Major Judaica collection amassed by Yemenite Jewish butcher donated to the National Library of Israel

[Behind the Aegis]

The National Library of Israel has announced the acquisition of 60,000 Yemenite Jewish manuscripts and text fragments which made up one of the most significant private collections of Judaica in the world.

The massive collection was donated by the descendants of Yehuda Levi Nahum, a butcher who died in 1998 after spending more than 50 years meticulously acquiring and studying the material. It includes Judeo-Yemenite translations of works by the medieval intellectual giant Maimonides, and writings by Yihya Saleh, a leading 18th-century rabbinic law scholar from Yemen, as well as ancient Jewish marriage contracts.

“This important collection is a transformative addition to the library’s documentation of Yemenite-Jewish heritage that will enrich scholarship in this field for years to come,” Chaim Neria, the curator of the Judaica collection at the National Library, said in a statement.

David Selis, a research fellow at Yeshiva University specializing in modern Jewish cultural history, compared the famous collections amassed by the bibliophile Elkan Nathan Adler and the Sassoon dynasty.

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