Project completion December 2024
The project to secure and preserve the Hebraica I collection at the Institute for the History of German Jews was completed in December 2024. The project was approved by the Coordination Office for the Preservation of Written Cultural Heritage (KEK) and is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (https://kulturstaatsministerin.de/) and the City of Hamburg. It was dedicated to the conservation of part of the institute's library collection. The predominantly religious works in Hebrew are of great cultural and historical importance to the IGdJ, especially as they are rarely found in other libraries. The collection also reveals the provenance during the National Socialist persecution in Europe and bears witness to former Jewish institutions and the private possessions of Jewish collectors. This results in an extraordinary value for research and teaching as well as a high level of public interest.
The measures in this project focussed on 1,025 small-format older works published between the 16th century and the end of the 1940s. A company specialising in conservation measures undertook a gentle dry cleaning of the volumes as well as the inspection and documentation of the respective damage. The damage analysis now forms the basis for initiating further necessary conservation measures.
