A supplementary list of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts

THE field of Judaeo-Persian studies is still underdeveloped, as most Judaeo-Persian texts continue to lie buried in uncatalogued collections of manuscripts scattered throughout the world. Although their importance was already recognized at the end of the nineteenth century, and despite the fact that they constitute one of the largest untapped groups of Jewish vernacular texts in Hebrew characters, Judaeo-Persian texts continue to be little known and studied. Significant numbers of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts can be found in major European libraries, such as the British Library (formerly the British Museum Library), the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the library of the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Russian National Library (formerly the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library), both at St Petersburg. The largest collections are those of the Jewish National and University Library and the library of the Ben Zvi Institute, both in Jerusalem, the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, and the Klau Library of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati. It is also known that many Judaeo-Persian manuscripts are still privately owned in and outside Iran; some of these continue to trickle into the libraries just mentioned