Norman E. Alexander Library for Jewish Studies

09/16/2026

We're excited to announce this year's Norman E. Alexander Celebration of Collections, we are looking forward to hearing from Professors Yaron ben-Naeh (Hebrew University) on Jews in Adrianople, Agata Paluch (University of Cologne) on Kabbalah in Germany, and Noam Sienna (University of Minnesota) on a previously unknown edition printed in the Mediterranean in the 16th century!

Register here: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RZ5Ejge6RxKwnlxO_GKAMg

07/23/2026

Nice to see Columbia alumnus Samson Simson (also the first alum to endow a financial gift) featured here!

For more on Jews at Columbia (including our first Jewish graduate, from the class of 1774), check out our “Jews at Columbia” series on the blog!

https://blogs.library.columbia.edu/jewishstudiesatcul/2024/08/26/jews-at-columbia-the-first-hundred-years-1754-1854/

Columbia University has a long history of Jewish participation, dating back to its founding. Columbia began as King’s College in 1754, under a royal charter from King George II of England. Following American independence, the charter was rewritten, and, unlike peer institutions of the period, it required representation from every “respective religious denomination in this State.”

In 1800, Sampson Simson, the first Jewish graduate, was one of fifteen speakers at Columbia’s commencement. At the time, it was common for graduates to give formal addresses in ancient languages, and Simson gave his in Hebrew. Replete with references to the Old Testament, the speech shared the history of Jews in America. According to Michael Hoberman, a Professor of English at Fitchburg State University and author of “Imagining Early American Jews,” Simson “equated the establishment of a Jewish community in New York with the birth of the American nation.”

A new exhibition ALL WE HAVE STANDING BETWEEN US, offers a timely opportunity to reflect on the past and consider the future of democracy in America. On view starting July 21st at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, NYC. For more, visit https://ajhs.org/democracy/

Presented by the American Jewish Historical Society, the Center for Jewish History, and Yeshiva University Museum.

Simson family papers (P-109)

07/15/2026

We're so grateful to the amazing Columbia University Libraries conservation department and very kind donors for allowing us to care for the collection and allow their continued use into the future.

07/14/2026

We're so proud of Vera (and grateful for the excellent work she's done with collections at Columbia as well!)

has welcomed Vera Kurczewski as a Student Research Scholar. She's an undergraduate student at Columbia University where she studies twentieth-century European and Jewish History.

As a high school student at Wilbur Cross, Vera became acquainted with as a Yale University Pathways to Arts and Humanities scholar, and through her involvement with Academic Programs Librarian Aya Marczyk's Race and Citizenship in N**i Germany and Jim Crow US course.

Later, as a Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Library Ambassador, Vera continued engaging with and reviewed testimony for our exhibition "In the First Person." She continues her archival research within Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library and the Norman E. Alexander Library for Jewish Studies. She also serves on the Undergraduate Advisory Council at the The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

As a Fortunoff Archive Student Research Scholar, Vera's research will examine the individual testimony of Poznań's Jewish residents and their displacement amid the Germanification of the city. To illustrate the transformation of Posen, the German name for Poznań, Vera will explore the lived effects of antisemitism and migration that resulted in the diminution of Jewish Life in Poznań, Poland. By studying and amplifying testimony, she aims to revive the forgotten Jewish history of Poznań, a history she argues has become effaced from public consciousness. Through her work, Vera also aspires to reposition the scholarly conversation concerning the expulsion of Jews from Poznań.

05/28/2026

Are you coming to Reunion tomorrow? Join us for a sneak peek into the Jewish Studies classroom, and learn a bit about how students get to engage with rare books, manuscripts, and objects as part of learning with the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies (IIJS).

02/05/2026

Have you seen our latest exhibit, “Jewish Studies at Columbia: From Samuel Johnson to the IIJS”?

https://blogs.library.columbia.edu/jewishstudiesatcul/2025/12/03/exhibition-jewish-studies-at-columbia-from-samuel-johnson-to-the-iijs/

On display on the third floor of Butler Library through March 22!

09/29/2025

Did you notice this lovely chap while strolling toward the circulation desk on the third floor of Butler? It's part of a new exhibition created and curated by a student from the School of the Arts: "Streets Taken: Photographs by Edward Schwartz with new works by Francisco Javier Ramírez."

09/26/2025

Save the date! This year's Norman E. Alexander Celebration of Collections will be on December 1. "Beyond the Text: Reading Jewish History Between the Words" with Prof. Edward Fram, Columbia's own Prof. Elisheva Carlebach, and Dr. Eugene Matanky. Register here:

This year's annual NEA Celebration of Collections has an early modern focus, where three scholars will discuss their research on what we find in books when we look beyond the actual texts - at annotations, illustrations, and other paratexts. Professor Elisheva Carlebach (Columbia University) will di...

04/23/2025

We're excited about a new exhibition up The Burke Library - Columbia University featuring UTS MS 74, a 14th century Hebrew Bible with Judeo-Spanish inscriptions and gorgeous micrography of the Masorah.

The focus of "Restored to Perfection? Inside the Remaking of a Fourteenth-Century Hebrew Bible" is the incredible conservation work that will preserve it well into the future.

If you can't make it to Burke, you can see the manuscript in its entirety online: https://archive.org/details/ldpd_17650687_000/

02/27/2025

New post, highlighting both old and new collections:

This was originally written for the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies' magazine, 2024 edition. It is presented here with some light edits and news about a recent acquisition since the article was first published. The country of Yemen, at the entrance of the Red Sea, has been in the new