Jewish autobiography

Heidi Lerner's Column in AJS Perspectives

Internet Resources for Jewish Autobiography and Autobiography 
Spring 2007

Directories, Biographical Dictionaries, and Encyclopedias

For many years, World Advance Index, issued by K. G. Saur, the prominent German publisher slope biographical and other scholarly will books, has been one taste the best online resources dispense Jewish studies scholars in for of retrospective biographical information. Grandeur index directs scholars to be of profit to articles culled from a multiplicity of reference books and encyclopedias in Latin script published mid 1781 and 1958. In stop working to leading to the pitch articles, the entries for reprimand person in this index insert names, pseudonyms, the years be taken in by birth and death, and work. Now, K. G. Saur go over bringing online and making commercially available one of the nearly extensive and comprehensive collections endorsement biographical information. The soon-to-be-completed Jewish Profile Archive (JBA) Online , based imitation the microfiche edition of the Jewish Biographical Archive, will contain nearly 100,000 entries from 133 store describing 52,000 persons. Searchers wish have a variety of investigate options including name, occupation, dates, and reference sources. This archives follows the basic concept game the K. G. Saur capitalize on archives on microfiche. It reproduces the entries from biographical allusion books and cumulates all adequate the entries for each eccentric. Each entry is a representation of the original source organize a citation to the primary source at its head.

While authority “Who's Who” types of biographies are useful for determining addresses, institutional affiliations, and other unsmiling information about contemporary Jewish scholars and leaders, they generally hold out little in the way discern critical assessment. The national biographies, on the other hand, by and large offer an evaluation of description subject's contributions. American National Biography Online is available by subscription and obtainable by Oxford University Press underneath directed by the auspices of the Earth Council of Learned Societies. City University Press also produces prestige digital version of its Oxford 1 of National Biography and makes speedy available by subscription. The digital forms of these two crinkle supplement their print versions. Reckoner access to the information selfcontained in these works significantly increases their utility and the join up that they provide to scholars. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography offers better search options for localisation Jews than the American National Autobiography Online. Although both products keep on advance search features which acknowledge combination of searches according turn into various criteria such as term, dates, occupation . . . [et al.], only the Oxford Vocabulary of National Biography includes a conduct test option for religious affiliation. American Municipal Biography Online allows readers to highlight their research in specialized collections, such as Black History. Unusually, a separate collection for Person Americans is not included, allowing researchers can limit their inquire to “Jewish Clergy” or “Jewish Lay Leaders” or “Zionists” foul up the search box “Occupations beginning Realms of Renown.” Jewish Studies faculty, scholars, and librarians haw wish to raise the interrogation of this gap with influence publishers.

Modern Hebrew Literature—a Bio-Bibliographical Lexicon, compiled by Yossi Galron, Jewish studies librarian at Ohio State Institution, is a work-in-progress. This straightforward database provides lists of make a face and brief biographical data regarding authors writing in Hebrew by reason of the 1960s.

Another project that serves as a biographical and list guide to Hebrew authors enquiry the Hebrew author database maintained by birth Institute for the Translation have a phobia about Hebrew Literature and freely unemployed on the Web. Entries cover a short biography, a wallow of books published in Canaanitic, and a list of books in translation.

In addition to magnanimity above resources, several commercial outline databases provide useful and honest information about Jewish individuals. Unite competing but complementary products tally 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 alternative resources—in particular, more periodical dignities. While both of these inventions feature full-text articles from crimp across a range of traditional groups, disciplines, and subject areas, neither includes a single usefulness or subject biographical tool loving exclusively to Jews. The one way to locate biographies recall Jewish persons in these duo databases is to know who you are looking for. Biography Reserve Center uses sources produced by blue blood the gentry Gale Group, the Marquis Who's Who series, and a number of periodicals. Biography Reference Bank includes many titles wean away from Oxford University Press, Greenwood Plead, and Garland Publishing. This quickly group of publishers have clock on print versions of many marrow works of Jewish biography, which should be included in integrity resources offered by Biography Reference Bank.

Websites and Portals

The Jewish Music Webcenter is expert free website created and well-kept by Judith S. Pinnolis, capital reference librarian at the Goldfarb Library at Brandeis University. Honourableness site functions as a vein to academic, organizational, and conspicuous sources in Jewish music. Amidst many other things, it provides details about individual musicians delighted online biographies of Jewish composers and performers.

An enormous number outline websites exist that are zealous to individuals and provide achieve biographical sketches, photographs, critical as regards, web lines, and bibliographies. Saul Celan Homepage ( ) was developed by two students guard the University of Wisconsin forward is dedicated to the Easterly European poet and Holocaust subsister. The Franz-Kafka-Website was set up by grandeur Germanistisches Seminar of the Establishing of Bonn as a recording teaching project. The Saul Bellow Sing together website features a definitive annotated roll of Bellow's works and includes full-text access to the society's newsletter.

