C ASSOCIATION FOR JEWISH STUDIES NEWSLETTER No. 14 June 1975 Editor: A. J. Band EDITORIAL IN THIS ISSUE With the last of the Third Series of regional conferences now behind us, we can attempt an initial evaluation of this three-year Editorial 1 effort, certainly the most ambitious and sustained venture of the Library Resources for Jewish Studies 2 Association to date. Mounting ten regional conferences in three News of Appointments 2 years was, in itself, a formidable task and elicited the cooperation of Seventh Annual AJS Conference 3 many of our members, let alone the tireless attention of our Execu- New AJS Members 3 tive Secretary. A major part of my responsibilities during the past Submission of Articles to AJS Review 3 two and one half years has been the overall administration of these conferences, the occasion for numerous instances of agony and ecstasy, as is to be expected in a project as ambitious as this. The agonies, the personal disappointments, the tale of human vanity will wait for a future autobiographical moment. What deserves mention AJS REGIONAL CONFERENCE PROGRAM now is the sense of accomplishment. The simple historical fact that "Hebrew and Jewish Languages" these regional conferences did take place is eloquent testimony of Conferences held at University of Michigan the new academic reality. One can set a learned symposium in an and New York University, March-April 1975 astonishing variety of places in this country since there are now Abstracts of papers by hundreds of scholars — mostly young—engaged in Jewish Studies Jonas C. Greenfield (Hebrew Univ.) 4, 5 on the campus throughout the land. Consider the geography of these Joshua Blau (Hebrew Univ.) 4, 7 conferences: we began in 1973 where we felt secure, at U.C.L.A. Herbert H. Paper (Univ. of Michigan) 5 and at Brandeis; we marched inland in 1974 to Pennsylvania, Duke, George Jochnowitz (Richmond Coll.) 6 H.U.C. (Cincinnati), and Toronto; and we have finished this cam- Denah Lida (Brandeis Univ.) 7 paign this year at Michigan, Indiana, Berkeley, and N.Y.U. Initially supported by a grant from the National Endowment for "Judaism from Hellenistic to Roman Times" the Humanities, these conferences were designed to bring to uni- Conferences held at Indiana University and versities throughout the country models of scholarly excellence and University of California-Berkeley, March-April 1975 to afford the opportunity for intellectual discourse on topics Abstracts of papers by selected from the complex area of Jewish Studies. To be sure, not all Jo Milgrom (Graduate Theological Union) 8 conferences were equally successful, just as not all departments in Morton Smith (Columbia Univ.) 9 any university are equally distinguished. But the overall level of David S. Winston (Graduate Theological Union) 10 discussion was erudite and imaginative and attested to the existence of a maturing area of studies, a growing awareness on the part of the entire academic community that here is an area of intellectual in- terest that deserves attention and support. The most tangible results Agreement on "Academy Without Walls" 11 are, of course, publications: there will be several volumes of pub- Positions Available 13 lished proceedings (the Goitein volume has been distributed; the Katz volume is in press); the Association Newsletter has been en- riched by the conference abstracts; some papers will appear in the BIBLIOGRAPHIA JUDAICA AJS Review. Less tangible, but no less important, a sense of com- mon purpose and concern was fostered. Book reviews by Nahum M. Sarna (Brandeis Univ.) 12 There is no doubt that the regional conferences should continue past the initial period for which we received the original N.E.H. Frank Talmage (Univ. of Toronto) 13 grant, though their scope and format may change. One meeting a Jehuda Reinharz (Univ. of Michigan) 14 year is not enough and not everyone can make a meeting on the Steven T. Katz (Dartmouth Coll.) 16 eastern seaboard. A minimum of two regional conferences is plau- Deborah E. Lipstadt (Univ. of Washington-Seattle) 19 sible: one in the Midwest and one on the Pacific coast. Regional provincialism should not be one the characteristics of our Associa- tion. 2 Library Resources for Jewish Studies in the United States Jewish giving has been augmented by considerable support on the part of the universities themselves from their general operating The recently published 1974/75 American Jewish Year Book fea- budgets. tures a study on library resources for Jewish Studies in the United States written by Charles Berlin (Harvard College Library). The The study concludes with an "Agenda for the Future," in which a first survey of the post-World War II growth and development of "Bibliographic and Documentation Center for Judaica" is pro- academic Judaica