Wonderful

Jewish Texts Lost in War Are Surfacing in New York

In 1932, as the Nazis rose to power in Germany, a Jewish librarian in Frankfurt published a catalog of 15,000 books he had painstakingly collected for decades.

It listed the key texts of a groundbreaking field called the Science of Judaism, in which scholars analyzed the religion’s philosophy and culture as they would study those of ancient Greece or Rome. The school of thought became the foundation for modern Jewish studies around the world.

In the tumult of war, great chunks of the collection vanished. Now, librarians an ocean away have determined that most of the missing titles have been sitting for years on the crowded shelves of the Leo Baeck Institute, a Manhattan center dedicated to preserving German Jewish culture.

After I got my undergraduate degree in History and Sociology with the Honours Programme (a 'Great Books' curriculum), I went back and finished a major in Classical Civilisation and a minor in Judaic Studies. I'm not Jewish, but I've been drawn to the study of the Jewish people, especially the era of the Holocaust (I don't know, a past life?) since I was a teenager. I did even consider conversion at one point, although paganism won out for me.

I'm so glad this collection has, despite the odds, survived those tumultuous years when the Nazis attempted to eradicate anything Jewish from the world. It is a boon for scholars, but also for the Jewish people, as these books are not only a testament to their history in their content, but in their story of survival as well.

Thanks to Great Western Dragon of LISNews for the link.