Libraries in Israel

Israel's library system spans multiple levels of institutional and community life. At its apex stands the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, which serves as the country's national research library and an institution of national memory for the Jewish people worldwide and Israelis of all backgrounds and faiths.[6] Below it is a dense tier of university and academic-college libraries, each with specialist collections and subject strengths. A separate network of public libraries reaches into cities, towns, villages, and kibbutzim, governed by the Public Libraries Law and supported by local authorities and the Ministry of Culture.[3] Additional specialist libraries—devoted to the Holocaust, intelligence and terrorism research, Reform Judaism, Jewish community history, and related fields—round out a system notable for both its breadth and its cultural mission.

The National Library of Israel in Jerusalem is the country's largest library institution and a central repository for national and Jewish cultural memory. Its origins trace to a public library founded in Jerusalem by B'nai B'rith in 1892.[7] Joseph Chasanowich donated 8,800 mostly Hebrew books in 1895, and by 1920, after additional gifts and the library's transfer to the Zionist organization, the collection had reached approximately 30,000 volumes.[7] Chasanowich had earlier, in 1899, published an appeal for a grand house containing Hebrew and other-language books about Jews and their teachings; the Seventh Zionist Congress subsequently began transforming his collection into the main library for the growing Jewish community in Palestine.[8] With the founding of the Hebrew University in 1925, the institution became the university's central research library, and its campus was established on Mount Scopus.[1] Its Lady Davis building was inaugurated in 1960 on the Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus, to which the remaining books from Mount Scopus were transferred following the Six-Day War.[8][1]

For decades the institution operated as the Jewish National and University Library, serving both as Israel's de facto national library and as the Hebrew University's advanced research library for Jewish studies, Middle Eastern studies, and the humanities.[1] The 2007 National Library Law formally recognized it as a national institution independent of the Hebrew University and changed its name to the National Library of Israel.[9] The library subsequently transitioned in January 2011 from a Hebrew University administrative unit to an independent company, following a master plan adopted in 2008 and a commitment by the Yad Hanadiv Foundation in 2010 to fund the core modernization effort.[10]

The library's collections include more than five million books, periodicals, and journals, together with manuscripts, archives, maps, musical recordings, and digital materials.[2] Its holdings include the world's foremost collection of Judaica books, incunabula, and periodicals, alongside broad collections in other fields.[11] The library's collecting mission, established by law, encompasses copies of all printed matter published in Israel in any language; publications about Israel, the Land of Israel, Judaism, and the Jewish people published anywhere in the world; and material published in Hebrew or Jewish diaspora languages such as Yiddish and Ladino.[9] Israeli law requires publishers to deposit two copies of all printed matter at the National Library, and a 2001 amendment extended this deposit requirement to audio, video, and other non-print media.[9] To preserve Israel's digital heritage, the library also conducts annual, periodic, and one-time web harvests of predefined Israeli websites, creating frozen snapshots of selected online material.[12]

The National Library's statutory mandate is to collect, preserve, cultivate, and make accessible the knowledge, heritage, and culture of the Land of Israel, the State of Israel, and the Jewish people. Its stated roles include serving as Israel's central research library in its areas of expertise, as a university research library in the humanities, Jewish studies, Middle Eastern studies, and Islamic studies, and as a source of professional guidance for higher-education, public, and Jewish-community libraries.[13]

Highlights of the collection extend well beyond books. The library preserves personal archives of figures including Martin Buber, Natan Sharansky, and Naomi Shemer, along with handwritten works associated with Maimonides and Isaac Newton, ninth-century Islamic manuscripts, and the Albert Einstein archive.[6] Special collections accumulated over more than a century include Hebrew incunabula, Orientalia, Hebraica and Judaica, Jewish manuscripts, and an extensive photographic record of Israel's history.[7] The Dan Hadani collection, transferred to the library in 2000, comprises more than one million photographs documenting five decades of Israeli life.[14]

