Jerusalem, Feb. 10, 2004 – A new Internet site showing copies of Hebrew newspapers from the second half of the 19 th century and the beginning of the 20 th century has been opened by the Jewish National and University Library of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The early Hebrew press is an important source of historical information on the early settlement in the land of Israel and on Jewish communities abroad and is also an important resource for studying the revival of Hebrew as a living language. Initially, the site includes copies of three Hebrew newspapers – Halevanon, which appeared from 1863 to 1886 and was published in Jerusalem, Paris, London and Mainz; Hamagid, which was published from 1856 to 1903 in Germany, Poland and Austria; and Havazelet, which was published from 1863-1911 in Jerusalem. . The library is planning to add to these in the coming year the newspapers Hatzfira, Hamelitz and Hatzvi. Access to the site is at http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/newspapers . The service requires the installation of the Java program. The newspapers posted on the internet are primarily from the Jewish National and University Library's own collections, plus some from other libraries and private collections. The posting not only answers a need for these resource materials by people from Israel and elsewhere, but also will help preserve the original material. Internet surfers can look for individual copies of these newspapers according to either the secular or Hebrew calendars and by volume numbers. The site also enables searches by authors and subject matter. The current initiative is part of the David and Fela Shapell Digitization Project at the Jewish National and University Library, which is continuing to make rare library material accessible to the general public.

For further information: Jerry Barach, Dept. of Media Relations, the Hebrew University, Tel: 972-2-588-2904.

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