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| Issue 4 Home | Editorial | Features | Regular Columns | News & Events | Misc. | ||
By Elhanan Adler and Orly Simon - May 2001
Elhanan Adler and Orly Simon describe how the Jewish National and University Library (JNUL) has begun a digitisation project aimed at making many of its unique collections accessible to remote users [1]. The first stage of this project, recently completed, is the digitisation and cataloging of the JNUL's unique collection of some 1200 ketubbot (Jewish marriage contracts). This collection contains both manuscript and printed ketubbot from a wide variety of countries and time periods, many of them beautifully illuminated. The search engine allows access by country, city, date, and all persons named (bride, groom, witnesses), and retrieves colour images in several resolutions.
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The Jewish National and University Library (JNUL), founded over 100 years ago, today serves a threefold purpose as the Central Library of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the National Library of the State of Israel and the National Library of the Jewish People. In its latter role (chronologically its initial one) the JNUL strives to collect materials of all types which reflect or represent the history of the Jewish people and its culture throughout the world. The JNUL collections of Hebraica and Judaica are the largest in the world.
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| Figure 1: Ketubba. Jerusalem, Eretz
Israel Paper 64 x 56 cm. |
In the last two years the JNUL has embarked upon a major digitisation project aimed at making significant parts of its collections accessible worldwide. With the aid of a multi-year grant from the David and Fela Shapell Family, digitisation of several entire collections at the JNUL is underway covering manuscripts, rare and ancient maps, Jewish music and fragile printed materials. The ketubbot collection is the first one to be completed and made Internet accessible.
For over 2000 years Jewish law has required that every husband present his wife, at the time of their marriage, with a marriage contract or ketubba, guaranteeing the wife's financial rights in case of the husband's death or divorce. While the core text of the ketubba has changed very little over the ages (and much of the text is still written in the ancient Aramaic language), over generations various local customs found their way into the legal text of the ketubba. Their decoration often reflects the Jewish art of the locality and period. Some ketubbot are ornate, illuminated manuscripts which are considered valuable works of art and can be found in museums and private collections throughout the world. Even today many couples will forgo the standard printed ketubba provided by rabbinic authorities in favor of a personalised, illustrated one prepared by a calligrapher which is subsequently framed and prominently displayed in the couple’s home. Ketubbot are therefore a rich source of material on Jewish history, customs, genealogy and art. The fact that, as legal documents, ketubbot always contain exact dates and place names also allows their absolute identification with specific communities and periods.
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| Figure 2: Ketubba. Herat, Afghanistan,
1812 Paper 59.5 x 42.5 cm. |
The collection of Ketubbot in the Jewish National and University Library numbers over 1200 items, arguably the largest such collection in the world. The ketubbot originate in over 50 different countries, providing a wide gamut of both textual and artistic variation. While most are entirely handwritten, some are printed forms with the personal details added by hand, and there are even some blank forms used in specific localities. The earliest ketubba in the collection is from Eretz Israel and dates from 1024; it was preserved in the Cairo Geniza, one of the most important sources of medieval Jewish manuscripts. The most recent is from Jerusalem in the year 2000. From the start of the project it was decided to digitise the entire collection and not just selected items as it was felt that researchers would benefit most from access to as many of these items as possible. For the same reason the JNUL has invited other libraries and collections to join in the project by depositing digital images of their ketubbot at the JNUL site, and adding their metadata to the project catalog. The JNUL hopes that this project will ultimately expand to be a world repository of ketubbot.
The JNUL collection provides an excellent opportunity to study the local customs and legal stipulations which were practiced in various Jewish communities. The JNUL collection includes many ketubbot with additions relating to such topics as dowry, inheritance, polygamy (practiced for many years in some Oriental communities) and care of children from previous marriages. In North Africa and Yemen, the ketubba often contained an obligation by the groom not to force his wife to move to another city without her consent, and in some ketubbot from Syria and Eretz Israel, there is a clause barring the husband from going on distant journeys without leaving his wife a conditional bill of divorce, to spare her the status of abandoned wife (aguna) in case of his disappearance. An interesting local custom of the town of Ioannina, Greece, has the groom subsequently attesting to the bride’s virginity as an addendum to the ketubba (this addition is found in all five Ioannina ketubbot in the collection, spanning a period of 100 years).
