Print Volumes

In 2003, a group of world-renowned scholars and representatives from Yale University Press met to officially launch the print version of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization project, with the goal of publishing ten volumes—spanning more than 3,000 years of Jewish history, from the biblical period into the twenty-first century. The volumes include original sources from more than two dozen languages, many excerpted and translated into English for the first time. 

The Posen Library is deliberately anthological, not exhaustive. It offers a broad sampling, often exploring topics that have not traditionally been put together in anthologies of Jewish creative output—philosophy alongside children’s literature, synagogue interiors with performance art. Each volume’s editors bring a unique perspective to the project, crafting and curating the collection according to their vision of the period. Some opted for depth over breadth, and some vice versa. 

The print volumes are organized first by genre and then by chronology, creating serendipitous placements of textual and visual culture in new relationships to each other. In this way, the Posen Library continues millennia of Jewish anthological tradition and expands our understanding of Jewish culture and civilization.

As of 2024, seven of the ten volumes have been published, covering ancient Israel and the period from the early modern era to contemporary times. These volumes contain voices of women as well as men, Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews living all over the world. They include multiple forms of literary and artistic expression. The Library also includes occasional, small companion volumes that expand on aspects of the individual volumes but are independent of them.

To learn more about the larger project and the evolving digital version of the collection, click here. To stay up to date as the collection expands, click here.

* Volume 1: Ancient Israel from Its Beginning through 332 BCE, edited by Jeffrey H. Tigay and Adele Berlin 

+ Volume 2: Emerging Judaism, 332 BCE–600 CE, edited by Carol Bakhos 

+ Volume 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam, 600–1200, edited by Arnold E. Franklin 

+ Volume 4: Late Medieval Era, 1200–1500, edited by Jonathan S. Ray 

* Volume 5: Early Modern Era, 1500–1750, edited by Yosef Kaplan 

* Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880, edited by Elisheva Carlebach 

* Volume 7: National Renaissance and International Horizons, 1880–1918, edited by Israel Bartal and Kenneth B. Moss 

* Volume 8: Crisis and Creativity between World Wars, 1918–1939, edited by Todd M. Endelman and Zvi Gitelman

* Volume 9: Catastrophe and Rebirth, 1939–1973, edited by Samuel D. Kassow and David G. Roskies 

* Volume 10: Late Twentieth Century, 1973–2005, edited by Deborah Dash Moore and Nurith Gertz

*Available in print now and digitally at posenlibrary.com in 2024!

+ Available in print and online before 2028.