The datasets in this collection are based on the British Library's collection of Hebrew manuscripts, partially digitised between 2013-2016.

The British Library’s collection of Hebrew manuscripts includes items manifesting Jewish cultural, religious and social lives between the 10th century CE and the beginning of the 20th century CE, covering a vast geographical space from Europe and North Africa in the west, through the Middle East to China in the east.

In order to make the collection of Hebrew manuscripts available digitally, the Library had received a major grant from The Polonsky Foundation to support the Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project (HMDP).The project has digitised 1,300 manuscripts, capturing approximately 435,000 digitised images. These were mainly manuscripts catalogued by George Margoliouth at the end of the 19th century. In addition, several Torah scrolls had textile covers (mantles), made of silk brocade and linen. These have undergone conservation treatment by a textile conservator and have been digitised as well.The datasets include digitised images (300ppi JPEG files) of Hebrew manuscripts and their catalogue records (TEI XML metadata files).

We would appreciate it if users could read our Ethical terms of use guide before reusing our Hebrew manuscripts datasets: https://www.bl.uk/help/ethical-terms-of-use

We'd love to hear what you've done or made with the data, so please email us at digitalresearch@bl.uk.