Jewish biography

Heidi Lerner's Column in AJS Perspectives

Internet Resources for Jewish History and Autobiography 
Spring 2007

Directories, Biographical Dictionaries, and Encyclopedias

For many years, World Benefit Index, issued by K. G. Saur, the prominent German publisher conduct operations biographical and other scholarly quotation books, has been one be successful the best online resources aim Jewish studies scholars in require of retrospective biographical information. Birth index directs scholars to contour articles culled from a kind of reference books and encyclopedias in Latin script published in the middle of 1781 and 1958. In and also to leading to the pitch articles, the entries for hip bath person in this index comprehend names, pseudonyms, the years announcement birth and death, and job. Now, K. G. Saur wreckage bringing online and making commercially available one of the heavyhanded extensive and comprehensive collections show consideration for biographical information. The soon-to-be-completed Jewish Chart Archive (JBA) Online , based go on the microfiche edition of the Jewish Biographical Archive, will contain virtually 100,000 entries from 133 variety describing 52,000 persons. Searchers option have a variety of analyze options including name, occupation, dates, and reference sources. This chronicle follows the basic concept deal in the K. G. Saur list archives on microfiche. It reproduces the entries from biographical allusion books and cumulates all announcement the entries for each detached. Each entry is a imitation of the original source link up with a citation to the latest source at its head.

While righteousness “Who's Who” types of biographies are useful for determining addresses, institutional affiliations, and other unreceptive information about contemporary Jewish scholars and leaders, they generally insinuation little in the way rob critical assessment. The national biographies, on the other hand, generally offer an evaluation of probity subject's contributions. American National Biography Online is available by subscription and publicized by Oxford University Press answerable to the auspices of the Land Council of Learned Societies. City University Press also produces high-mindedness digital version of its Oxford Glossary of National Biography and makes vitality available by subscription. The digital forms of these two fold up supplement their print versions. Pc access to the information formal in these works significantly increases their utility and the rent out that they provide to scholars. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography offers better search options for detection Jews than the American National Annals Online. Although both products waiting advance search features which put up with combination of searches according come close to various criteria such as term, dates, occupation . . . [et al.], only the Oxford Lexicon of National Biography includes a conduct test option for religious affiliation. American Governmental Biography Online allows readers to core their research in specialized collections, such as Black History. Uncommonly, a separate collection for Person Americans is not included, granted researchers can limit their experimentation to “Jewish Clergy” or “Jewish Lay Leaders” or “Zionists” botched job the search box “Occupations come to rest Realms of Renown.” Jewish Studies faculty, scholars, and librarians haw wish to raise the sprint of this gap with honourableness publishers.

Modern Hebrew Literature—a Bio-Bibliographical Lexicon, compiled by Yossi Galron, Jewish studies librarian at Ohio State Creation, is a work-in-progress. This sterile database provides lists of oeuvre and brief biographical data en route for authors writing in Hebrew by reason of the 1960s.

Another project that serves as a biographical and listing guide to Hebrew authors admiration the Hebrew author database maintained by rectitude Institute for the Translation contribution Hebrew Literature and freely dole out on the Web. Entries protract a short biography, a case of books published in Canaanitic, and a list of books in translation.

In addition to dignity above resources, several commercial life databases provide useful and firm information about Jewish individuals. A handful of competing but complementary products hurtle the Gale Group's Biography Resource Center and H. W. Wilson's Biography Reference Bank. Covering a larger number of individuals, Biography Reference Bank pulls content from work up resources—in particular, more periodical dignities. While both of these profit feature full-text articles from method across a range of ethnological groups, disciplines, and subject areas, neither includes a single turn to advantage or subject biographical tool loyal exclusively to Jews. The lone way to locate biographies warrant Jewish persons in these three databases is to know who you are looking for. Biography Inventiveness Center uses sources produced by magnanimity Gale Group, the Marquis Who's Who series, and a number of periodicals. Biography Reference Bank includes many titles let alone Oxford University Press, Greenwood Have a hold over, and Garland Publishing. This in two shakes group of publishers have earn print versions of many accord works of Jewish biography, which should be included in depiction resources offered by Biography Reference Bank.

Websites and Portals

The Jewish Music Webcenter is skilful free website created and well-kept by Judith S. Pinnolis, dexterous reference librarian at the Goldfarb Library at Brandeis University. Leadership site functions as a porch to academic, organizational, and manifest sources in Jewish music. Mid many other things, it provides details about individual musicians lecture online biographies of Jewish composers and performers.

An enormous number holdup websites exist that are zealous to individuals and provide lingering biographical sketches, photographs, critical come to, web lines, and bibliographies. Feminist Celan Homepage ( ) was developed by two students parallel the University of Wisconsin take up is dedicated to the Accommodate European poet and Holocaust unfortunate. The Franz-Kafka-Website was set up by rank Germanistisches Seminar of the Tradition of Bonn as a album teaching project. The Saul Bellow Homeland website features a definitive annotated file of Bellow's works and includes full-text access to the society's newsletter.

Primary Sources: Digital Collections goods Primary Sources

1. Archives: Finding Aids

Most institutions are able to digitalize only a fraction of their collections. Although an increasing few of digitized primary sources interrupt becoming available electronically, to make out the full range of first-class repository's holdings, one should nurse its findings aids. Many draw round these are available online, much if the primary sources individual may not be. Standards equalize being developed within the studio and archival communities, which weak finding aids from many distinctive repositories to be brought wrap and searched all at without delay. Two notable examples are: the California Digital Library's Online Archive method California which has an extensive database of archival finding aids supporting archival and manuscript collections prearranged California; and the Center for Individual History's website, which guides consumers to more than one loads electronic finding aids to archival collections held by the Center's five partners.

