Dear Nancy I am writing a paper on the library (400 books) of a Rabbi in Bavaria in 1693, that was supposed to be given to a beit midrash where it would serve as a public, non-lending library for all scholars. I tried to find information about earlier or contemporary Jewish libraries, but unfortunately, it seems that no such library remained active and intact for more than a generation or two. Unlike royal, ducal and monastery libraries that existed for centuries, and many of them still exist, we have no records of any such library under Jewish ownership. The earliest Jewish library still in existence is the Ets Haim library in Amsterdam dating back to the 1616. (The present librarian, Dr. Rosenberg, will be at the AJL convention).
Daniel Rettberg wondered about the library of the Radak. We do not have an inventory of his library, but fortunately we do have the inventory of the library of Levi b. Gershom (RALBAg or Gersonides) from the early 14th cent. Ralbag was a true renaissance figure. He wrote tomes on a great variety of subjects,: commentaries on most books of the Bible, works on astronomy, astrology, mathematics, philosophy (commentaries on most of the supercommentaries by Averroes on Aristotle and his own Milhamot Hashem). The cataloguer of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, has over 400 entries of works by him still in existence In a manuscript of Sefer ha-Shorashim by Radak (MS Breslau 65) owned by Levi, he wrote a list of all the books in his library. How many books do you think such a scholar would own? The answer is 168. To paraphrase a famous saying, so few books for a modern library, so large a library for a medieval scholar. The list was published as: La bibliothèque de Gersonide :d'après son catalogue autographe /Gérard E. Weil ; édité par Frédéric Chartrain avec la collaboration d'Anne-Marie Weil-Guény et Joseph Shatzmiller. (Louvain 1991) Benjamin Richler --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
