LIBRARY
Our Library
The National Library, Kadimah founded in 1911, serves the cultural and intellectualneeds of the Yiddish speaking community of Melbourne. It houses the largest collection of Yiddish books, periodicals, reference, audio and video materials in Australia.
The National Library, Kadimah is part of a global network of libraries working towards the preservation and promotion of Yiddish language, culture and literature. Partnerships with like organizations worldwide are being established to ensure reciprocal lending rights and free access to a worldwide library collection to avoid unnecessary duplication.
The National Library, Kadimah aims to preserve and promote Yiddish books and journals for adults and children by:
- Providing a welcoming and comfortable environment to encourage wider usage
- Collecting, mainly through donations, items in Yiddish or on Yiddish themes relating to the Yiddish speaking community in Melbourne
- Providing limited number of English titles translated from Yiddish
- Providing a meeting space for Yiddish book clubs and reading groups
- Promoting the Yiddish language to children through storytelling and song and by acquiring a small children’s collection in Yiddish
- Providing public access computers to enable research of the Kadimah collection and other related resources promoting Yiddish language and literature
- Providing a space for learning through activities for children and young adults
Opening hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 9.30 am – 12.30 pm or by appointment.
For further information please contact the library at: library@kadimah.org.au
The Kadimah shares the catalogue with the Lamm Jewish Library of Australia. This catalogue contains books, periodicals, vinyls and other materials.
My Favourite Book
Kadimah has some amazing books in its National Library collection. We have asked people to tell us about their favourite book in the library: why they chose it; why it is special to them; and a brief overview of what the book is about, accompanied by a picture, as the covers are often treasures in their own right! We hope this will inspire other readers and lovers of Yiddish literature to recall and seek out their favourite books and share with others who may not know about the Kadimah National Library.
If you would like to contribute, please email us at reception@kadimah.org.au.
Many more Yiddish literary treasures are being donated from family collections, with families wanting to ensure their loved ones’ legacies are preserved and shared with the community. Their generous donation of these books to the Kadimah National Library is a wonderful gift for which we are most grateful. These books need to be sorted, catalogued, preserved and researched. With your help we can ensure that future generations have access to these historical gems and can experience the same joy our readers do today.