collections, it describes the status, and explains posed, to be modelled after the Slavic Bibliographic and Documen- the development, of such collections, especially on the American tation Center established by the Association for Research Libraries. university campus; focuses attention on the majorproblems of these collections; and suggests how this bibliographic network of vital significance to the future of Jewish scholarship in America may be News of Appointments strengthened. Previous affiliation noted in ( The role of the recently terminated Israel PL-480 Program is David A. Altshuler George Washington (Dartmouth College) University described as perhaps the single most important factor in the de- velopment of Judaica collections over the past 30 years. From 1964 S. Daniel Breslauer University of Nebraska at Omaha to 1973, the Israel PL-480 Program supplied approximately (Colgate University) 1,665,000 items, with an average of 65,000 items for each full par- Bernard D. Cooperman Harvard University (Harvard University - g) ticipant. There is presently a lack of specialized dealers able to meet the needs of Judaica research collections. The source of supply Harriet P. Freidenreich Temple University provided by the vast quantities of Judaica made available on the (University of Judaism) market as a result of the upheavals experienced by the European Evyatar Friesel Ohio State University Jewish communities in World War II has begun to run dry as more (Ben-Gurion University (visiting prof.) of the Negev) and more of this surviving material ends up in institutional custody. The demise of the Israel PL-480 Program; the lack of dealers; and Moshe Gottlieb State University of (Technion) the limited supply of materials all are adversely affecting the further New York at development of these collections. The role of the Judaica librarian, Binghamton training and qualifications needed, and the critical shortage of such Gershon D. Hundert McGill University (Columbia University - g) personnel, as well as bibliographic services by which the contents of these collections are made available to scholars, are also described. Stanley J. Isser State University of New (State University of New York at Albany York at Binghamton) Judaica research collections are in five categories: rabbinical Marc E. Kellner University of Virginia seminary libraries; libraries of research institutions under Jewish (College of William and Mary) auspices; libraries in colleges of Jewish Studies; public libraries; Jon D. Levenson Wellesley College college and university libraries. Twenty-seven university libraries (Harvard University - g) have collections of more than 10,000 volumes; the largest is Harvard Dan Pagis University of California with 150,000 volumes, followed by UCLA with 90,000 volumes. (Hebrew University) at San Diego (visiting prof.) Twenty-two libraries have Judaica collections ranging from 10,000 Charles Primus University of Notre Dame to 40,000 volumes. While the development of these Judaica library (Brown University - g) resources reflects the tremendous activity in Jewish Studies on the David G. Roskies Jewish Theological Seminary American campus in the post-World War II period, the study points (Brandeis University - g) of America out that the "the overwhelming majority of these programs have Norbert M. Samuelson virtually no Judaica library resources behind them." (University of Virginia) Temple University Haym Soloveitchik The financial support of this bibliographic network has come from (Hebrew University) Yeshiva University a variety of sources: private Jewish philanthropy, public funds and Kenneth R. Stow organized Jewish communal philanthropy. The prime example of (Jewish Theological Seminary Queens College - C.U.N.Y. public support is the $1.8 million spent from 1964 to 1973 under the of America) Israel PL-480 Program for the acquisition of Israeli publications for Uriel Tal University of Pennsylvania American libraries. The multi-faceted bibliographic services of- (Tel-Aviv University) (visiting prof.) fered by the Library of Congress in Hebraica and Judaica represent Saul P. Wachs Gratz College continuing public support. However, private Jewish philanthropy in (Brandeis University) various forms is probably the single most important source of fund- Jack Wertheimer City College - C.U.N.Y. ing. In the case of collections in non-Jewish universities, private (Columbia University - g) 3 Seventh Annual AJS Conference New Members (New Regular Members, January - May 1975) The Seventh Annual AJS Conference will be held on 21-23 De- cember 1975 at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. Moses Aberbach Baltimore Hebrew College Avigdor Bittmann Stern College The occasion of the American Bi-Centennial will be marked by Daniel