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Reference

4 Primary Sources in Jewish History Research

Hallel Yadin

Introduction

Jewish people have lived around the world for two millennia and have maintained records throughout their history. The field of Jewish history is almost indescribably vast. This chapter will equip you to get started with primary source research — especially if you have never done research on Jewish history. Hopefully, though, there will be something useful here even if you have!

The first section covers general reference sources and databases available online. Then, the “Types of Records” section explores records that are specific to the Jewish experience. “Types of Records” is further broken down into the following subsections: communal records, life cycle records, religious records, Jewish culture, institutional records, and Holocaust records. The next section covers primary and secondary sources available online. The final section introduces languages you may encounter throughout your research in Jewish history.

Finally, I write about Jewish history in the past tense, because records are necessarily about events that have already happened. However, Jewish communities are still thriving and collecting records around the world; using the past tense is not meant to erase that.

General Reference Sources and Databases

Below are reference sources on topics in Jewish history. Further reference sources are linked in other sections, when applicable.

Types of Records

In this section, I strive to describe resource types as broadly as possible. It would be impossible to capture all the intricacies and variants of the breadth of individual Jewish communities throughout history.

Communal Records

Jewish communities often maintained their own internal records, regardless of their inclusion (or lack thereof) in state records. Here are a few categories of communal records.

  • Pinkasim: Pinkasim (singular: pinkas) are community ledgers. Pinkasim might include biographical information, burial information, and information on the history of a community. Check out The Pinkas Project for an ongoing cataloging project of pinkasim produced outside of Eastern Europe.[9]
  • Synagogue records: Synagogues, or Jewish houses of worship, were the center of many Jewish communities, even beyond religious services. They were important social and educational sites as well. Synagogues were often the sites of — and thus the recorders of — life cycle events.
  • Jewish community councils: Jewish community councils were present in most areas with meaningful Jewish populations. Their roles have varied dramatically throughout history. In many cities today, for example, they are largely social centers; in pre-war European cities, though, some councils had authority over schools, social welfare, real estate, and more. Depending on the scope of the council, it may have done vital record-keeping, like maintaining registers of births, deaths, marriages, and military service. (Note that many terms have been used to describe an organization with a similar function. Kehillah is another one which is used often.)

A note on Jewish representation in vital records: Vital records are documentation of life events issued by governmental authorities—think birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage licenses. Certain types of court documentation may fall under the category as well. This topic is far too complex to explore in detail, but for many reasons, Jews have been under-registered in state records throughout history.[10] Depending on the time period and location you are researching, it may be a good idea to look at secondary sources to understand how Jews fit into the broader record-keeping of the era.

Life Cycle Records

Life cycle records relate to major events like births, weddings, and deaths. You may be able to find documentation of life cycle events in vital records (see note above). Beyond that, there are some Jewish-specific events for which you may not find sources outside of personal archives; these events are not necessarily registered with record-keeping agencies the way their secular equivalents are. Still, it is worth knowing the basics. If you are researching an individual, life cycle records are a powerful frame for understanding their life. If you are doing research on a broader community, these terms may also help you better understand communal records.

  • Weddings: At Jewish weddings, the couple signs a marriage contract called a ketubah.
  • Divorces: A Jewish, religious divorce decree is called a get.
  • Births: There are a few rituals which attend Jewish births. One is the bris or brit milah, the ritual circumcision of the boy. Another is the simchat bat, the ritual naming of the girl. While there is no particular documentation produced at these events, these events would likely be recorded in communal records.
    • Regardless of a child’s legal name, they may be given a separate Hebrew name for use in religious rites. For those doing genealogy research or otherwise tracing family lineages, note that Jews often honor deceased relatives when naming children. However, it may be the Hebrew name that is used in this manner. To give a personal example, my great-grandmother’s name was Sallie, but my middle name in her honor is Shulamit, which was her Hebrew name.
  • Death: There are a few concepts worth knowing about when it comes to death in Jewish communities.
    • Jewish communities often have an organization called a chevra kadisha. The chevra kadisha prepares the body of the deceased according to Jewish rites. These groups often maintained their own records.
    • Jewish communities typically bury their deceased in Jewish cemeteries. Cemetery records can be important genealogical and historical resources. If the cemetery itself is still active, it may have its own records. Other cemetery records might be available in archival repositories. Check out JewishGen’s Online Worldwide Burial Registry for more.[11]
    • You can find a primer, “Jewish Death and Mourning 101,” from My Jewish Learning.[12]
  • B’nai mitzvah: A bar mitzvah, for boys, or bat mitzvah, for girls, is a Jewish rite of passage in which a young adult reads from the Torah. (Note that throughout history, and in many Jewish communities today, girls were not allowed to read from the Torah, so depending on your research area, this may only be applicable to boys.)
  • Jewish holidays: We do not have space to list every Jewish holiday, but “Your Guide to Jewish Holidays” is a useful primer on the categories of Jewish holidays.[13]

