Jewish Studies

Welcome to the Subject Guide for Jewish Studies at Carleton University Library. Use dictionaries and encyclopedias to get an overview and background information. Also listed below are specialized reference resources useful when first exploring a topic. Find Sacred Texts online at Seforia.

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

• Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature
• Dictionary of Jewish Usage : a Guide to the Use of Jewish Terms / Sol Steinmetz (2005) BM50.S74 2005 ; (Limited search only) at HathiTrust)
• Encyclopaedia Judaica / Fred Skolnik (2007)
• Encyclopedia of the Holocaust / Israel Gutman (1990) D804.3.E53 ; (Limited search only) at HathiTrust) (vols. 1-4)
• Encyclopedia Talmudica / Shlomo Josef Zevin, et. al. (1969-) BM500.5.E613 ; (Limited search only) at HathiTrust) (vols. 1-3)
• Harduf's Transliterated English-Hebrew Dictionary / David Mendel Harduf (1994-) PJ4833.H27 ; (Limited search only) at HathiTrust) (vols. 1-18)
• Historical Dictionary of Judaism / Norman Solomon (2015)

Bibliographies

• Antisemitism : an Annotated Bibliography / Susan Sarah Cohen (1987) DS145 .BIBL .A57 ; (Limited search only) at HathiTrust) (vols. 1-3)
• Bibliography on Holocaust Literature / Abraham Edelheit ; Hershel Edelheit (1986) STF D804.3 BIBL .E33
• Bibliography on Holocaust Literature : Supplement / Abraham Edelheit ; Hershel Edelheit (1990-1993)
  STF D804.3 BIBL .E33 SUP
• A Critical Bibliography of Writings on Judaism / David B. Griffiths (1988) ; BM155.2 .BIBL .G7 ;
  (Limited search only) at HathiTrust)
• The Dead Sea Scrolls : Major Publications and Tools for Study / Joseph A. Fitzmyer (1990) BM487 .BIBL .F58 1990 (Online at Internet Archive)
• Index of Articles Relative to Jewish History and Literature published in Periodicals, From 1665 to 1900 / Moise Schwab (1971) STF DS102.8 BIBL .S35 1971 ; (Limited search only) at HathiTrust)

Guides

• JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions / Ronald L. Eisenbert (2010) ; (2004)
• Reader's Guide to Judaism / Michael Terry (2013)

Biography

• The Dictionary of Jewish Biography / Dan Cohn-Sherbok (2005) (2006) (Print)
• Historical Dictionary of Prophets in Islam and Judaism / Scott B. Noegel, Brannon M. Wheeler (2002) (Limited search only) at HathiTrust) (Online)
• Jewish Women: a Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia
• Who's Who in Jewish History : After the Period of the Old Testament / Joan Comay (2002)

Music

• The Resource Book of Jewish Music / Irene Heske (1985) STF ML128.J4.H48 ; (Limited search only) at HathiTrust)
• Bibliography of Jewish Music / Alfred Sendrey (1969) STF ML128.J4.S5 1969 ; (Limited search only) at HathiTrust)

Atlases

• Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
• David Rumsey Map Collection
• The Routledge Atlas of Jewish History / Martin Gilbert (2010)

Use Keyword or Subject searching to find books by a topic. To search multiple words not as a phrase do a Keyword search and use Boolean Operations:
AND to find all of the words in any order
OR to find any of the words
AND NOT to exclude one or more words

For example: religion AND culture AND canad*

Note: The * symbol will find any ending up to 5 characters. Canad* will retrieve Canada, Canadian, Canadians, etc.

Check Omni Search Tips for a full list of search tips.

Judaic Texts
Below is an guide to the core texts of Jewish religious writing. Search tips for Omni are provided as well as examples of titles available in the collection.

A good starting point:

• Back to the sources : reading the classic Jewish texts / Barry W. Holtz (1984) BM496.5.B33 (Online at Internet Archive)

Online texts:

• Internet Sacred Text Archive: Judaism - A free archive of online texts
• Sefaria: a Living Library of Jewish Texts - A free living library of Jewish texts, in Hebrew and in translation

Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)
Search by title in Omni under Bible. O.T. Hebrew:

• Tanach : the Torah/Prophets/Writings: the twenty-four books of the Bible, newly translated and annotated / Nosson Scherman, et. al. (1996) BS715 1996
• Tanackh Mikra'ot Gedolot BS715 1959
• The Jewish Study Bible / Adele Berlin, et. al. (2014 : print) ; (2004 : Online at Internet Archive)

Online texts:

