative. Equally significant are studies in Jewish history and culture (prefix DS) in both the Diaspora and the modern state of Israel.

Thus the collection accentuates the great cultural and religious diversity among Jews--the Sephardic, Ashkenazic and Mizrahi (Oriental) communities and their reconstitutions around the world and in the ancestral homeland of Israel. No less diverse are the languages of the books, periodicals and other media--Hebrew and Aramaic, of course, but also English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino).

The collection also remembers episodes of adversity in Jewish history, particularly the Holocaust (1939-1945), during which some six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazi régime and its collaborators.

May this guide assist you in your academic research and recreational reading.

This site for Jewish Studies in the Cornell University Library is under (re)construction.

Please visit us frequently to see updates.