The Digital Haskalah, an online library of all of the primary sources discussed in the “Cultural Revolution in Berlin: Jews in the age of Enlightenment" (Oxford: JJS and Bodleian, 2011; by Shmuel Feiner and Natalie Naimark-Goldberg) is part of a larger project. It was designed as a virtual source reader; together with the book it forms a companion to a conference on Jewish Enlightenment and an exhibition in the Bodleian Library (February 2011), for which some of the most important books from the Leopold Zunz Collection and the Bodleian library had been selected.
The 'bibliography' lists over seventy rare books and pamphlets that had been chosen by the authors to tell the story of Jews in the age of Enlightenment, emphasizing the role of Berlin Jewry. "In [their] monograph Shmuel Feiner and Natalie Naimark-Goldberg lead the readers along the shelves of the Müller Library with a small excursion among the manuscripts of the Bodleian Library, thus opening up Oxford's unique resources for the study of modern Jewish history”.[1] The Digital Haskalah Library goes even further; it enables the interested parties to access the library shelves virtually, to admire not only the title pages or binding of the eighteen- and nineteenth-century works from afar, but to actually browse and read all seventy sources online, from the comfort of their own home or office.
"Cultural Revolution in Berlin: Jews in the age of Enlightenment" by Shmuel Feiner and Natalie Naimark-Goldberg, published as a first supplement to the Journal of Jewish Studies in association with Bodleian Library Publishing (2011), is a joint project managed by Dr. Piet van Boxel (Hebrew Curator - Bodleian Library; Head Librarian - Muller Library), and the Journal of Jewish Studies.
Approximately half of the primary sources available through the Digital Haskalah Library belongs to the Muller Library and had been digitised in-house. The other half has already been put online by other libraries and institutions (acknowledgements and links to these digital reproductions are provided in the 'LINKS AND DOWNLOADS' box of each subsite in the 'access the digital collection' section). The main aim was to make sure that the exact editions of books listed in the 'bibliography' are made available. In some cases links to more than one edition are provided.
We are very grateful to the Foyle Foundation for its generous support to the project.
[1] - from Piet van Boxel's Preface to "Cultural Revolution in Berlin: Jews in the age of Enlightenment."
In-house digitisation by Carolyn Kincade.
Digital design and management by Milena Zeidler.
