Hebrew & other Semitic languages

[resources are available to all Library users on-campus; some resources will be available to SOAS students & staff only if off-campus]

  • Aleppo Codex Online
    Website devoted to the oldest extant copy of the Hebrew Bible (dating from around 930). Contains comment and analysis as well as a searchable, digitized copy of the text.
  • A bibliography of Semitic linguistics (1940-2012) Digital version of a traditional bibliography compiled by Dr. Gregorio del Olmo Lete (University of Barcelona). It covers a range of Semitic languages from ancient Akkadian and Ugaritic, through Ethiopic to modern languages such as Hebrew and South Arabic.
  • Early Hebrew Newspapers Project (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
    Digitised copies of major titles of the early Hebrew press in the diaspora and Eretz Israel in the 19th and early 20th century. The site is in Hebrew and requires the free image viewer viewONE to be downloaded in order for the texts to be read.
  • Digitized Hebrew manuscripts at the Library of Congress
    A diverse selection of 50 digitized texts from the Hebrew manuscripts collection at the Library of Congress, dating from medieval times to the 20th century. Indexed by language, name, subject and place.
  • Friedberg Genizah Project
    The project (in conjunction with the Jewish Manuscript Preservation Society, Toronto) aims to make an inventory of all extant Cairo Genizah manuscripts. A selection of the fragments can be viewed in detail. Click “Demo” to see bibliographies, scanned catalogues and images.
  • Hebraica Libraries Group
    Established for librarians and specialists working in the field of Hebraica, but also open to other scholars and researchers interested in the Hebrew language and culture, particularly of the book.
  • Jewish National University Library (JNUL) Digitized Book Repository
    Over 1000 rare books printed from the late 15th century to the early 20th century (in Hebrew, Arabic and European languages) on a variety of topics relevant to Jewish and Hebrew studies are currently available on open-access.
  • Learn Hebrew Sites
    Jacob Richman has drawn together a range of web resources to assist Hebrew language learners, including songs, games and podcasts.
  • Taylor-Schecter Genizah Research Unit (University of Cambridge)
    The Cambridge collection comprises some 190,000 fragments from the Cairo Genizah, mainly in Hebrew, Arabic and Judeo-Arabic. View the newsletter " Genizah fragments " and the "fragment of the month" along with links to other Genizah archives and related resources.
  • Yiddish Prints
    An online collection of over 800 scanned Yiddish books held in the University in Frankfurt am Main (Universitaetsbibliothek Frankfurt-am-Main) (in German / Yiddish)
  • The Book of Ben-Sira Brings together on a single platform both ancient and medieval manuscripts of the Book of Ben-Sira held in  libraries and archives around the world. The original document, composed in Hebrew, around 180 BCE was a collection of  proverbs and teachings in the form of poetry. The digitised pages of original manuscripts can be viewed in parallel with a modern Hebrew or Greek transliteration.
  • Manuscripts in St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai (Library of Congress microfilm collection)
    The manuscript collection at the 6th century monastery of St, Catherine in Sinai ranges from bibles, to patristic works, to liturgies and prayers books, and on to legal documents such as deeds, court cases, Fatwahs (legal opinions). The greater proportion of the manuscripts were copied in Greek, and then in Syriac, Georgian, Coptic, Armenian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Ethiopic, as well as Old Church Slavonic.
    In 1949, an expedition under the auspices of the Library of Congress microfilmed 1,687 of the 3,300 manuscripts in the monastery library, which have now been scanned (in black & white) and made available on open-access
  • Yiddish Book Center: Digital Library and Collections
    The YBC is " a nonprofit organization working to recover, celebrate, and regenerate Yiddish and modern Jewish literature and culture". Their website includes the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library of around 11,000 titles free to read online or download, and the Frances Brandt Online Yiddish Audio Library includes lectures by and interviews with Yiddish writers recorded at the Public Library in Montreal between 1953 and 2005
  • Syriaca.org (The Syriac Reference Portal)
    This is a digital project for the study of Syriac literature, culture, and history. It has a growing collection of online reference works and also acts as a reference hub for digitally linking research findings
  • eBethArké Syriac digital library
    Brought together by Rutgers University Library and the Beth Mardutho Syriac Institute, this digital collection includes books, periodicals, letters and other publications and manuscripts in Syriac and Arabic languages as well as literature in other languages (including English) which describe the Syriac language, grammar, and associated cultures. In addition there are  texts, video and audio depicting modern Syriac scholarly work.