Who's behind the news?
Who's behind the news?
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Newsjunkie.net is a resource guide for journalists. We show who's behind the news, and provide tools to help navigate the modern business of information.
Use of Data
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The Archives Department of the National Library of Israel (NLI) is a major archival repository within Israel's national library, housing over one thousand personal archives and a range of special collections documenting Jewish history, Israeli culture, and the intellectual life of leading figures across centuries. The NLI itself, founded in 1892 in Jerusalem, holds more than five million books and owns the world's largest collections of Hebraica and Judaica.
The National Library of Israel originated in 1892 when B'nai B'rith opened the Midrash Abarbanel Library in Jerusalem — the city's first free public library — with a mandate to collect the treasures of Jewish literature. In 1895, Dr. Joseph Chasanowich transferred his 10,000-volume collection from Bialystok, significantly expanding its holdings. When the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was established in 1925, the library was moved to the Mount Scopus campus and officially renamed the Jewish National and University Library (JNUL).
During Israel's War of Independence (1947–48), access to Mount Scopus was cut off and the collection was dispersed across Jerusalem. In November 1960, the JNUL moved to the newly dedicated Lady Davis Building on Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus, which served as its home for over sixty years. Following the passage of the National Library Law by the Knesset in 2007, the institution was renamed the National Library of Israel and granted independent legal status as of January 1, 2011.
In 2023, the NLI moved into a landmark new building in Jerusalem's Government Quarter, situated between the Knesset and the Israel Museum. The 46,000-square-meter building was designed by the Basel-based architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron and opened to the public on October 29, 2023.
The NLI has collected archival materials since its inception; for many years it was the only institution in Israel doing so. The Archives Collection formally dates to 1927, when the library received the first large archive — the personal papers of Ahad Ha'Am, bequeathed to the library in his will.
Today the Archives Department houses over one thousand personal archives, the majority documenting the activities of outstanding Jewish personalities in fields including literature, poetry, scholarship, rabbinics, Zionist leadership, science, journalism, and criticism. Notable personal archives include those of Martin Buber, S.Y. Agnon, Else Lasker-Schüler, Natan Sharansky, Hannah Senesh, Naomi Shemer, and Max Brod (whose collection includes the Franz Kafka papers, deposited by court order). The library also holds manuscripts by Maimonides and Sir Isaac Newton.
In addition to personal archives, the department holds a small number of institutional archives (including the Israel Folklore Society / Yeda Am) and community archives. Special collections include the Avraham Schwadron Autograph and Portrait Collection, the Broadsides and Posters Collection, the Ketubbot Collection, and extensive Photograph and Postcard Collections — totaling approximately one million items focusing on the Land of Israel in the nineteenth century and Diaspora Jewish communities.
Materials in the collection are held in Hebrew, Yiddish, German, English, Russian, French, and other languages. Archives range from small folders of correspondence to dozens of shelf meters of archival boxes. Finding aids have been developed for most archives, and an ongoing project is transferring physical records lists into the library's digital catalog.
The NLI holds an extensive Historical Jewish Press Collection (known as Jpress), a collaborative project with Tel Aviv University, which aims to represent newspapers published by Jewish communities worldwide. The digitized newspaper archive contains over 4.5 million pages of newspapers and periodicals in sixteen languages, spanning from 1783 to the present, and is freely accessible online. The collection is searchable in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, and users can contribute tags and comments.
The Israel Collection, governed by the Books Law (Legal Deposit, 2000), requires deposit of two copies of all publications printed in Israel in editions of fifty copies or more. This collection encompasses journalism, Israeli literature, social and historical publications, and official international publications relating to Israel.
The NLI's reading rooms — including the archive and manuscript reading room — are open to the public at no charge. Archival materials, original manuscripts, microfilmed copies, and rare printed books may be consulted in person. Many materials have been digitized and are accessible through the library's online catalog and digital platforms. The NLI's AI-based search system, Bina, provides access to the library's photography collections. Guided tours of the new building are available to the public.