Hebrew Manuscripts

The library holds nearly 400 Hebrew manuscripts and manuscript fragments described in detail in the 3 volume catalog:

The mayor part of the Hebrew manuscripts are originally from the collection of the Munich financier and Rabbi Dr. Abraham Merzbacher and were acquired by the library in 1903 with the financial support of Jewish philantropists in Frankfurt. Others were part of the collection of Rabbi Eljakim Carmoly and some were created especially for members of the Rothschild family and later donated to the University Library.

The collection embraces many different areas of Hebrew literature, bibles, biblical and talmudic commentaries, important halakhic, liturgical, kabbalistic, philosophical and scientific manuscripts as well as poetry and memor-books of Jewish communities. The famed memoirs of Glickl of Hameln (1691-1719) is one of the best know manuscripts.

The manuscripts are indexed under the shelf marks Ms.hebr.oct., Ms.hebr.qu. und Ms.hebr.fol. and are located in the manuscript division of the University Library.

Use of digital copies

The University Library Frankfurt am Main requests all users of digital copies, in as far as these are cited in publications, to present the Library with a sample copy. If this is not possible then the exact bibliographical reference has to be submitted. This serves other users who can access the information online in the literature catalogue. Please seek to contact us if the following applies:

1. When an edition of a complete text is planned.
2. When images are to be downloaded to illustrate the publication.
3. When facsimiles are planned.

The online editions of the Hebrew manuscripts in this collection are not effected by any known copyright restrictions.

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