• JPS Bible
• A Hebrew - English Bible

Torah - Pentateuch - Five Books of Moses
Search by title in Omni under Bible. O.T. Pentateuch. English

• The Torah : with an interpolated English translation and commentary based on the works of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson (2004-)
  BS1222 2004
• Torah : The Torah : a Modern Commentary / W. Gunther Plaut, David E. Stein (2005) BS1225.53.T67 2005

Online texts:

• The Pentateuch / William Tyndale (1536)

Talmud - Rabbinic Literature, Oral Law
Search by subject in Omni under Talmud; Mishnah:

• The Babylonian Talmud / I. Epstein (1961) BM499.5.E57 1961 ; (Limited search only) at HathiTrust)
• Mishnayot (1972) BM497 1972 (vols. 1-12)
• Talmudic Encyclopedia 2nd. edition BM500.5.E6 1973 (vols. 1-14)
• The Talmud : Law, Theology, Narrative : a Sourcebook / Jacob Neusner (2005) BM499.5.E42.N48 2005

Online texts:

• The People's Talmud - a new repository of the Talmud. The website is accessible without charge, but more advanced features require an
  annual subscription fee

Commentaries, Interpretations, etc
In Omni, search by Subject:

• Rabbinical Literature -- History and Criticism
• Talmud -- Criticism, interpretation, etc Talmud

Or do a Keyword search:

• "Jewish law" AND history

eBook Collections
eBook titles available at Carleton are in Omni and will be retrieved by a Author, Title, Subject, Keyword search. .

Relevant eBook Collections:

• Brill
• Canadian Publishers Collection
• Columbia International Affairs Online
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online
• Making of America
• EBook Central includes eBooks from Cambridge University Press eBooks, Oxford University Press eBooks and Taylor & Francis eBooks
• Oxford Scholarship Online Religion
• Patrologia Latina
• Springer eBooks (via SpringerLink)

See all eBook Collections.

Open Access (OA) Publications
Researchers and faculty may find the links below provide useful resources to supplement their own information:

• American Jewish Year Book
• American Theological Library Association (ATLA)
• Jewish Digital Collections - "The goal of this guide is to provide access to the vast array of digitized Jewish materials online."
• Jewish Women's Archive - a site dedicated to the history of American Jewish women.

• OER Commons - Religious Studies
• RAMBI - Index of Articles on Jewish Studies from the Jewish National and University Library.
• Virtual Religion Index : Jewish Studies

For a full list of OER, including textbooks, institutional repositories, research portals, visit Open Access (OA) Publications.

Key Databases

• ATLA Religion Database with ATLA Serials
• Index to Jewish Periodicals
• Old Testament Abstracts
• Index of Articles on Jewish Studies also available online at RAMBI – The Index of Articles on Jewish Studies

Additional Databases

• Année Philologique
• America History and Life
• Historical Abstracts
• International Medieval Bibliography
• JSTOR
• ARTstor Includes approximately 500,000 images covering art, architecture and archeology
• Biblical Archaeology Society Online

The list below is a sampling of titles held by the Library. If the journal you are looking for is not listed below, do a title search in Omni. If we do not subscribe to it, order the article using Interlibrary Loans.

• British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
• International Journal of Middle East Studies
• The Jewish Quarterly Review STF DS101.J5 (Limited search only) at HathiTrust)
• Journal of Modern Jewish Studies (Online)
• MERIP-Middle East Report (Online)
  
• Middle East Journal STF DS1.M5 (Limited search only) at HathiTrust)
• Middle East Policy
• Middle East Report
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Modern Judaism (Online)

Canadian Statistical Sources

• North American Jewish Data Bank provides "open access to hundreds of quantitative studies of North American and global Jews."
  • North American Jewish Data Bank: Canadian Studies
• Statistics Canada
  • Subjects
  • Statistics Canada 2016 Census
• Canada's Jews: a Social and Economic Study of Jews in Canada in the 1930s / Louis Rosenberg ; Morton Weinfeld (2014) (1993)
• Religion in Canada
  - data from the 2011 Census
• Canadian Demographics at a Glance
• Jewish Community in Canada, 1931-1961 : a Study of the Changes in the Population Characteristics / Louis Rosenberg (1965) FC106.JS .C33 V.2 N.2 (Limited search only) at HathiTrust)
• Canadian Census Analyzer

• Holocaust Literature Research Institute/Institut de recherche sur la Litérature de l’Holocauste
• The National Library of Israel
• The Jewish Guide to the Internet
• Jewish Studies (University of Toronto Libraries)
• Poetry International Archives - Israel
• Israeli Film Database