Sudelbuch

Sephardic History: Archives and Collections

This list covers the main archives and collections of documents related either to the Sephardic diaspora or the Conversos or Anusim (אֲנוּסִים) in Spain and the colonies.

Archive/Collection Holdings Language Period Access
Documenting Judeo-Spanish through the cursive Solitreo writings of the Sephardim Sources written in Solitreo, i.e., the cursive version of the Rashi alphabet, the Ladino-varierty of Hebrew script Ladino 16th-20th century https://documentingjudeospanish.com/
Sephardic Studies Digital Collection at the University of Washington "Open access digital repository of sources pertaining to the Sephardic Jews of the Mediterranean world"; "Published and unpublished materials, including novels, prayer books, bibles, manuscripts, letters, newspapers, magazines, songbooks, poetry, theater scripts, marriage contracts, photographs, postcards, and books on religion, history, and grammar" Ladino 16th-20th century https://content.lib.washington.edu/sephardicweb/index.html
PARES (Portal de Archivos Españoles) Spanish archives portal Latin, Spanish and other languages spoken on the Iberian peninsula, including Ladino. Search categories include alphabets, thus permitting specific queries for Ladino in Latin or Hebrew script. Middle Ages to present https://pares.cultura.gob.es The AI-driven search engine https://pares.cultura.gob.es/pares-htr supports queries on handwritten documents.
Museo Sefardí, Toledo (Spain) The "Sephardic Museum", housed in the synagogue Samuel ha-Leví, collects Sephardic art (partly online accessible). Middle Ages to present https://www.cultura.gob.es/msefardi/home.html
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Written testimonies of Holocaust survivors, oral history interviews, audio recordings (mostly traditional songs), photographs of tombstone inscriptions Mostly Ladino (some texts transliterated into Latin script 20th century https://collections.ushmm.org/search/?q=ladino&search_field=all_fields 717 items; Download & licensing: specified for each record
National Sephardic Library & Archive (American Sephardi Federation/Smithsonian The library collects "books, documents, artifacts, and ephemera from or about Jews and Jewish communities throughout the Sephardic world" Ladino, English Reference library: Center for Jewish History - American Sephardi Federation, 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011 (online catalogue https://search.cjh.org/primo-explore/search?vid=beta) https://americansephardi.org/projects/asfs-national-sephardic-library-archives/
Yad Vashem Source collection, research articles Ladino, English, Hebrew 1940s- https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/search-results/ladino
Fortunoff Archive Testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses 19 testimonies in Ladino 1940s- https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/catalog (registration required)
Sephardic Diaspora at the National Library of Israel — Ladino — https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/judaism/jewish-history/spain-jews-expulsion
Privacy/Safety Free tier: data may be used (depending on the respective legal regulations); secure path, docker sandbox EU law
National Library of Israel: Archives of Sephardic Heritage Sephardic diaspora: Manuscripts & early printed books Ladino 16th-20th century https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/judaism/jewish-history/spain-jews-expulsion
National Library of Israel: Historical Ladino Press Section Online repository of newspapers in Ladino Ladino 1872-1948 https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/?a=q&results=1&laq=&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxTI--------Ladino-----The+Ladino+Press+Section-1
Stanford University Libraries: Sephardic & Ottoman Studies Collection of online resources Ladino — https://guides.library.stanford.edu/jewish-studies/sephardic-ottoman

(Jürgen Stowasser)