The JNUL collection contains hundreds of illuminated ketubbot whose border decorations reflect both Jewish texts and symbols and the prevailing art of the locality. Italian illuminated ketubbot show the strong influence of the secular artistic preferences (human figures, nature scenes) while in ketubbot from Islamic countries geometric designs are prevalent.
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| Figure 3: Ketubba. Rome, Italy,
1771 Parchment 83 x 51 cm. |
Since many of the ketubbot are works of art, it was decided to film and scan each Ketubba to a single high standard appropriate to the quality of the originals. Accordingly, the ketubbot were filmed using Cibachrome 35mm colour microfilm, and subsequently scanned using Kodak Photo-CD Pro. The resulting 72mb TIFF images were then individually processed using Photoshop to produce three public images: a “thumbnail” of 9.5cm. height (aver. size: 31k), a screen width image 750 pixels wide (aver. size: 200k), and a large image, no-reduction conversion from TIFF (aver. size: 1.5 mb). The latter image, equivalent to viewing the ketubba via a magnifying glass, almost always allows exact reading of the text. In several cases where the text was particularly difficult to read, an additional specially enhanced image was added.
The photography was done in-house by the JNUL Photographic Department. Scanning, post-scanning image processing and other graphic needs were outsourced to a commercial service bureau. Quality assurance of the images was done by the JNUL Automation Department.
The above public images are all saved at resolution of 72 DPI and bear a copyright notice. This resolution provides excellent viewing but is not of sufficient quality for commercial reproduction. High quality copies can be produced by the JNUL from the archival TIFF master files upon request.
Detailed cataloging of the ketubbot was done by the Manuscript Department of the JNUL (previously only brief cataloging had been done). Cataloging was based on MARC format with a few local fields added. In order to be both world-wide accessible as well as faithful to the original text, many fields were entered twice – once in English or Romanized form, and again in the original Hebrew characters. In order to maximize usefulness of the project for genealogical research all names (bride, groom, witnesses, etc.) were recorded.
The data was entered into an ALEPH-300 database (ALEPH-300 being the standard library system of all Israeli university libraries). The various fields are searchable using the ALEPH-300 WWW public catalog software and the bibliographic records display the URLs of each ketubba.
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| Figure 4: ALEPH record |
In consideration of the fact that the use of library catalog software requires some expertise, and that we expect that most casual browsing of the collection will be by country/city, we have also create a single html geographic listing with direct access to each ketubba.
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| Figure 5: Access by country list |
The initial display page of each ketubba provides brief bibliographic information and a “thumbnail” image of the ketubba. Links on this page lead to full bibliographic information (the ALEPH record) as well as to the additional, larger images.
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| Figure 6: example of ketubba page |
A series of virtual exhibitions based on the collection, and prepared by relevant scholars is planned. The first exhibition on Jerusalem in ketubba decoration is now in preparation.
The JNUL ketubbot collection digitisation project is but the first of a series of projects aimed at making the Library’s collections accessible worldwide. Further stages of the digitisation program will involve additional JNUL collections such as manuscript books, ancient Holy Land maps, the Albert Einstein Archive and the National Sound Archives.
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Elhanan Adler
Director, Israel Center for Digital Information Services
c/o Jewish National and University Library
P.O.B. 34165
Jerusalem,
Israel
Orly Simon
Head, Computation Department
Jewish National and University Library
P.O.B. 34165
Jerusalem,
Israel
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For citation purposes:
Adler, E. and Simon, O. "900 Years of Jewish Marriage Contracts at the Jewish National and University Library", Cultivate Interactive, issue
4, 7 May 2001
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue4/ketubbot/>
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