Judaic Studies is an interdisciplinary topic which includes history, art, literature, anthropology, education, sociology, etc. If your research focuses on any of these areas, you should explore their specific Subject Guides. For information about Judaic Studies at Portland State University, see the Judaic Studies Web site. For help with research, contact Jennifer Dorner, Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian, at dorner@pdx.edu or 503-725-4125.
Starting Your Research | Culture | History
| Religion & Spirituality | Diaspora | Israel
Starting Your Research
Reference resources provide excellent background/overview information and are a great place to begin your research. They frequently contain contain articles written by experts for a general audience. Most of these tools include indexes that indicate the scope of coverage of a topic and help pinpoint articles in which a concept will be discussed. Sources for further reading are usually included.
Dictionary of Jewish Biography / by Geoffrey Wigoder
Location: DS115 .W49 1991 Reference
Encyclopaedia Judaica /
Location: DS102.8 .E496 Reference
Jewish women in America: an historical encyclopedia / ed. by Paula E. Hyman & Deborah Dash Moore
Location: DS115.2 .J49 1997 Reference
OrganizationsAssociation for Jewish Studies
http://www.brandeis.edu/ajs/
Association for Jewish Studies is a learned society and professional organization that seeks to promote, maintain, and improve teaching, research, and related endeavors in Jewish Studies in colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning.
Oregon Holocaust Resource Center
http://www.pacificu.edu/academics/special/ohrc/
The OHRC is a not-for-profit educational organization that records, preserves, and makes available resources related to the Holocaust. Located on the campus of Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, the OHRC makes its extensive collection of books, videos, photographs, memoirs, artifacts and other archival data available to the public.
Finding Articles
To find articles in journals, magazines, or newspapers, you will need to use one of the Library's print indexes or article databases. An index or article database will allow you to look for articles by title, by author, or by a few keywords that describe your topic. This is just a selection of the databases that might be relevant, you may find additional databases to be of use to you.
America History and Life
Citations to articles on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Citations drawn from over 2,000 journals in history, related humanities, and the social sciences. Includes citations to book reviews (appearing in 100 major history journals) and dissertations.
Anthropological Literature
Anthropological Literature describes articles and essays on anthropology and archaeology, including art history, demography, economics, psychology, and religious studies. Updated quarterly, Anthropological Literature indexes articles two or more pages long in works published in English and other European languages from the late 19th century to the present.
Historical Abstracts
Indexes over 2,000 history, social sciences and humanities journals, providing citation information for resources that offer historical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada).
Human Relations Area File (Electronic HRAF)
The Electronic HRAF began in 1995 with full text material on 15 culture area files. The original HRAF database contains full text information on over 360 cultures and may be found in the microfiche cabinets on the Social Science/Education Floor of PSU Library. As of April, 1995, publication of HRAF material in microfiche has ceased. Retrospective conversion, updates, and material on additional culture groups will now be available only in electronic form. The database may be searched by name of the culture, cultural trait (e.g., religion, initiation, ), or a combination. Helpful guides are The Outline of Cultural Materials (OCM) which describes this system of 88 broad categories of traits and The Outline of World Cultures (OWC) which lists culture groups by geographic area and name. Print versions of these guides area located on the index table with anthropological indexes and abstracts.
Humanities Index
A cumulative index to English language periodicals. Subject fields indexed include archaeology and classical studies, area studies, folklore, history, language and literature, performing arts, philosophy, religion, theology and related subjects.Index to Jewish Periodicals
Index to Jewish Periodicals is the definitive index on Jewish history, activity and thought, English-language articles, book reviews, and feature stories in more than 160 journals devoted to Jewish affairs. Sources published since 1989 are indexed.
MLA International Bibliography
For literature as a whole, this is the single most important bibliography, covering literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore from over 4,000 journals published worldwide. Coverage is of works published from 1963-present.
RAMBI: The Index of Articles on Jewish Studies
A selective bibliography of articles in the various fields of Jewish studies, compiled from periodicals and compilations of articles held in the Jewish National and University Library. Articles included in the bibliography are those based on scientific research or which contribute to that research.
