The George Washington University’s Gelman Library System is pleased to announce that Brad Sabin Hill has been offered and accepted the position of Curator of the I. Edward Kiev Judaica Collection. 

Mr. Hill comes to GWU with extensive knowledge and experience in Hebraic and Judaic bibliography and librarianship.  Before serving as Dean of the Library and Senior Research Librarian at the YIVO Institute in New York (2002-2007), he held positions in Britain and Canada, as Librarian and Fellow in Hebrew Bibliography at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (1996-2001), as Head of the Hebrew Section of the British Library (1989-1996), and as Curator of Rare Hebraica in the National Library of Canada in Ottawa (1979-1989).  The author of a number of books and articles in the field of Hebrew bibliography and booklore, including Incunabula, Hebraica & Judaica (1981) and Hebraica from the Valmadonna Trust (1989), Hill has published studies on Hebrew typography and Hebrew libraries, as well as on Yiddish manuscripts and Yiddish bibliography.  He has curated exhibitions of rare Hebraica in Ottawa, London and New York, among them a display of early Hebrew printing at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, and most recently on Spinozist writings in Yiddish at the YIVO Institute.  Formerly a member of the Oriental Faculty of the University of Oxford, Hill is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Senior Associate of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.  Brad Sabin Hill will take on his new duties as Curator of the Kiev Collection at the end of 2007.

The I. Edward Kiev Judaica Collection was established in 1996 with the donation of the personal library of Rabbi I. Edward Kiev, late chief librarian of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.  The original donation of about 18,000 books, pamphlets, and periodicals, as well as manuscripts, graphics, artifacts, maps and Jewish music, has grown to over 22,000 volumes.  Comprised of both Hebraica and western-language Judaica, the Kiev Collection covers the range of Jewish studies, from biblical exegesis and rabbinic texts to archeology, Jewish history and modern Hebrew literature.  Together with much German-Jewish scholarship and extensive Judaic bibliographic literature on which I. Edward Kiev was expert, the collection holds Hebraica printed over five centuries, and is especially rich in books from Central and Eastern Europe.  The Kiev Collection is housed in its own reading room in the Gelman Library, suite 710. 

Zachary M. Baker, Reinhard Family Curator of Judaica and Hebraica Collections, Stanford University Libraries will be giving a talk on The Taube-Baron Collection of Jewish History and Culture and The Samson / Copenhagen Judaica Collection held at Stanford University.

The talk will be given in the Kiev Judaica Collection Reading Room in the Gelman Library (rm. 710) on The George Washington University Campus, 2130 H. Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20052, on Wednesday, May 9, 2007 at 3:00 p.m.

Professor Salo Wittmayer Baron (1895-1989) of Columbia University, held the first Jewish History chair established in the United States (1930-1963). His 20,000-volume collection was purchased by Stanford in 1985 and includes Hebrew editions of the Bible dating from the 15th century, rare volumes of Jewish literature and history from Eastern Europe and around the world, works on Jewish Americana, Jewish anthropology and sociology, and thousands of pamphlets and journals.

The Samson Collection, acquired by Stanford in 2003, includes close to 2,000 works printed in over 115 locations from 1517 to 1939. These books cover a wide range of topics, including Bible and Talmud texts and commentaries, Jewish law and ritual, Jewish liturgy, rabbinical responsa, treatises on Jewish law (halakhah), scientific works in Hebrew, kabbalah, apologetics, bibliography, the sciences, ephemeral publications relating to the Jewish communities of Denmark and other Northern European countries, and even poetry. The books in the Samson Collection belonged to the Jewish Community of Copenhagen, Denmark, until the early 1980s, when they were purchased by Herman R. Samson, a native of Copenhagen.

Invitation to Zachary M. Baker talk on the Taube-Braon and Samson/Copenhagen Judaica Collections

For more information, call (202) 994-7549 or email speccoll@gwu.edu