Gershon Scholem’s Library and the Cairo Geniza
The Times of Israel has an article about Gershom Scholem’s library and its importance.
Although Gershom Scholem is most well-known as a Jewish cultural figure and the definitive scholar of Jewish mysticism and Kabbala, he was also the first head librarian of the nascent National Library’s Judaica collection, from shortly after his aliya in 1923 until 1927 (he was appointed as a professor at the Hebrew University in 1925). Scholem the librarian revolutionized the use of the Dewey Decimal System for Judaica, creating a new hybrid method that is still used in many Judaica collections today.
His book collection, considered the finest on the subject of Jewish mysticism in the world, was also always a Zionist endeavor. Even before making aliya, Scholem decided to donate his collection to a yet-to-be-built National Library in the future Jewish State and attempted to persuade other Jewish scholars in Germany to donate theirs as well. At a time when most German Jews were pro-assimilation and anti-Zionist, Scholem’s idea to found a scientific scholarship of Jewish subjects in the Holy Land was considered radical and won him few friends.
Manuscriptboy notifies us that the Bodleian Library has posted online the Geniza fragments from its collection.