The Judaica Suite brings together thousands of rare and scarce volumes documenting the development of the Science of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums), a transformative scholarly movement that, beginning in the mid-19th century and extending to the Second World War, established the academic study of Jewish history, texts, and culture. Many of these works are the primary sources upon which the field was built. The Suite’s Rare Book Room preserves more than 800 volumes printed between 1491 and 1899, representing centuries of Jewish intellectual life. The books listed below are some highlights from this rare book collection.
- Isaac Ben Moses Arama, Sefer Akedat Yitzhak (The Binding of Isaac), Venice, 1545: A unique copy of Arama’s philosophical sermons on the Torah, combining manuscript pages with printed leaves showing marks of censorship. The book has been carefully restored in a binding faithful to its original period.
- Damiano de Odemira, Libro da imparare giochare a scachi (A Book for Learning Chess), Rome, 1525: One of the earliest printed chess manuals written by a Jewish apothecary from Portugal.
- Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno, Zeh Sefer ‘Or ha-‘Amim (Light of the Nations), Bologna, 1537: First edition of Sforno’s philosophical treatise, refuting Aristotelian views he considered incompatible with Judaism’s fundamental principles. This was the inaugural publication of a short-lived Hebrew press run by Bologna’s Guild of Silk Weavers, which produced only nine books between 1537 and 1541. Sforno reviewed the galleys, with his corrections appearing on the final pages.
- Meir Nativ (Bible Concordance), Basel, 1581: Compiled by Rabbi Isaac Nathan in the fifteenth century, Meir Nativ is the first concordance of the Hebrew Bible, organizing biblical words alphabetically by root to aid interpretation. Modeled in part on Christian concordances, it was designed to support Jewish scholars in public disputations. The Price Library’s copy bears the signatures of two censors: Giovanni Domenico Carretto (1618) and Domenico Gerosolimitano (1590s).
- Hamisha Humshei Torah (Pentateuch, Haphtaroth, and Five Scrolls), Amsterdam, 1682: An exceptionally rare edition of the Bible, notable for recording the name of a rabbinic scholar in the New World. The colophon at the end of Exodus identifies the typesetter as Jacob, son of Moshe Raphael de Cordova of the Holy Congregation in Brazil. De Cordova worked for several Dutch Jewish printers, including Uri Phoebus and David de Castro Tartas. No printer is named for the full volume; only the Haftaroth title page bears the date 1682.
- Isaac Pinto, Prayers for Shabbath, Rosh-Hashanah, and Kippur, or the Sabbath, New York, 1766: The first English translation of a Jewish prayer book, produced by Isaac Pinto, a Sephardi immigrant and member of New York’s Shearith Israel congregation. Pinto translated the prayers for congregants unfamiliar with Hebrew. Reflecting its colonial context, the book also included a prayer for King George III.
- Torah nevi’im u-ketuvim (Biblia Hebraica), Joseph Athias, Amsterdam, 1705: This second edition of Joseph Athias’ celebrated quarto Hebrew Bible, features Masoretic notes and corrections from earlier editions. Athias’ Bible was prepared in consultation with Christian scholars from the University of Utrecht and was long regarded as one of the finest Hebrew Bibles available.
- Sefer Berit Yitshak, Amsterdam, 1768: A Sephardic circumcision manual that reflects Jewish ritual life in the late eighteenth century. The volume includes a preface by the editor, a Portuguese list of mohelim active in Amsterdam and other Sephardic centers, and Hebrew texts outlining study on the eve of circumcision and the liturgical order for the rite, including adult circumcision for the children of conversos returning to Judaism.
- Orden de las oraciones cotidianas por stilo seguido, Aaron Nodnarb, London, 1792: An extremely rare Spanish translation of the Hebrew prayer book printed in London by Aaron Nodnarb, a pseudonym (and palindrome) used to conceal the printer’s identity while producing works for crypto-Jews living under threat of the Inquisition. The Price Library copy lacks its front and back pages but preserves the daily prayers, portions for the festivals, and a calendar of Jewish holidays for 1770–1790, whose title page reveals the printer’s name.
- The Form of Prayers according to the custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, W. Justins, Blackfriars, London, 1788: First owned by a Jewish family in Barbados, this prayer book reflects the close commercial and familial ties linking Sephardi communities in the British West Indies and London in the eighteenth century. On the end leaves, the owner, Nathan Hart, recorded intimate details of family life, including his marriage to Jael Costela, the births of his children, and the death of his mother on St. Thomas in 1808, transforming the volume into a deeply personal family record.
- Biblia Hebraica, 2 volumes, William Fry & Thomas Dobson, Philadelphia, 1814: The first Hebrew Bible printed in America, using metal movable Hebrew type belonging to Jonathan Horowitz, a Dutch Jewish printer. Horowitz planned to print his text based on the second edition of Joseph Athias’ Bible, but, unable to raise enough subscriptions to produce it himself, he sold his font to the printer Fry and his subscriber list to the bookseller Dobson.
- Abigail Lindo, Hebrew and English Dictionary, London, 1846: Compiled by Abigail Lindo, this dictionary was produced under conventions that muted women’s authorship: the title page identifies Lindo only as the “third daughter of David Abarbanel Lindo” and notes that the work was “not published.” A gifted philologist from a prominent Sephardi family, Lindo expanded classical Hebrew to express modern life, supplying Hebrew equivalents for contemporary objects and concepts decades before the revival of spoken Hebrew.
In addition to individual rare books, the Price Library of Judaica boasts the extraordinary rabbinic working library of Rev. Hermann Doych. Treasures in this collection, include:
Solomon Ibn Melech, Sefer Mikhlol yofi (Biblical commentary), Amsterdam, 1684: This edition was printed by David de Castro Tartas, the son of Portuguese Jewish conversos who returned to Judaism after fleeing the Inquisition for Amsterdam. Trained as a compositor at Menasseh ben Israel’s press, David established his own in 1662, competing with leading printers Uri Phoebus and Joseph Athias.
Sefer Shomer ha-berit (Prayers for Brit Milah), Amsterdam, 1718: Includes a long, handwritten Hebrew inscription at the end of the book by Avraham Cohen, dating to the mid-18th century, recounting the birth of his two sons, Eliezer and Shimon.
Saul Lowenstamm, Sefer Binyan Ariel (Commentary), Amsterdam, 1778: A two-part biblical commentary printed in three sections by different members of the Proops family, a prominent Dutch printing house. The Price Library’s copy bears ownership inscriptions connecting it to Abraham David Rosenberger of Michelfeld, Germany, and his family.
Otsar ha-shorashim (Dictionary), 3 volumes, Wien, 1816: the library’s copies have handwritten Hebrew inscriptions in the first and third volumes recording family births and deaths.