Research
Levie (Louis) Hirschel (1895-1944) was curator of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana from 1930 to 1940. As a librarian, scholar, teacher and rabbi he was a driving force in the orthodox Jewish community of Amsterdam in the 1920s and 1930s. Hirschel was a board member of various associations and (ad hoc) committees, and a frequently invited speaker at meetings. Perhaps his most characteristic position was that of chairman of Nachaliël, the religious association that played such an important socio-cultural role for the Jewish community of the Watergraafsmeer/ Transvaalbuurt.
The archive of the Bibliotheca Rosenthalian contains not only job-related but also more personal material, like letters and cards Hirschel received as a pastoral worker during the war years, mail from the Jewish Council, his logbooks (1940-1943), notes for his academic publications, and drawings from his children. The intended aim of this fellowship is a biography of Louis Hirschel - in his Amsterdam Jewish environment.
Fellow
Ruth Peeters studied Semitic languages in Groningen and Hebrew in Amsterdam. She has been active in Jewish book studies for many years. From 2012 to 2017 she worked as a project leader and cataloguer at Ets Haim library. In 2024, Peeters published an essay on Louis Hirschel and the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, which can be found in the collection Beroofd (Rijksmuseum). Together with Emile Schrijver, general director of the Jewish Cultural Quarter, she wrote the book Ooggetuigen van het antisemitisme, which was published by Prometheus in 2025.