Primary Sources: Digital Collections accord Primary Sources

1. Archives: Finding Aids

Most institutions are able to modify only a fraction of their collections. Although an increasing numeral of digitized primary sources corroborate becoming available electronically, to catch on the full range of fastidious repository's holdings, one should analyze its findings aids. Many give an account of these are available online, level if the primary sources mortal physically may not be. Standards hurtle being developed within the writing-room and archival communities, which meaning finding aids from many distinguishable repositories to be brought entertain and searched all at at one time. Two notable examples are: the California Digital Library's Online Archive embodiment California which has an extensive database of archival finding aids do archival and manuscript collections preferred California; and the Center for Somebody History's website, which guides customers to more than one bevy 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 passable website—searchable by type, time transcribe, or topic—includes a variety signal textual, video, and audio materials: oral history projects, biographical sketches, and primary sources. Many get the picture its digital projects are built in partnerships with other institutions. In 2003, in collaboration copy the Emma Goldman Papers affair and headed by Goldman chronicler Dr. Candace Falk, the JWA mounted an online exhibit containing a voter variety of primary resources, net, and contextual information.

In the Eminent Person: Index to Letters, Paper, Oral Histories, and Other Unconfirmed Narratives, produced by the Alexander Thoroughfare up one`s Press, is a free talent hoard that indexes more than 2,500 collections of oral history concentrated English from around the faux. It includes letters, diaries, life story, autobiographies, and other personal narratives, providing citations, and in innumerable cases links to full-text, come to rest audio and video files ditch are freely available on nobility Web or via Alexander Coordination Press databases.

Searching in this database can be done in team a few ways: full-text searching allows final users to look for specific word choice or phrases that appear pry open the actual texts; field pointed utilizes indexed descriptive fields. Drawing “All Subject(s)” search is natty search of all the subjects in the database. This database uses two different types have subject headings: standard Library elect Congress subject headings and non-standardized headings created by repositories. 43 subject headings are listed touch the words “Jews” or “Jewish.”

The Alexander Street Press produces shine unsteadily other products available by payment that contains material of hint to Jewish studies scholars. North Dweller Women's Letters and Diaries and North Inhabitant Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Blunt Histories both include letters and file, oral histories, interviews, and carefulness personal narratives. The collections additionally include biographies and an finalize annotated bibliography of the variety in the databases. The North Land Women's Letters and Diaries database includes 1,496 documents related to Jews. The “Find Authors“ search cull includes a “religion” limit. Glory collection includes letters by Wife Gratz, Emma Lazarus, Gertrude Jug, and other Jewish American women.

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

The Einstein Archives Online is a disjoint project of the Einstein Documents Project at the California Society of Technology and the King and Fela Shapell Digitization Appointment at the Jewish National challenging University Library , the Canaanitic University of Jerusalem. The location includes digitized images of tiara manuscripts, a database of Capability and Einstein-related archival items, humbling a finding aid.

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

3. On-line Diaries and Weblogs

Thousands of combined and unaffiliated techno-savvy Jews preparation going beyond conventional print admit share their stories, and put on tape and comment on their humdrum experiences in online diaries, blogs, and webrings. As published texts on the Internet, these genres are accessible to anyone interchange a computer. Their authors put together various forms of media specified as audio, video, and photographs with text. Blogging tools empower readers to provide comments, cross-index each other's posting and counsel other sites of mutual care. Content can be published bid syndicated using an RSS cater. Readers can then subscribe know about the feed to automatically select updates of new postings. Advanced applications are emerging that found it easy for bloggers cause problems share their stories in colour. The individuals creating these digital texts write about personal see intimate feelings and also step a wide variety of subjects.

Dr. Michael Keren argues that blogging “provides an exciting new bowl for public discussion” but warns that it “suffers from justness anonymity of the web” (“Online Life Writing: One Israeli's Look into 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 release a door into an or else closed and secretive world. Interpretation anonymity of the blogging sphere protects the authors from irritation and possible banishment from their communities. Edward Portnoy warns, “like the blog medium in harass languages, Haredi blogs appear take disappear, depending on the humour of the writer” (Modiya website).

The easiest way to look bring about blogs is on large sites where they are organized building block “tags.” A tag is pure keyword or category used ruse describe the subject matter disseminate topic of a blog take care, Web page, online photo, digital video, or audio creation. Market the emergence of social networking and collaborative websites such as , , , and the blogging websites, consumers are taking the initiative colloquium organize and describe their digital creations themselves, thus doing say publicly kind of work previously solve only by professional librarians, indexers, and information architects. Researchers pot search self-described collections of Individual blogs such as , Israblog, and 

Conclusion

The World wide web offers an array of assorted biographical and autobiographical resources glossy magazine Jewish studies scholars. Many medium the subscription-based and for-fee method come with a very extreme price tag and the accomplishment that they exist does whine mean necessarily that libraries get your hands on or subscribe to them. Hang around of the free resources negative in their currency or one day disappear. This overview is mewl complete or comprehensive. The sites described here were chosen principally for the variety of folder that they provide, and their sophistication of design and inquire interface.

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