LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES 12: ISRAEL

B E R N A R D W A S S E R S T E I N Nufield College, Oxford

ZIONISM HAS BEEN one of the most historically self-conscious movements of modern history. It is appropriate, therefore, that, notwithstanding the vicissitudes and turmoil which have afflicted the Jewish world in this century, the Jewish state should contain archival and library collections of great richness. That Israel has now become the major centre of Jewish historical scholarship (and, indeed, an important centre of historical research in general, particularly with reference to Israel's neighbours) owes much to this wealth of printed and manuscript material. The best published guide to Israeli archives is the Guide to the Archives in Israel, edited by P. A. Alsberg, and published by the Israel Archives Association. The latest edition (1973) has been trans- lated into English and gives brief details of the holdings of all the major (and most of the minor) repositories.

The most important collection of printed material is the Jewish National and Hebrew University Library, now housed mainly on the Givat Ram campus of the university in west Jerusalem. The Jewish National Library was founded in Jerusalem in 1895, and thus antedated the Zionist Organiza- tion by two years, and the Hebrew University itself by thirty. The library now contains over two million printed books; apart from its general collection it is probably the largest library in the world of books pertaining to Jewish history. The library has made a particular effort to accumulate all available matter printed in languages using the Hebrew alphabet: as a result, many rare products of now defunct Jewish communities who wrote in Yiddish, Ladino, or Judeo-Arabic, are to be found in the library. Most modern and many early Hebrew printed books, nearly all books published in any language in Israel since 1948, and rare runs of early Hebrew newspapers and periodicals published in Europe and Palestine are also available. The department of archives and manuscripts holds an important collection of pinkusim (com- munal notebooks) of Jewish communities in Palestine, Algeria, Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Morocco, Poland and Lithuania, Rumania, Turkey, Russia, and the Yemen, ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. The Jewish National Library also has microfilm copies (very well catalogued) of over 70 per cent of all known manuscripts in Hebrew script in the world's libraries; this collection is still growing rapidly. Among the collections of private papers donated to the library have been those of S. Y. Agnon, Ahad Ha-am, Martin Buber, Leopold Zunz, and Stefan Zweig.

Other important archival collections are housed separately on the Givat Ram campus (although some of these may soon move to the new Hebrew

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60 LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES 12 : ISRAEL

University campus about to open on Mount Scopus in east Jerusalem). Most important of these is the Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People (which incorporates the Jewish General Historical Archive administered by the Historical Society of Israel). This archive contains the world’s largest collection of documents concerning Jewish history in the Diaspora since the Middle Ages, including communal records from nearly every country in which Jews have ever lived, from China to Finland. A huge amount of archival material relating to Jewish history, at present in archives elsewhere, has been microfilmed, and may also be consulted in the Central Archive, e.g. records of the Alliance IsraClite Universelle in Paris, British consular reports on the condition of Jews in various countries, records relating to Jewish communities in medieval France and Germany, or in colonial Mexico, and much else. There are also over a hundred collections of private papers in the Central Archive, among them those of Simon Dubnow, J. L. Magnes (including the archives of the New York Kehillu), and many French, German, and Italian Jewish family papers.

The oral history division of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University (also at present on the Givat Ram campus) has assembled a unique collection of over 1,000 taped interviews on subjects of recent Jewish historical concern. Of particular significance among these are inter- views with survivors of the Holocaust, which often provide information not available from documentary sources. The division publishes a catalogue of its holdings periodically.

The main public archive in Israel is the Israel State Archive in the Prime Minister’s Office in Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem. Apart from the depart- mental records of the Israeli Government since 1948 (not yet open to in- spection), the State Archive holds a patchy, but nevertheless very important, collection of the papers of the British mandatory government of Palestine (1917-48), including a great mass of material not to be found at the Public Record Office in London. (All the P.R.O. material relating to Palestine has, incidentally, been microfilmed for the Israel State Archive.) There are also some late Ottoman administrative records, files from the German Consulates in Jerusalem and Jaffa (1839-1939), and a great body of legal records (mostly post-1918). The I.S.A. has acquired a great deal of documentation relating to the history of the Palestinian Arabs-most of it consisting of papers abandoned in 1948-9 or 1967 and captured by Israel. These include the records of the former Arab Higher Committee, the private papers of a number of Arab lawyers and politicians of the mandatory period, most notably George Antonius and ‘Awni ‘Abd al-Hadi, and legal and municipal records. The records of the regional section of the Bu‘th Party of Kuneitra on the Golan Heights (captured by Israel in 1967) form unique source material for students of modern Syria, rather as the Smolensk archives do for western Sovietologists. The I.S.A. also holds some collections of private papers, most notably the family and Palestine papers of the first Viscount Samuel. A handlist (in English and Hebrew) has been published of the latter, and another of the records of the Chief Secretary’s Office of the Government of

BERNARD WASSERSTEIN 61 Palestine (1918-25), but for the rest the researcher must rely on card cata- logues (there is a separate one for Arabic material), advice from the staff, and a keen hunting scent.

The Central Zionist Archive (1 Ibn Gvirol Street, Jerusalem), founded in Berlin in 1919, was transferred to Jerusalem in 1933-4. The C.Z.A. includes a library of 64,000 volumes-probably the world's largest on the history of Zionism and Israel. It holds some 5,000 runs of newspapers and journals, over 70,000 photographs, many tape-recordings, and some films (among them the earliest extant film made in Palestine-in 1911). Almost all surviving records of the Zionist Organization, its national federations, and its affiliated institutions are in the C.Z.A. The archive contains the minutes of the World Zionist Executive, and the records of the proceedings of all the Zionist Congresses. There are also over three hundred collections of private papers of Zionist leaders in all countries. There is a brief published guide, and typescript handlists to some sections, but much of the material is still in the original working files of the various offices of the Zionist Organization, and the researcher who is pressed for time may be faced with a choice between laborious plodding or pot luck.

The Yad Vashem Archive (Har Hazikaron, Jerusalem), founded in 1953, has assembled (partly on microfilm) documents on the history of the Holo- caust. The Weizmann Archive (Yad Chaim Weizmann, Rehovot) contains the complete private papers of Israel's first President. The Military and Defence Establishment Archive (50 Jabotinsky Street, Givatayim) contains material on all aspects of Jewish military activity in Palestine since the late nineteenth century, including the archives of the Hugunah (the pre-1948 Jewish underground army). The Archive of the Jewish Labour Movement (34 Weizmann Street, Tel Aviv), founded in 1934, contains the papers of the Histudrut (the General Federation of Jewish Labour, founded in 1920), as well as a mass of other material on Jewish labour history in Israel and else- where (including over a hundred private archives). The Jabotinsky Institute (38 King George Street, Tel Aviv) houses the archives of the right-wing Revisionist Zionist movement, of its various affiliates, and of nearly a hundred of its leaders, most notably the papers of Vladimir Jabotinsky, who founded the movement. Among other archives of lesser importance are those of the various kibbutz federations, of the municipalities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and the archive of the Aaronsohn family in the Mount Carmel village of Zikhron Ya'akov.

In general, policy as regards access is very liberal. Most material in all the archives relating to the pre-1948 period is freely available. The main exception is some material directly concerned with military or security matters; in practice, however, this is interpreted flexibly. The Jewish National Library is open from 8.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m., most other institutions from 8.00 a.m. until the early or mid-afternoon. The archives are closed on Saturdays, public holidays and Jewish festivals, but otherwise remain open throughout the year. Working conditions in most of the archives are poor, and service is often slow. However, the staff are generally knowledgeable and helpful.