The Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has uploaded every issue of the Journal of Jewish Art, opening one of the field’s most important academic resources to free access worldwide.
The new digital collection includes every article published across the journal’s 24 volumes. The articles were scanned and digitized and are now freely available to researchers, students and readers around the world.
The journal, founded in 1974 by Maurice Sperthus and Professor Bezalel Narkiss, was among the first academic platforms devoted to defining and studying Jewish art as an independent field.
Gallery
The first volume of the journal, that came out in 1974, available online
(Photo: Courtesy of Hebrew University)
The 11th issue in 1985
(Photo: Courtesy of Hebrew University)
The 9th issue in 1988
(Photo: Courtesy of Hebrew University)
Issues 23-24 from the years 1997-1998
(Photo: Courtesy of Hebrew University)
It examined Jewish visual culture in dialogue with Christian and Islamic art, as well as with the local styles, traditions and cultures in which Jewish communities lived and created. Most of the journal’s articles were published in English.
Over the years, the journal published work by leading scholars in the field. Its volumes covered a wide range of subjects, from illuminated Hebrew manuscripts, synagogue architecture, ritual objects and Jewish iconography to modern Jewish artists, Sephardic visual culture, the heritage of Eastern European Jewry and representations of Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Muslim art.
Museum of Italian Jewry in Jerusalem
(Photo: Courtesy of the Museum of Italian Jewry )
“Making the journal digitally accessible provides free access to a formative chapter in the study of Jewish visual culture,” said Dr. Vladimir Levin, director of the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University. “For decades, these volumes helped shape the academic discourse around Jewish art. By making them freely available online, we are ensuring that researchers, students, educators and the general public can rediscover these materials and continue building on them.”
The digitization of the journal reflects the broader vision of the Center for Jewish Art: to document, preserve and make accessible the visual and material culture of the Jewish people from around the world.
Copper pomegranate, from the collections of the Museum of Italian Jewry in Jerusalem
(Photo: Courtesy of the Museum of Italian Jewry)
The center, established in 1979 by Narkiss, has documented Jewish art objects in hundreds of museums, libraries, private collections and synagogues across dozens of countries.
Its archives and collections make up one of the most comprehensive databases of Jewish art available today, much of it accessible through the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art.
As the first days of the new year on the Hebrew calendar are being marked, the opening of the online archive offers researchers and readers an opportunity to revisit, preserve and share a rich cultural heritage.