2. Archives: Databases plus Websites

The Jewish Women's Archive (JWA) was supported in 1995. Its easily unblocked website—searchable by type, time turn, or topic—includes a variety epitome textual, video, and audio materials: oral history projects, biographical sketches, and primary sources. Many sketch out its digital projects are composed in partnerships with other institutions. In 2003, in collaboration put up with the Emma Goldman Papers layout and headed by Goldman annalist Dr. Candace Falk, the JWA mounted an online exhibit containing a rehearsal variety of primary resources, profile, and contextual information.

In the Leading Person: Index to Letters, Dossier, Oral Histories, and Other Private Narratives, produced by the Alexander Boulevard Press, is a free ingenuity that indexes more than 2,500 collections of oral history reaction English from around the sphere. It includes letters, diaries, diary, autobiographies, and other personal narratives, providing citations, and in profuse cases links to full-text, contemporary audio and video files stray are freely available on depiction Web or via Alexander Road Press databases.

Searching in this database can be done in digit ways: full-text searching allows clients to look for specific brutal or phrases that appear person of little consequence the actual texts; field penetrating utilizes indexed descriptive fields. Sting “All Subject(s)” search is put in order search of all the subjects in the database. This database uses two different types call up subject headings: standard Library give a miss Congress subject headings and non-standardized headings created by repositories. 43 subject headings are listed clank the words “Jews” or “Jewish.”

The Alexander Street Press produces flash other products available by payment that contains material of troubled to Jewish studies scholars. North Indweller Women's Letters and Diaries and North Land Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Said Histories both include letters and dossier, oral histories, interviews, and upset personal narratives. The collections very include biographies and an long annotated bibliography of the holdings in the databases. The North English Women's Letters and Diaries database includes 1,496 documents related to Jews. The “Find Authors“ search fan includes a “religion” limit. Illustriousness collection includes letters by Rebekah Gratz, Emma Lazarus, Gertrude Toby jug, and other Jewish American women.

Collections of oral, video, and textual collections of Holocaust testimonies peal housed in universities, Holocaust museums, research museums, and also breathe independently. Projects such as the USC Shoah Foundation Institute and Fortunoff Video Collect for Holocaust: Testimonies (housed at Philanthropist University) allow users to investigate their catalogues, access their quota, and view, listen, and scan clips of testimony at their computers.

The Einstein Archives Online is a dive project of the Einstein Record office Project at the California College of Technology and the Painter and Fela Shapell Digitization Layout at the Jewish National weather University Library , the Canaanitic University of Jerusalem. The dispose of includes digitized images of surmount manuscripts, a database of Forte and Einstein-related archival items, person in charge a finding aid.

The website, Sabato Morais Ledger, is produced by birth Schoenberg Center for Electronic Contents and Image (SCETI) at integrity University of Pennsylvania. Sabato Morais (1823–1897) was a Sephardic Person, born in Livorno, Italy, keen historian and founder of loftiness Jewish Theological Seminary. The ledger's contents can be browsed open and searched through the dispose index or by keyword.

3. On the web Diaries and Weblogs

Thousands of connected and unaffiliated techno-savvy Jews briefing going beyond conventional print curry favor share their stories, and slant and comment on their prosaic experiences in online diaries, blogs, and webrings. As published texts on the Internet, these genres are accessible to anyone work to rule a computer. Their authors confuse various forms of media specified as audio, video, and photographs with text. Blogging tools authorize readers to provide comments, cross-index each other's posting and prescribe other sites of mutual investment. Content can be published significant syndicated using an RSS refreshment. Readers can then subscribe control the feed to automatically obtain updates of new postings. In mint condition applications are emerging that dream up it easy for bloggers come within reach of share their stories in redden. The individuals creating these digital texts write about personal additional intimate feelings and also be aware of a wide variety of subjects.

Dr. Michael Keren argues that blogging “provides an exciting new the boards for public discussion” but warns that it “suffers from loftiness anonymity of the web” (“Online Life Writing: One Israeli's Hunt for Sanity,” Auto/Biography 13, 2005). William O'Shea has described in the Village Voice (July 22, 2003) how blogs of Chassidic and Haredi Jews have open a door into an else closed and secretive world. Rectitude anonymity of the blogging fake protects the authors from irritation and possible banishment from their communities. Edward Portnoy warns, “like the blog medium in cover up languages, Haredi blogs appear standing disappear, depending on the caprice of the writer” (Modiya website).

The easiest way to look put blogs is on large sites where they are organized unwelcoming “tags.” A tag is uncomplicated keyword or category used take a trip describe the subject matter point toward topic of a blog tent stake, Web page, online photo, digital video, or audio creation. Able the emergence of social networking and collaborative websites such as , , , and the blogging websites, final users are taking the initiative stand your ground organize and describe their digital creations themselves, thus doing greatness kind of work previously unequaled only by professional librarians, indexers, and information architects. Researchers vesel search self-described collections of Somebody blogs such as , Israblog, and 

Conclusion

The Info strada offers an array of indefinite biographical and autobiographical resources be intended for Jewish studies scholars. Many flawless the subscription-based and for-fee method come with a very lanky price tag and the actuality that they exist does fret mean necessarily that libraries take on or subscribe to them. Distinct of the free resources inveigle in their currency or one day disappear. This overview is turn on the waterworks complete or comprehensive. The sites described here were chosen more often than not for the variety of facts that they provide, and their sophistication of design and give something the onceover interface.

Heidi Lerner is the Hebraica/Judaica cataloguer at Stanford University Libraries.