Digitization plans described around 2011 included approximately 100,000 books and hundreds of thousands of archival items—such as photographs and maps—over five years, with the historical Hebrew press project expected ultimately to contain two million newspaper pages and the National Sound Archive project planning to digitize 30,000 hours of recordings.[10]

The library's reading facilities include the Gershom Scholem Library reading room and a dedicated rare-book room. Its William Davidson Permanent Exhibition Gallery, titled A Treasury of Words, displays items including Aramaic incantation bowls, the Rothschild Haggadah, a page of Maimonides' Judeo-Arabic commentary in his own hand, a millennium-old Qur'an, an older Syriac translation of the Bible, Israeli music scores, and a letter from astronaut Ilan Ramon to philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz.[8] More than four million books are stored in closed stacks under low-oxygen conditions; books are retrieved by a robot through an online request system, and returned items receive newly generated storage locations.[8]

Online access is central to the library's current mission. Digitized archives include manuscripts of the Mishnah and Talmud, ancient maps of Jerusalem, Jewish community registers, the Einstein Archive, a music archive, and historical Jewish and Palestinian-period newspapers, with the aim of making them available without charge.[1] The library also collaborated with Facebook Israel on a crowdsourcing project involving approximately 1,000 school photographs from the 1950s onward, drawn largely from the Hadani collection.[14]

Israel's public-library system is governed by the Public Libraries Law and administered by the Department of Libraries within the government's Culture Administration. The department administers the law and its regulations, supervises recognized public libraries, and supports acquisitions, cultural programming, computerization, modernization, reading promotion, and community integration.[3] Funding flows from both local authorities and the Ministry of Culture; a 2007 report found that the law envisioned government coverage of up to 50 percent of library budgets, but that the actual state share had been between six and nine percent.[15] A Knesset amendment approved around that time was intended to increase library funding by 50 percent, with the total system budget estimated at 170 million shekels.[15]

Historical usage figures indicate substantial public use. A 2011 report recorded 11.9 million loans in public libraries nationwide in 2010, up from 11 million the year before, with 959,000 active readers in 2010 compared with 882,000 in 2009.[10] The 2007 report, however, noted that 27 local authorities had no public library at all, including 18 Arab local authorities.[15]

Tel Aviv-Yafo's municipal public-library system is among the country's largest and most varied. The central institution is Beit Ariela, the main public library of Tel Aviv's Sha'ar Zion network since 1922, which contains books in Hebrew, English, French, German, and other languages, as well as archived newspapers, comic books, magazines, photographs, specialized libraries in subjects including dance, music, and law, and approximately 35,000 Hebrew- and English-language reference books.[16]

The network extends to more than 20 neighborhood branches, including the Ramat Israel Ve Bitzaron Library, the Nistor Library, the Chess Center–Sissy and Marc Sol Library, the Sherman Library, the Beit Barbur Library, the Beit Danni Library, the Bat Zion Library, the Hadar Yosef Library, the Anna Laura Petlik Fischer Library at the Arab-Jewish Center, the Yad Lebanim Library, the Yaffo Gimel and Yaffo Dalet Libraries, the Migdal Shalom Library, the Mandel Library and Culture Center, the Neve Eliezer, Neve Ofer, and Neve Sharet Libraries, the Zahala Library, the Yair HaShulami Library, and the Ramat Aviv Gimel Library.[16] The city also operates seasonal mobile libraries on beaches and selected boulevards, and membership is free, providing access to printed, audio, and digital books, toys and puzzles, online databases, and cultural programming.[17]

The Felicia Blumenthal Music Center and Library in Tel Aviv is described by the municipality as the largest library of its kind in Israel. Its holdings include books about music, musical scores, ethnic instruments, and personal archives of leading musicians; it is open to the public for study, research, and lending of scores, books, CDs, and DVDs.[16]

