Hebrew collections

Illuminated word panel featuring two birds
Detail from illuminated word panel featuring two birds at the beginning of the customs and prayers for the Jewish New Year. Italy, 3rd quarter of the 15th century (Add.MS.16577, f. 177r)

Assembled over the past 250 years first by the British Museum and since 1973 by the British Library, the Hebrew collection comprises holdings of material written and printed in Hebrew characters, ranging from manuscripts copied over 1,000 years ago to the most recent monographs and serials.

About the collection

Our collection - one of the most important in the world - encompasses all facets of Hebrew literature and a wide range of religious and secular area studies. It includes around 3,000 manuscript volumes and about 75,000 book titles – mostly in Hebrew and related languages that use the Hebrew script (e.g. Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish and various others). In addition there are approximately 7,000 manuscript fragments, mainly from the Cairo Genizah, nearly 1,000 Hebrew and Yiddish periodical and newspaper titles, and considerable numbers of manuscripts, printed books and periodicals in microforms.

Historically, the Samaritan manuscripts totalling 178 items, with some early specimens dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, have always formed part of the Hebrew collection. Together with that of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester the British Library’s Samaritan collection is not only one of the largest in the United Kingdom but in the whole of Europe.

Highlights of the Hebrew collection include: the London Codex, Egypt, c. 10th century (Or.4445); the Kaifeng Torah Scroll, China, 17th century (Add.MS.19250): the Lisbon Bible, Portugal, 15th century (Or.2626-2628): the Golden Haggadah, Catalonia, 14th century (Add.MS.27210); and the Duke of Sussex’s German Pentateuch, 14th century, Lake Constance (Add.MS.15282).

Material relating to Judaic studies is also to be found in Eastern European and Western language collections in the Department of Manuscripts and in the India Office Records.

What is available online?

Details of the Hebrew and Yiddish printed holdings are mostly available in the Library’s online catalogue, Explore the British Library

Some of the printed manuscript catalogues are available online in the Internet Archive. For example the 3-volume Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan manuscripts in the British museum (London, 1899), by George Margoliouth. Although its title mentions the Samaritan manuscripts, these were not in fact included in the catalogue.

We have finalised a three-year externally funded project to digitise 1300 Hebrew manuscripts from the collection. These digitised manuscripts have been uploaded and are searchable on the Library’s Digitised Manuscripts site. More information on the digitised manuscripts can be found on the Hebrew Manuscripts website. A second digitisation phase has started in April 2016. This new project, aimed at digitising 860-1,250 Hebrew manuscripts, is an international collaboration with the National Library of Israel (NLI).

Over 100 partially digitised Hebrew illuminated manuscripts are searchable on the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. Our Cairo Genizah fragments were digitised as part of the Friedberg Genizah Project (2010-2012) and can be accessed on their dedicated project page.

Other online resources

The British library also hosts the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) which includes some digitised collections bearing on Hebrew and Jewish studies, for example The Jacques Mosseri Genizah Archive. Selected images relating to manuscripts from the Hebrew collection can be found in our Online Gallery (see especially Sacred Texts, Asia, Pacific & Africa Collections, and Turning the Pages). Additional images are also viewable on Images online and the Library’s Flickr account.

Collections items are sometimes described in our Asian and African Studies blog to which you can subscribe if you want to receive regular updates. We also tweet information on news, discoveries, bibliographical resources and collection items on Twitter using #HebrewProject and @BLAsia_Africa.

What is available in our Reading Rooms?

The Asian & African Studies reading room is where you can consult printed materials, manuscripts and archives. Some especially valuable or fragile material is restricted and available only in exceptional circumstances. Self-service photography is allowed for certain categories of material, provided that its condition allows this.

Some reference tools relevant to Jewish studies are also available on open access in the Humanities 1 Reading Room.

How to guides

Get a Reader Pass

Access over 170 million collection items for free with a Reader Pass.

How to order images

Instructions on how to order images of the British Library's collections from our Imaging Services

How to reuse images of unpublished manuscripts

Guide to the copyright of unpublished documents

Guide to Explore Archives and Manuscripts

A guide to help you use the catalogue, covering: login, search, how to manage your results, how to browse the collections and how to request items

About Explore Archives and Manuscripts

With Explore Archives and Manuscripts you can search for information about our rich and unique archive and manuscript collections.

Guide to researching provenance of books now in the British Library

Where do the British Library’s old printed books ‘come from'? Who owned or read them in centuries past? Why does it matter?

Access manuscripts and archives

Accessing manuscripts and archives and obtaining a Letter of introduction or recommendation

Find Persian manuscripts

Details of Persian manuscripts are to be found in a number of catalogues

Find Arabic manuscripts

Details of Arabic manuscripts are to be found in a number of catalogues

Find papyri

How to identify papyri and request them

Find Hebrew manuscripts

Guide to finding Hebrew manuscripts in our online catalogues

Find charters, rolls, and seals

How to access medieval and early modern European documentary collections

How to get a Reader Pass if you are under 18

How to apply for an under 18 Reader Pass

How to handle archives

Watch our guide and help us keep our archive material in good condition

Search for Cyrillic items in the catalogue

How to search for Cyrillic items in the catalogue

Find and request Lord Chamberlain's Plays

How to locate items in our largest single manuscript collection

How to handle folded items

Find out how you should hand items like large maps and book inserts.

Using the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC)

How to use the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC)
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