Celebrating 125 Years of the Dorot Jewish Division

The Dorot Jewish Division, the oldest public collection of Jewish research materials in America, celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2022. Join the Library for special events marking this milestone—and read on for an introduction to the history of the Dorot Jewish Division by curator Dr. Lyudmila Sholokhova. 

Special Events

Join the Library to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Dorot Jewish Division with special events in November and December 2022:

LIVE from NYPL: Joshua Cohen, Rivka Galchen & Ruby Namdar: Remembering A.B. Yehoshua

Wednesday, November 16 | 6:30 PM | Stephen A. Schwarzman Building & Online

Award-winning authors Joshua Cohen and Rivka Galchen speak with novelist Ruby Namdar about the complicated legacy of Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua as well as his language and his works.

Building Jewish Libraries into the Future: The Dorot Jewish Division at 125

Wednesday, December 14 | 6:30 PM | Stephen A. Schwarzman Building & Online

Librarians, writers, and scholars celebrate the oldest public collection of Jewish research materials in America and its journey into the 21st century.

Introduction

Its centrality to Jewish studies in the United States is second to none, and the history of the Division and its role in the Jewish community in New York City and far beyond is truly amazing. Painstakingly assembled and inclusive, the collection includes precious rarities that date back to the 13th century and currently amounts to over 250,000 titles of books and periodicals, incunabula, unique archival materials and gorgeous medieval manuscripts, theater and music scores, posters, photographs, ephemera, as well as oral histories in all the Jewish languages. The collection evenly represents all the areas of Jewish scholarship and culture and is tasked with the mission to make these materials available to all people. It is important to emphasize that this mission was essential to the Jewish Division from the very beginning and still identifies its unique place among other Judaica libraries in the world.

The Creation of the Jewish Division

The Jewish Division was established as a separate entity of The New York Public Library in 1897, two years after the historical consolidation of the Astor Library, Lenox Library, and Tilden Trust that laid the foundation of NYPL’s magnificent world-renowned collections of today. Before then, the Jewish books occupied a modest place in the north wing of the building of the Astor Library and were a part of a general collection. 

The major status change happened thanks to the involvement of the German-born American Jewish philanthropist and banker Jacob Schiff (1847–1920). Investing in libraries and education was one of Schiff’s main principles of giving. From 1886, he was a Trustee and Treasurer of the Aguilar Free Circulating Library in New York, which mostly served the needs of the Jewish population of the Lower East Side. Jacob Schiff made an offer to create a Jewish Department at The New York Public Library in 1897.

In a letter from November 15, 1897, found in NYPL's archives, Schiff wrote to his friend, prominent financier, and philanthropist John Steward Kennedy (1830–1909): “Referring to the subject of a proposed department of the Semitic Literature in the New York library, which you discussed with me a short time ago, I will, if it is desired, give to the Library the sum of $10,000 for the purchase of Semitic literature, upon the condition that Trustees of the Library agree to secure and continue to employ a competent curator or librarian for the proper maintenance of such proposed Department.” 

John Shaw Billings, legendary first Director of The New York Public Library, who maintained a friendly and close relationship with Jacob Schiff over decades, supported establishing a separate Jewish Division in the city with a rapidly growing Jewish population. Later the same month, Abraham Solomon Freidus (1867–1923) was appointed the first Head Librarian of the Jewish Division.   

First Head Librarian of the Jewish Division: Abraham Solomon Friedus

A prominent bibliographer, curator, and historian, Freidus was born in Riga, Latvia, where he received a traditional Jewish education. Upon his arrival to the US in 1889, he studied at the Pratt Institute Library School and worked at the General Theological Seminary specializing in cataloging the collection of Latin Bibles. In his application for a job at The New York Public Library dated October 7, 1896, Freidus mentioned his Bibliography of Jewish Customs compiled for the Jewish Publication Society as an accomplishment, which was very impressive for the 29-year-old librarian. He held a position of cataloger prior to his new appointment in the Jewish Division.

Freidus developed the detailed scheme of classification of Judaica that is still in use at the Library and placed emphasis on the development of the Judaica reference collections. He must be credited for establishing the collection's unbeaten reputation as an eminent research hub for Jewish studies for several generations of scholars. Freidus served as a Chief of the Division for 25 years until his sudden death from a heart attack in October 1923 that occurred on his way to work.

How the Collection Was Built

The type of collection development at the Jewish Division was different from other major Judaica libraries which tended to absorb many private libraries of prominent scholars or organizations. The Jewish Division inherited or acquired only a few relatively small collections, but continued its steady and cumulative development through purchases and donations—book by book, lot by lot.

