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Main Judaic Library (Główna Biblioteka Judaistyczna
''. „Rzeczpospolita”, s. A5, 7 maja 2016. or Centralna Biblioteka Judaistyczna) is a currently defunct
Main Judaic Library (Główna Biblioteka Judaistyczna''. „Rzeczpospolita”, s. A5, 7 maja 2016. or Centralna Biblioteka Judaistyczna) is a currently defunct
library
A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...
, which was gathering collections concerning Judaism
Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
and the history of Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
in Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
.
Description
It was created as The Great Synagogue of Warsaw’s library between the years 1879 to 1880 at the behest of Ludwik Natanson, who had come up with the idea in 1860. The funds for setting up the library were raised through public collections and its existence was further assured by contributions from private founders along with a committee of the synagogue. The Historical Commission was functioning within the Library for many years, up until 1914, with its main purpose to gather collections, including documents fromqahal
The ''qahal'' (), sometimes spelled ''kahal'', was a theocratic organizational structure in ancient Israelite society according to the Hebrew Bible, See column345-6 and an Ashkenazi Jewish system of a self-governing community or kehila from ...
s’ archives and a variety of manuscripts. Samuel Poznański was in charge of the Commission. Mojżesz Moszkowski was a long-standing librarian.
In 1927, Moses Schorr led activities to build a new headquarters of the Library. The new facility of the Main Judaic Library, erected between 1928-1936 at Tłomackie Street 3/5, was designed by Edward Eber. The building was designed in modernized historicism (semi-modernism), corresponding to the architecture of the Great Synagogue. It was also the headquarters of the Institute for Judaic Studies.
From November 1940 until March 1942, the building was within the Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...
borders. It hosted the headquarters of the Jewish Social Self-Help, a staging point for Jews forcibly resettled from Germany and a storage unit for furniture stolen in the ghetto. Although it sustained damage, the edifice endured the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the ...
and the Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...
, yet the Library’s collections were looted by the Germans. Some were restored after the war (according to other sources, the Library had lost all of its stock, i.e. 40,000 units).
On 16 May 1943, there was a fire in the Library which had begun after the explosion in the Great Synagogue. Traces of the fire on the lobby’s floor are visible today. The building’s address was Świerczewskiego Avenue 79 until the name of Tłomackie Street was restored in the 1980s.
The building of the former Main Judaic Library is currently the headquarters of the Jewish Historical Institute
The Jewish Historical Institute ( or ''ŻIH''; ), also known as the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, is a public cultural and research institution in Warsaw, Poland, chiefly dealing with the history of Jews in Poland and Jewish cul ...
.
The part of the ghetto that included the Great Synagogue and the Library in the years 1940-1942 has been commemorated by the Warsaw Ghetto boundary marker on the corner of Bielańska and Corazziego streets in 2008.
The mission of the Main Judaic Library is continued by the Central Jewish Library project.
In May 2016, the prewar inscription ''Main Judaic Library'' in Polish and Hebrew were recreated and placed above the main entrance.
Bibliography
* Zofia Borzymińska, Rafał Żebrowski: ''Polski słownik judaistyczny. Dzieje, kultura, religia, ludzie''. T. 1. Warszawa: Prószyński i S-ka, 2003, s. 189-191. .References