Denmark: Royal Library Digitizes Hebrew Books and Manuscripts

Denmark: Royal Library Digitizes Hebrew Books and Manuscripts

Schelly Talalay Dardashti who writes the always informative blog:

Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog.

Has posted news from the Royal Library in Copenhagen which has recently digitized a large collections of Jewish books and manscripts in its collection.

She writes:

The Royal Library (Copenhagen, Denmark) just made available some 160 Judaic manuscripts originally belonging to Rabbi David Simonsen (1853-1932). The collection was acquired by the library in 1932, and thanks to a private donation, they have been digitized.

The digitized collection contains items from 20 countries in 15 languages, and 163 volumes of various types, covering 131 shelfmarks, and more than 26,000 digitizations.

Denmark's Chief Rabbi, Simonsen was also a scholar, bibliophile and philanthropist, whose private library (some 25,000 printed volumes in numerous languages, 500 periodical titles and 160 manuscripts) forms the core of the Royal Library's Judaica Collection. Some items exist in only a few copies worldwide, making this collection very rare. His personal archives (some 100,000 documents, letters, etc.) are also at the Library.

The manuscripts have been digitized, with exceptions noted below. Read more about the project, including the user's guide. See the digital facsimiles here.

To read the rest of the posting, including information about Gemma’s Prayerbook, a Hebrew prayer book written for the widow Gemma (Yemma) in Modena, Italy in 1531, click below:

Denmark: Rare Jewish Manuscripts Online