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The library recently acquired the Robert Attal (Avraham Hatal) collection of Judeo-Arabic literature printed in Tunisia. The collection is now in the process of being catalogued.
Robert Attal was a librarian at the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East for many decades following his aliya to Israel from Tunisia in 1954.
With the encouragement of President Itzhak Ben-Zvi, he began collecting all Judeo-Arabic compositions published in Tunisia from 1861 – the year of the first Jewish printing – until the 1950's.
The collection includes more than 1400 items both in translation and in the original.
The translated works are the earliest, including translations of the Bible, rabbinic literature, haggadot, religious philosophy, as well as legends from classic Arabic literature (such as the Arabian nights), Hebrew Enlightenment literature (Abraham Mapu), European literature of the last hundreds of years, and Christian works (especially the New Testament) published by missionaries.
The original works include about 170 poems and 180 liturgical poems and lamentations describing local and global events of the day. Among these are lamentations on the Holocaust and its effects on Tunisian Jews. The collection also comprises legends and sayings.
This collection is an important reflection, wide in its scope, of the Tunisian Jewish community from the last hundreds of years depicting the religious and cultural aspects of their society. Of special importance are those sections of the collection which represent the popular literature and culture of the time.
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