Cataloging initiative will aid researchers seeking online archival records in Israel
New York University’s Taub Center for Israel Studies has launched a project to assist researchers in searching for and locating Israeli archival records associated with Jewish settlements in administered territories following the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Jewish Settlements Archival Project provides indices and summaries of more than 11,000 files, including Knesset proceedings during which the settlements were discussed as well as documents housed in the Israel State Archives and the Israel Defense Forces Archives. It then directs users to these documents’ online governmental location.
“The establishment of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories has been Israel’s largest national undertaking of the last half century, but it has attracted relatively little scholarly research,” explains Ronald Zweig, director of the Taub Center for Israel Studies. “The Settlements Archival Research Project was created to help facilitate access to official and public records and, with it, address this long-standing gap in historical analysis.”
The establishment of the Jewish Settlements Archival Project was led by Zweig, a historian and author of Britain and Palestine During the Second World War, German Reparations and the Jewish World, and The Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Looting of Hungary, among other works, and Yaacov Lozowick, the former state archivist of Israel.
Taub Center researchers obtained access to many of the cataloged documents under the Israeli Law of Archives—a 1955 law that regulates governmental archives, which are open to the public after 25 years and declassification. These documents are drawn from the Office of the Prime Minister, Cabinet and sub-Cabinet meetings, the Ministry of Housing, and the Ministry of Justice, among other government departments.
For more information on the Jewish Settlements Archival Project, visit the Taub Center’s website.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
The Taub Center was established with a gift from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation. The gift supports an endowed professorship and two graduate fellowships in Israel Studies, and funds lectures, seminars, scholarly colloquia at the Center, and other special programs for students, faculty, and the community. In addition to offering its own programming, the Taub Center works closely with NYU’s departments to create cross-disciplinary programming, serving to broaden NYU’s offerings in Judaic and Middle Eastern studies. For more, please visit its website.
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