Central Judaica Database
Internet users can now access descriptions and photographs of over 3000 objects from the collections of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute. The database is expected to grow and to include the collections of new project partners.
The Central Judaica Database will feature basic information about objects as well as their images in 2D and 3D technology, easily accessible to every internet user through our website: www.jewishmuseum.org.pl.
The objects digitised till now come from the collections of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the Jewish Historical Institute, our first project partner.
At a later stage, the Museum has plans to cooperate with other institutions and museums whose collections contain Judaica. We are currently at the beginning of a large, Poland-wide project. Talks are underway with the Head Office of the State Archives, the Archaeological Museum and the Historical and Archaeological Museum in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski.
The database contains over 3000 Judaica – above all, unique, previously unshown mementos of great historical and sentimental value, bearing witness to the thousand years of Jewish history in Poland.
They include, for instance, an XVIII-century document by duke Karol Radziwill, nominating the kehilla rabbi in Birza, a shoe insert made out of a Torah fragment, a klezmer guitar branded with a star of David, Wladyslaw Szpilman’s tie, XVI-century old prints, a Cafe-Bar Zacheta programme from 1940, pre-war matzo cards, a dentist’s signboard from the Warsaw ghetto and many more. We are also presenting artworks from the rich collection of the Jewish Historical Institute, including works by Maurycy Gottlieb, Artur Markowicz, Wilhelm Wachtel or Samuel Hirszenberg as well as the famous Berlin Collection.
Through the Central Judaica Database the Museum of the History of Polish Jews wishes to integrate Judaica resources from all over Poland, bringing information about Judaica from over 500 Polish museums and archives together in one place. Our aim in the future is also to provide access to foreign collections documenting Jewish life in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe.
Our first step towards making foreign resources available in the Central Judaica Database has consisted in signing an agreement with YIVO. The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is one of the most prominent and largest Jewish archives in the world, created in 1925 in the then Polish city of Vilnius. With the transfer of YIVO to New York in 1940, further activity in Central Europe was discontinued. Now, thanks to the agreement between the MHPJ and YIVO, the latter’s resources will be available on the old continent for the first time in over 70 years. The YIVO library contains over 385 000 volumes, while its archives include over 24 million positions, including manuscripts, documents, photographs, sound recordings, artworks, films, posters, music scores and other artefacts linked to Jewish history in Central and Eastern Europe.
The Central Judaica database will make it possible for anyone to discover elements of the history and culture of Jews in Poland without needing to leave their home. It will be a first step encouraging people to get to know this incredibly rich heritage. The internet Judaica catalogue will also serve museum staff, scholars and teachers. High school and university students as well as researchers into Jewish history will have the opportunity to expand their knowledge, while educators will have an easier time coming up with teaching scenarios. Also curators looking for items to include in Jewish-themed exhibitions will benefit from the material.
The project is financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage within the framework of the Multi-Annual Programme Kultura+, operated by the National Audio-Visual Institute. The Jewish Historical Institute is a partner of the project.