Religious Texts

Judaism, as a two-thousand-year-old religion, has an immense legacy of written religious text. Here are just a few of the types of texts you may encounter. Duke University professor Marc Brettler maintains a site called Tools for Studying the Hebrew Bible.[14]

  • Torah: The fundamental book of Jewish religious practice. It includes the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.
  • Tanakh: The Hebrew Bible in its entirety.
  • Talmud: The central text of rabbinic Judaism, and the primary source of Jewish religious law.
  • Mishnah: The first major work of rabbinic literature.
  • Kabbalistic texts: Texts related to Kabbalah, also known as Jewish mysticism. The Zohar is considered to be the “underpinning” of Kabbalah.[15]
  • Siddur: The Jewish prayer book. These vary based on the community.
  • Haggadah: The guide to the Passover seder. These also vary based on the community and are often customized by individuals.

Jewish Culture

Jewish cultural production has a rich history. Here are a few categories of art to consider if you are doing any sort of cultural heritage research, with some links to longer overview articles. There are also many complementary resources listed in the “Primary Sources Available Online” section.

Institutional Records

Here I would like to highlight a few types of institutions where Jews have often maintained meaningful alternatives parallel to mainstream equivalents. The records of these institutions can be great primary sources on both broad trends in Jewish history and on the day-to-day Jewish experience.

  • Schools: Jewish communities often send their children to Jewish schools. Some types of schools to be aware of:
    • Yeshiva: An Orthodox rabbinical seminary, or an Orthodox day school for primary and secondary education.
    • Jewish day schools: Private schools which provide varying degrees of religious instruction, and which also provide schooling in secular subjects.
    • Cheder: A traditional Jewish primary school (these are strongly associated with pre-war Jewish life).
  • Hospitals: Jews often established dedicated hospitals and sanitoria.
  • Agencies: Jews often established their own nonprofit agencies, including orphanages, resettlement and immigration agencies, senior homes, and more.

Holocaust Records

The Holocaust was “the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. The Holocaust was an evolving process that took place throughout Europe between 1933 and 1945.”[19]

Major online reference sources include the Holocaust Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, both published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. [20]

  • Testimonies and oral histories: There have been countless efforts to compile firsthand accounts from survivors. Here are some major ones:
  • Pre-“Final Solution”: The Nazi government rose to power in 1933 and did not implement the “Final Solution,” or the explicit, state-sanctioned attempt to exterminate Jews, until 1941.[26] A few historical phenomena to consider when getting situated with research in this era:
    • Ghettoes: In the beginning stages of the Holocaust, many Jews were forced to live in ghettos, all of which were ultimately “liquidated” (their residents were deported to death and concentration camps).
    • “The Holocaust by bullets”: As many as two million Jews were killed in mass shootings before death and concentration camps were established.
  • Concentration and death camps: There were over 44,000 concentration camps or incarceration sites, and five death camps, throughout Europe.[27]
  • Displaced persons camps: After World War II, a quarter of a million Jews lived in displaced persons camps administered by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and other Allied agencies.[28]
  • Court proceedings: Post-war prosecutions of war criminals lasted for decades. The most famous is the Nuremberg Trials; check out Harvard Law Library’s Nuremberg Trials Project.[29]
  • Jewish historical commissions: Independent Jewish groups made efforts to collect and record experiences in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust.
  • European Holocaust Research Infrastructure: The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) consolidates Holocaust-related records from around the world in one searchable portal. The materials are not necessarily available online, but the descriptions of the materials are. The descriptions are available via the EHRI Portal.[30]
  • The Arolsen Archives: The Arolsen Archives are the “international center on Nazi persecution with the world’s most comprehensive archive on the victims and survivors of National Socialism.”[31] Arolsen’s extensive digital holdings are searchable online.[32]

A note on pre-Holocaust European research: An important component of the Nazi project was the destruction of Jewish records. An untold amount of historical material was looted or destroyed. The Nazis also destroyed much of the documentation of the Holocaust itself towards the end of World War II. There are large gaps in the historical record as a result.

