Library
Instructions for Use
Hours:
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
To use our library, please register in advance via the Scheduler. There, you can also specify the purpose of your research and whether you need a workstation.
You can find instructions for the Scheduler here.
Our library is a reference library. As a general rule, borrowing is permitted only in exceptional cases.
The library of the Martin Buber Institute for Jewish Studies is a research reference library that was established in 1966 with the founding of the institute as one of the first specialized libraries in Jewish studies in Germany after World War II. With a total of approximately 18,000 volumes of standard and specialized literature in Hebrew and other languages, including extensive collections of historical value, it serves as a small but significant and internationally recognized specialized library in Jewish Studies, providing the Institute’s faculty and students with the specialized literature necessary for teaching, research, and study. It is open to the public and may be used by anyone by appointment.
The foundation of the library was laid by large portions of the private library of Kalman Schlesinger, a Cologne-based bookseller who lived in Jerusalem after 1933; these were acquired between 1972 and 1975 with support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and private donations. The collection includes approximately 100 prints from before 1800, 30 of which are early 16th-century Hebrew prints, including some from the early modern centers of Hebrew book printing: Venice, Padua, and Mantua.
With the Schlesinger Collection, the Martin Buber Institute acquired original manuscripts from the 16th to the 18th centuries from North Africa, primarily liturgical poetry and mysticism, including some unpublished material from medieval Hebrew poetry, as well as letters from Jewish figures in the fields of science, culture, and religion from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among these are originals by Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Shmuel Josef Agnon, Abraham Berliner, Salomon Buber, Rav Naftali Zwi Jehuda Berlin, Isaak Chajes, Israel Davidson, Joseph Eschelbacher, Isaak Dov B. Markom, and Moritz Steinschneider.
The Martin Buber Institute Library focuses particularly on rabbinic and Talmudic literature, medieval religious and intellectual history—especially philosophy and mysticism—Halakha, liturgical and secular poetry, and, as a special area of focus, the history of medicine. In recent years, the collection has been expanded in the field of 19th- and 20th-century Jewish social and intellectual history. This includes numerous first editions of works by significant Jewish authors of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Max Nordau, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Hermann Cohen; a collection of German-language Zionist writings from the period 1890–1948, as well as more recent standard and specialized literature on the topics of persecution, the Shoah, and the history of modern Israel.
If you have any questions about our holdings or our collection, please do not hesitate to contact us. Information on the library’s layout can be found here.
Library Rules
Rooms 306 (seminar room), 314 (Talmud room), and 315 (Medieval room) are available to library users as study areas, provided they are not currently in use for classes. Please take any books you need from the lecture halls to the study room well in advance of the start of classes. After use, the books must be returned exactly to the location indicated by their call number. Smoking, eating, and drinking are prohibited in the lecture and study rooms.
The alphabetical author catalogs and the (systematic) location catalog are generally accessible. No cards may be removed from them, even temporarily.