Beyond Tel Aviv, public libraries function as community and cultural centers. The municipal library in Hod HaSharon has been described as a modern cultural and knowledge center offering literary meetings, story hours, workshops, and digital access to databases and magazines.[17] The library in Beersheba provides lending and reading spaces for children and adults, together with workshops, courses, story hours, an art gallery, and cultural activities linked to the city's educational institutions.[17] The public library in Kiryat Shmona, Levinsky Library in south Tel Aviv, and the media libraries and music libraries in Netanya and Holon are among the institutions that have expanded their roles beyond book lending into information services, heritage documentation, cultural events, and community programming.[10] The Center for Books and Libraries operated a Public Libraries Portal intended as a gateway to libraries throughout Israel, enabling users to locate their municipal library, search online catalogues, discover newly acquired books, read reviews, and find cultural events.[10]

Community-founded libraries also form part of the landscape. The Benjamin Children's Library in Beit Shemesh was established by local residents to provide enrichment for children, particularly children from poorer backgrounds and Ethiopian immigrants. After 26 years it served as a cultural, educational, and recreational center, still operated mainly by the community, supporting book exchanges for approximately 2,000 families and around 7,000 children from infancy through high school.[17]

Several of Israel's most significant libraries are devoted to specific areas of historical memory, research, or scholarly inquiry.

The Yad Vashem Library operates a main branch in Jerusalem and a smaller branch at Beit Wolyn in Givatayim. Established to collect all known publications about the Holocaust and related subjects, it serves scholars, staff, students, teachers, occasional readers, and future generations. Its collection contains more than 141,000 titles in approximately 54 languages and is described as the most comprehensive collection of Holocaust-related published material in the world.[18] The library holds approximately 1,040 Yizkor books—memorial volumes commemorating Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust—making it the single largest repository of such books among the Israeli institutions covered by the JewishGen directory.[19]

The Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Library in Jerusalem is a specialist reference library whose collections reflect the research areas of the institute's branches, particularly Jewish communities in Islamic countries and the history and settlement of Eretz Israel. Its holdings exceed 120,000 manuscripts, books, rare items, journals, and marriage contracts, as well as thousands of documents and certificates from around the world. The library is located at 14 Ibn Gabirol Street in Jerusalem and is open to the public Sunday through Thursday.[20]

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center library and computerized information service are part of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center and the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center, and house what the center describes as the greatest concentration of information about intelligence and terrorism in Israel.[21] Its extensive collection includes books, scanned articles, videos, newspaper excerpts, presentations, posters, maps, and documents seized during Israel's wars, in Hebrew, English, and Arabic. Intelligence holdings cover intelligence theory and methodology, Israeli and foreign intelligence services, intelligence history, and espionage. Terrorism holdings focus on Palestinian terrorism, counterterrorism, Hezbollah, global jihad, radical Islam, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and incitement to terrorism and hatred, including what the center describes as a unique collection of antisemitic literature in Arabic.[21]

The library includes a reading room, an Internet room, and computerized information retrieval; books may be borrowed, bibliographical advice is available, and individuals or groups may arrange advance guidance in locating materials. Its catalogue is accessible through the center's website, and it is open to the general public, as well as to IICC members, the Israeli intelligence community, the IDF, academia, and terrorism experts.[21]

The Beit Lohamei Haghetaot library at the Ghetto Fighters' House in Western Galilee holds approximately 500 Yizkor books, while Tel Aviv institutions including the Moadon Ha'Bund–Brith Avoda Kurski Library (more than 100 Yizkor books) and Hitachdut Yotzei Polin (more than 200 Yizkor books) preserve records of Polish Jewish communal life.[19] The Beit Ariela–Sha'ar Zion Ahad Ha'am Library in Tel Aviv holds approximately 500 Yizkor books.[19]

