The Jewish National and University Library, which is located on the Hebrew University grounds on Mt. Scopus, is now the largest library in the Middle East, it was stated today by chief librarian Prof. Gotthold Weil, at a press conference on the occasion of the institution’s fiftieth anniversary which will be celebrated July 29.
The library now contains more than 400,000 volumes, including the world’s largest collection of Hebraica, as well as one of the largest collections of Hebrew incunabula, and an extensive collection of medical works. Included in the collection of Hebraica are ninety-five percent of the volumes printed in Hebrew throughout the world during the last five centuries, including a unique haggada published in 1482 and one published in 1941 with illustrations by the noted Polish-Jewish cartoonist Arthur Szyk. A comprehensive collection of Orientalia is also housed in the library.
The library’s activities are now geared to the war effort, Dr. Weil, who was formerly librarian of the German State Library in Berlin, stated. It furnishes information required by doctors, engineers and other specialists and technicians engaged in war work. He appealed to the people of Palestine and overseas to become a new source for the collections which used to come from European countries that are now in the hands of the Nazis.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
