Censorship of Jewish Books: Remembering Kristallnacht

Gouache painting by Charlotte Salomon depicting Kristallnacht, a series of coordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938 (via Wikimedia).

Censorship is an important topic in library science. Whenever persecutors of the Jews arose, these “enemies of the Jewish book” also vented their destructive hate on the Jewish texts. In the time of the Macabees, Antiochus Ephiphanes burned Jewish books.  The Mishnah (an early Talmudic Tractate on Fasting, Tannait 4:6) notes “among the five calamities that befell our people on the 17th of the Hebrew month Tammuz was the burning of the Torah scroll”.

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