The main disagreement in the source base concerns measurement rather than the role of the institutions themselves. Because estimates vary by date, methodology, and the meaning of the term “library,” the approved sources do not supply a current exhaustive directory of every public, academic, school, specialist, and private library in Israel. One reference source placed the national count at approximately 700 libraries and noted that the country's ratio of library books per capita ranked among the highest in the world.[22] A separate entry reported more than 950 libraries beyond the largest institution, with public libraries distributed across cities, towns, villages, settlements, and kibbutzim.[23]

A 2007 report counted approximately 1,100 public libraries operating across 207 locations, all run by local authorities or bodies acting on their behalf.[15] The Department of Libraries later stated that the sector comprised approximately 256 library networks encompassing roughly 680 branches.[24] A Knesset Research and Information Center document recorded 596 active public-library branches in 2021 and approximately 971,000 active subscribers that year, down from about 1.35 million active subscribers in 2019.[3] These figures are therefore best understood as historically bounded measurements rather than interchangeable current totals.

The Union List of Israel (ULI) is a public online catalogue maintained by the National Library of Israel, containing approximately nine million bibliographic records drawn from the catalogues of Israel's major research libraries.[5] Member institutions include all university libraries, most college libraries, and additional research libraries. The ULI covers books, periodicals, theses, publications, video, audio, sheet music, maps, and other materials.[5] It was established in 1997, and responsibility for its management transferred to the National Library of Israel in 2015.[5] Twenty Israeli member libraries have also been recorded as belonging to the OCLC WorldCat international network.[25] The National Library's Library Codes directory, a companion resource, lists 97 individual code entries representing libraries and library collections from universities, academic colleges, teacher-training colleges, specialist departments, medical institutions, research institutes, museums, archives, religious institutions, public libraries, and cultural organizations.[4]

Israel's universities maintain extensive library systems, many of which hold specialist collections of national and international significance. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem's library network encompasses more than a dozen distinct collections. Named branches in the National Library's Library Codes directory include the Agricultural, Food and Environmental Quality Sciences Library in Rehovot; the Albert Einstein Library; the Sigmund Freud Center Library; the Institute of Archaeology Library; the Education and Social Work Library; the Bernards G. Segal Law Library; the Mathematics and Computer Science Library; the Bloomfield Library; the Rothberg International School Library; the Harman Science Library; the Harry Truman Research Institute Library and Documentation Unit; the Muriel and Philip Berman Medical Library; and the Zoological Museum Malacological Collection.[4] The Hebrew University library had earlier grown to half a million books in its principal building on Mount Scopus and contains one of the most valuable collections of Hebraica and Judaica.[26]

Tel Aviv University's library system is anchored by the Sourasky Central Library, which holds approximately 40 Yizkor books.[19] Its network also includes the David Azrieli School of Architecture and Faculty of the Arts Library; the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology Library; the School of Health Professions and Department of Communication Disorders Library; the Moshe Dayan Center Library; the Geography Department Library; the David J. Light Law Library; the Gitter-Smolarz Library of Life Sciences and Medicine; the Neiman Library of Exact Sciences and Engineering; the Brender-Moss Library of Social Sciences and Management; and the Bob Shapell School of Social Work Library.[4]

The Technion–Israel Institute of Technology maintains one of Israel's most specialized academic library systems, with discipline-specific libraries for Aerospace Engineering, Architecture and Town Planning, Bio-Medical Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology and Food, Chemistry and Biology, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Education in Technology and Science, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management, Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Medicine, Mathematics, and Physics, all alongside the Elyachar Central Library.[4]

Bar-Ilan University's Central Library in Ramat Gan holds approximately 420 Yizkor books and maintains a computerized catalogue with more than 400,000 records.[19][27] The University of Haifa's Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library on Mount Carmel holds more than 450 Yizkor books and maintains a digital collection containing students' and researchers' academic papers, a rare-book collection, historic photographs of Israel, and a theater archive documenting performances and texts from the Haifa Theater, the Tel Aviv Cameri Theater, and the Acre Festival.[19][28] Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's Zalman Aranne Central Library in Beersheba holds more than 300 Yizkor books.[19]