Primary and Secondary Sources Available Online

This is a sampling of the many hundreds of digitized collections available from repositories around the world. I prioritized large collections, portals that combine collections from multiple institutions, and individual digitized collections that are especially rare or significant to Jewish history.

Languages

Depending on your research interests, you may well discover that the majority of the primary source material is in a language other than English. Here are a few languages which are important in Jewish studies.

Yiddish

Yiddish has been the spoken language of a considerable portion of the Jewish people, specifically Eastern European Jews, for the past thousand years.[50] It has served as the expression of everyday Jewish life, religious, secular, and every level in between. It possesses a significant literature, press, and folklore, and has a large musical component. Yiddish is written in the Hebrew alphabet.

Hebrew

Hebrew was originally used by ancient Israelites. Modern Hebrew, the only spoken language based on an ancient written form, was revived in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is now the national language of the state of Israel.[51]

Ladino

Ladino (also called Judeo-Spanish) is spoken and written by Jews of Spanish origin. It largely derives from pre-16th-century Spanish, and is influenced by Hebrew.[52]

Other Languages

Jews, regardless of the language they spoke among themselves, often spoke second (and more) languages to interact with their broader communities. Knowledge of these languages, depending on your research area, may prove to be helpful, even if they are not specifically associated with Jewish life. Here are some languages that might be especially useful:

  • Polish
  • German
  • Russian
  • French
  • Spanish
  • Arabic

A Note on Transliteration

Searching for material in non-English languages in English-language catalogs can be tricky. Often, regardless of the language of the material, the catalog record will use transliterated English. Transliteration is the process of phonetically representing words in a language that uses a different script (i.e. “ספר,” or “book” in Hebrew, becomes sefer transliterated into English). Transliteration is not always standardized, so if you are looking for material in a different language, you may want to experiment with various spellings.

Conclusion

This chapter is meant to give a very general overview of primary sources in Jewish history. You do not have to know everything in depth to get started with a particular topic. Jewish history is a rich field, and there will always be more to discover.

Bibliography

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Folk Literature of the Sephardic Jews. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://sephardifolklit.org/, archived June 10, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230610142825/https://sephardifolklit.org/.

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Goldberg-Mulkiewicz, Olga. “Paper Cuts.” The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 2010. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Paper_Cuts, archived June 5, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230605192312/https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Paper_Cuts.

HebrewBooks.org. The Society for Preservation of Hebrew Books, 2023. https://hebrewbooks.org/, archived January 1, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240101140323/https://hebrewbooks.org/.

Historical Jewish Press. The National Library of Israel, 2023. https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/newspapers/jpress, archived November 28, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231128043013/https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/newspapers/jpress.

Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed December 8, 2023, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/, archived January 1, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240101071407/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/.

“Introduction to the Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed June 16, 2023. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust. archived December 10, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20241210143306/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust.

Jankowski, Tomasz M. “The Quality of Vital Registration of the Jews in East-Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century.” Studia Judaica 23, no. 2 (2020): 235–80.

JDC Archives. JDC. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://archives.jdc.org/, archived January 3, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240103183605/https://archives.jdc.org/.

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Jewish Virtual Library. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2023. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/, archived January 10, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240110103110/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/.

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“JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry.” JewishGen. Accessed December 8, 2023. https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/, archived November 27, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231127113649/https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/.

Kaplan-Meyer, Gabrielle. “Jewish Folk Art.” My Jewish Learning. 70 Faces Media. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-folk-art/, archived March 28, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230328223758/https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-folk-art/.

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The Pinkas Project. Accessed December 8, 2023. https://www.pinkasproject.org/, archived June 9, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230609082639/https://www.pinkasproject.org/.

Princeton Geniza Project. The Trustees of Princeton University, 2023. https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/, archived January 10, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240110063250/https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/.

“Search the Online Archive.” Arolsen Archives. International Center on Nazi Persecution. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://arolsen-archives.org/en/search-explore/search-online-archive/, archived December 24, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231224183044/https://arolsen-archives.org/en/search-explore/search-online-archive/.

