The Hebraic Section of the Library of Congress has long been recognized as one of the world's foremost centers for the study of Hebrew and Yiddish materials. Established in 1914 as part of the Division of Semitica and Oriental Literature, it grew from Jacob H. Schiff's 1912 gift of nearly 10,000 books and pamphlets from the private collection of a well-known bibliographer and bookseller Ephraim Deinard. The section houses works in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Arabic, Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic, and Amharic. Holdings are especially strong in the areas of the Bible and rabbinics, liturgy, responsa, Jewish history, and Hebrew language and literature.
Chanukah Party: A Drama in 4 Acts was written in 1909 for theYiddish theater-- a uniquely American dramtic form that emerged in urban Eastern European Jewish communities during the early twentieth century. The work is one of seventy-seven Yiddish playscripts available online in American Variety Stage, 1870-1920.
- See the online exhibition Religion and the Founding of the American Republic for information concerning Jewish communities in early America.
- Search the Today in History Archive on the term synagogue to learn about Jewish communities in the U.S.
- Read Louis Leon's Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier--a Southern Jew's experience of the American Civil War included in First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920.
- Search the collection American Life Histories on Jewish to locate accounts of Jewish culture and traditions such as "A Genzil for the Holidays."