Online Full Text JournalsMany, but by no means ALL, of the journals of interest in Judaic Studies are available online. Below is a selected list of full text journals to which PSU has access. Some of the journals require authentication for off-campus use.
Project Muse: Scholarly Journals Online
A source for over 100 full-text scholarly journals online in the arts & humanities, the social sciences, and mathematics. The back files for the journals are scant. Important for Judaic Studies are:
American Jewish History (1996-present)
Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2003-present)
Israel Studies (1999-present)
Jewish Social Studies (1999-present)
Modern Judaism (1996-presnet)
Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History (2000-present)
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies (2001-present)JSTOR
JSTOR contains the back files of some important scholarly journals in the arts and sciences. Important for Judaic Studies are:
Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Journal of Palestine Studies
Middle East ReportAdditional online journal titles:
American Jewish Archives Journal
Ioudaios Review
Jewish Heritage Online Magazine
Jewish Quarterly
Journal of Hebrew Scriptures
Lilith: The Independent Jewish Women's Magazine
Palestine Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture
Tikkun
Women in Judaism
Finding BooksSubject headings allow you to search library catalogs for materials on a particular topic. Often subject heading searching can be more productive than searching by simple keywords. Listed here are some major subject headings of interest for research in Judaic Studies. Copies of the complete set of the Library of Congress Subject Headings are available at the reference desks throughout the library.
Subject headings start with a main subject. When typing a single subject into the catalog subject heading search, you will retrieve an alphabetical list of subject headings.
These subject headings are usually made up of a main heading followed by subdivisions. Some examples appear below.
Search by Main subject -- Geographic subdivision -- Other subdivision Main Subject Geographic Subdivision Other subdivision Jews --
Hebrew literature --Israel --
Spain --
Identity
History & CriticismSearch by Main subject -- Subdivision -- Chronological subdivision Zionism --
Israel--
History --
Politics and government--
20th Century
1948Browsing the library shelves by call number ranges is another strategy for locating information on a topic; call numbers can help you get to the "right neighborhood" in the library stacks.
B 69-5739 Jewish philosophers, Jewish philosophy BM 1-449 General Judaism BM 480-488.8 Pre-Talmudic Jewish literature BM 495-532 Sources of Jewish religion, rabbinical literature BM 545-582 Principles of Judaism BM 600-645 Dogmatic Judaism BM 650-747 Practical Judaism BM 750-755 Biography D 802-810 Holocaust studies DD 253 Jews in Germany DS 101-151 Israel (Palestine) The Jews DS 133-151 Jews outside of Palestine E 184 Jews in the USA F 1419 Jews in Latin America GR Jewish folk literature, manners and customs HQ 1172 Jewish women JQ Israel Politics & government PJ 4501-5192 Hebrew language & literature
Remember, too, that you are not just limited to what we own in our Library. Whenever you are searching, you have the option of expanding your results by clicking on the SUMMIT button in the upper right hand corner of the results screen. This automatically redoes your search in the SUMMIT catalog of the ORBIS/CASCADE Alliance. If you find an item in that catalog that you'd like to see, click on the "REQUEST THIS ITEM" link and follow the directions on the screen.If you cannot find what you need in the our catalog (VIKAT) or the catalog of the Orbis-Cascade Alliance (Summit), then you might try WorldCat. WorldCat contains more than 30 millions records for materials cataloged by the Library of Congress and OCLC member libraries, including most academic and many public libraries in the U.S. Catalog includes books, serials (journals, magazines and newspapers), musical scores, recordings, videos, computer software, films, maps and manuscripts.
Web ResourcesHannah Arendt Papers at the Library of Congress
H-Judaic: Jewish Studies Network
The Jewish Studies Network, an affiliate of Hebrew College and Shamash, is part of H-Net.Jewishnet: Global Jewish Information Network
A Web directory of resources related to Judaism, Jewish life, and Israel.
Medici Archive Project: Jewish History, Religion and Culture
Shamash: The Jewish Network
Southwest Jewish Archives