Some precious Hebrew books and manuscripts were inherited by the Jewish Division from the Lenox Library in New York, which in the second half of the 20th century was famous for its collection of Bibles assembled by its founder James Lenox (1800–1880), a prominent American bibliophile and philanthropist. 

A personal library of the prominent Russian Jewish Hebraist, lexicographer, educator, community leader, and writer Leon Mandelstamm (1809–1889) arrived at the Library in 1897. It consisted of 2,135 books in Hebrew, German and Russian that were bought from the merchant and bibliophile Abraham M. Bank (1854–1904). Bank had earlier purchased the collection directly from Leon Mandelstamm in St. Petersburg and later immigrated and settled in New York. 

The collection of 500 books, from the personal library of Meyer Lehren (1793–1861), a member of a wealthy Jewish family in Amsterdam, mainly rabbinical responsa, was bought at auction and added in 1899.

In 1903, the Aguilar Library became a part of the Circulation Department of NYPL and its many Yiddish books and periodicals joined the holdings of the Jewish Division. This move formed the core of the Yiddish holdings of the contemporary collection. 

The Jewish Division Finds a Home on Fifth Avenue

On May 23, 1911, the Beaux-Arts–style main branch of the Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street opened its doors to the public. For the first time, the Jewish Division acquired its own reading room on the second floor. The astounding magnitude and grace of the building became an additional attraction for readers. Most patrons were foreign-born, assimilated scholars from Eastern and Central Europe and many were Russian speakers who also visited the Slavonic Division located next door. Later, in the 1930s and 40s, the Jewish Room became a meeting point for refugee scholars fleeing Nazi Germany. An environment of "intellectual hospitality" reigned in the reading room. Abraham Freidus estimated that in the 1910s to the early 1920s, 30 to 40 readers visited the Jewish Division daily—amounting to nearly 10,000 visitors per year. He proudly stated that this was much more than the number of visitors at the British Museum, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the Asiatic Museum in St. Petersburg.

Reuben Brainin (1862–1939), a Russian-born Jewish publicist and literary critic, described the frequent readers as the most "remarkable types of Jewish idealists, dreamers and visionaries" who, regardless of their age, had "all young souls and childish, naive hearts," and who would come to the Library after long days of work at stores or factories.

Under the stewardship of director John Shaw Billings, the collection continued to grow exponentially while Jacob Schiff remained its major benefactor. Over several decades he contributed close to $115,000 (including an endowment of $25,000 in his will) to the development of the Jewish collection. Among his major accomplishments was acquiring in 1909 an outstanding collection of 371 watercolors depicting the Old Testament by celebrated French painter James Tissot (1836–1902). The Tissot collection now resides at the Jewish Museum in New York.

Freidus’s efforts and high reference standards enabled the transformation of the Jewish reading room into a laboratory for ground-breaking encyclopedic works. Fact-collecting and -checking and article-writing took place in the Jewish Division. In a letter to Jacob Schiff from March 13, 1907, John Shaw Billings acknowledged accordingly: “I think there is no other collection of Jewish literature in the world that is so largely used as this is. The Jewish Encyclopedia was mainly prepared by its means and the new Cyclopaedia in Hebrew of which volume has just appeared could not have been prepared in any other library in this country.” 

Moreover, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858–1922), a famous Hebrew lexicographer known for the revival of the Hebrew language, found a safe haven on the premises of NYPL during the First World War. When the war spread to Palestine in 1914, it was unsafe for Ben-Yehuda and the manuscripts of his new dictionary of the Hebrew language to remain in Jerusalem. He agreed to temporarily leave Palestine and come to New York, where he stayed until the end of the war in 1918. Prominent American bankers, businessmen, and political figures Jacob Wertheim, Jacob Schiff, Felix Warburg, Julius Rosenwald, and Herbert Lehman formed a small committee to bring Ben-Yehuda and his family to New York to ensure that he could continue his work comfortably here.

With the help of the U.S. Ambassador for the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, banker Jacob Schiff, and Richard Gottheil, head of the Oriental Department, a large room (Room 222) in the Library, next to the Jewish Division’s reading room, was arranged for Ben-Yehuda's use. His years here proved to be extremely productive and he was able to complete most of his research on the remaining letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

A Bright Future Awaits

All these astonishing facts constitute the core of the historical development of the Dorot Jewish Division. While this blog post covered only the beginnings of the Jewish Division at the NYPL, the later chapters of its rich history deserve further in-depth exploration.

We owe the foundations of our rich collections today to the standards of collecting established in the early years. The collection keeps growing, now enriched with a wide variety of electronic resources and digitization initiatives. We carry on by promoting exceptional scholarship and outreach opportunities at The New York Public Library empowered by our collaborative efforts with Fordham University, the Manhattan Research Library Initiative Consortium, which includes Columbia University and New York University, as well as the National Library of Israel.