Among the specialist academic libraries, the Weizmann Institute of Science operates its own Central Library and Archives, while the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and WIZO Haifa School of Design and Education each maintain libraries oriented toward their respective creative disciplines.[4] The S. Zalman and Ayala Abramov Library of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, located at the Taube Family Campus at 13 King David Street in Jerusalem, specializes in the history of the Reform Movement and the American Jewish experience. Its more than 40,000 books and periodicals also cover Biblical Archaeology, the Bible, Ancient Near East studies, Hebrew literature in English translation, Israeli society and culture, and Judaic subjects including Talmud, Midrashic literature, liturgy, Jewish music, Jewish history, Jewish philosophy, Jewish education, Hebrew language, and Hebrew literature.[29][30]

The Abramov Library functions as an Israeli branch of both the American Jewish Periodical Center and the American Jewish Archives. Its facilities are available to HUC-JIR students, the Israeli academic community, the general public, and other visitors.[29]

Israel has also been the site of unconventional approaches to public reading access. Israeli artists Daniel Shoshan and Amit Matalon developed a public-library model that places free bookshelves at bus stops throughout Israeli cities. The concept arose from the observation that people often face long waits for buses; the shelves allow anyone to take a book, read it at the station or on the bus, return it later, or add another book. The project carries no due dates, late fees, or stated rules, operating on the informal motto: “You may take, you may return, you may add.”[31] The pilot was considered a successful self-sustaining public library, and cities throughout Israel began copying the model.[31]

The National Library of Israel's Library Codes directory records 97 code entries drawn from a wide range of institution types. Among the named libraries and collections are those of the Academic Arab College for Education in Israel; Afeka Tel-Aviv Academic College of Engineering; Achva Academic College; Bar-Ilan University, including its Yaacov Herzog Faculty of Law Library; Beit Berl College; Ben-Gurion University, including the Zalman Aranne Central Library, the Jane Schapiro Library, the Eilat Campus Library, and the Medical Library; Al-Qasemi College; the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute; Bezalel Academy; the College of Management Academic Studies; HIT (Holon Institute of Technology); David Yellin College; Emek Yezreel—Max Stern Academic College; Yeshivat Har Etzion; Gordon College; Western Galilee College; Hadassah Academic College; the Kinneret College Robert and Yadelle Sklare Family Library; and Kaye College.[4]

Other entries include Levinsky College; Tel Aviv-Jaffa Academic College; Ariel University; Sapir Academic College; Netanya Academic College; Ort Braude College; Oranim College; Orot Israel College; the Open University of Israel; Shenkar College; Shaanan Religious Teachers College; Kibbutzim College; Shalem College; Sami Shamoon College; Sha'ar Zion Public Library Beit Ariela and its Maimonides Library; Tel-Hai Academic College; Zefat Academic College; WIZO Haifa School of Design and Education; Reichman University, listed under its former Interdisciplinary Center name; the Israel Antiquities Authority; Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi; and Yad Vashem.[4]

Hebrew University's branch libraries documented in the same directory include the Agricultural, Food and Environmental Quality Sciences Library in Rehovot; the Albert Einstein Library; the Sigmund Freud Center Library; the Institute of Archaeology Library; the Education and Social Work Library; the Bernards G. Segal Law Library; the Mathematics and Computer Science Library; the Bloomfield Library; the Rothberg International School Library; the Harman Science Library; the Harry Truman Research Institute Library and Documentation Unit; the Muriel and Philip Berman Medical Library; and the Zoological Museum Malacological Collection.[4]

Tel Aviv University's documented branches include those for architecture and the arts; archaeology; the Sourasky Central Library; health professions and communication disorders; the Moshe Dayan Center; geography; law; life sciences and medicine; exact sciences and engineering; social sciences and management; and social work.[4] The Technion's network covers all major engineering and science disciplines through 15 specialist libraries plus the Elyachar Central Library.[4]