Sefaria. Accessed December 8, 2023. https://www.sefaria.org/texts, archived January 11, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240111040338/https://www.sefaria.org/texts.

The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. Jewish Women’s Archive, 2023. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia, archived January 10, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240110085247/https://jwa.org/encyclopedia.

“Survivor Reflections and Testimonies.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed December 8, 2023. https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-reflections-testimonies, archived November 24, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231124185047/https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-reflections-testimonies.

“Testimonies.” Yad Vashem, 2023. https://www.yadvashem.org/archive/about/testimonies.html, archived August 15, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230322232359/https://www.yadvashem.org/archive/about/testimonies.html.

“Theater.” Jewish Virtual Library. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2023. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/theater, archived March 18, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230318065014/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/theater.

USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://vha.usc.edu/home, archived January 10, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240110212416/https://vha.usc.edu/home.

Union for Reform Judaism. “What is Kabbalah?” Accessed October 30, 2023. https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/spirituality/what-kabbalah, archived July 4, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240704224531/https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/spirituality/what-kabbalah.

“What is Ladino?” My Jewish Learning. 70 Faces Media. Accessed June 16, 2023. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ladino/, archived July 5, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240705220739/https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ladino/.

“Who We Are.” Arolsen Archives. International Center on Nazi Persecution. Accessed June 16, 2023. https://arolsen-archives.org/en/about-us/who-we-are/, archived July 5, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240705221222/https://arolsen-archives.org/en/about-us/who-we-are/.

“Welcome to the EHRI Portal.” The EHRI Project, 2023. https://portal.ehri-project.eu/, archived December 30, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231219042420/https://portal.ehri-project.eu/.

“Welcome to Yerusha.” Yerusha. Accessed June 16, 2023. https://yerusha.eu/, archived August 28, 2028, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230828105519/https://yerusha.eu/.

The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 2023. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/, archived January 5, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240105012444/https://yivoencyclopedia.org/.

Yizkor Books. Yiddish Book Center. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/yizkor-books, archived December 7, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231207070238/https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/yizkor-books.

“Your Guide to Jewish Holidays.” My Jewish Learning. 70 Faces Media. Accessed December 8, 2023. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/types-of-jewish-holidays/, archived December 1, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231201212257/https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/types-of-jewish-holidays/.

 

Endnotes

[1] Jewish Virtual Library, American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, accessed December 8, 2023, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/, archived January 10, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240110103110/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/.

[2] The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, Jewish Women’s Archive, accessed December 8, 2023, https://jwa.org/encyclopedia, archived January 10, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240110085247/https://jwa.org/encyclopedia.

[3] The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, accessed December 8, 2023, https://yivoencyclopedia.org/, archived January 5, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240105012444/https://yivoencyclopedia.org/ .

[4] “Jewish Studies,” Oxford Bibliographies, Oxford University Press, accessed December 8, 2023, https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/jewish-studies, archived February 25, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240225161040/https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/jewish-studies.

[5] “Bibliography of the Hebrew Book,” National Library of Israel, accessed June 16, 2023, https://www.nli.org.il/en/research-and-teach/catalogs#hebrew, archived November 28, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20231128043006/https://www.nli.org.il/en/research-and-teach/catalogs#hebrew.

[6] Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time and Place, Columbia University Libraries, accessed December 8, 2023, https://footprints.ctl.columbia.edu/, archived June 6, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230606191556/https://footprints.ctl.columbia.edu/.

[7] Sefaria, accessed December 8, 2023, https://www.sefaria.org/texts, archived January 11, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240111040338/https://www.sefaria.org/texts.

[8] JewishGen, accessed December 8, 2023, https://www.jewishgen.org/, archived January 5, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240105220759/https://jewishgen.org/.

[9] The Pinkas Project, accessed December 8, 2023, https://www.pinkasproject.org/, archived June 9, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230609082639/https://www.pinkasproject.org/.

[10] Tomasz M. Jankowski, “The Quality of Vital Registration of the Jews in East-Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century,” Studia Judaica 23, no. 2 (2020): 235–80.

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About the author

Hallel Yadin is an archivist at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. She holds an M.L.I.S. from the University of Missouri and a B.A. in history from Rutgers University.

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