Percy J. Marks Collection of Judaica

The Percy J. Marks Collection of Judaica is one of Australia's most significant collections of books, pamphlets, scrapbooks and ephemera of Jewish interest. It consists of over 500 books, 850 pamphlets and ten manuscripts. While its strength lies in its Australian content, the collection also contains many rare printed items from Europe, Israel and the United States, some from as early as 1641.

Samuel Benjamin (1804-1854), merchant, Jewish community leader and maternal grandfather of Percy J. Marks, established the collection. Many items bear Benjamin's signature, along with the date 1836. Percy J. Marks added greatly to Samuel Benjamin's collection, purchasing sacred texts, commentaries, Hebrew and Yiddish language materials and pamphlets relating to the plight of Jewish people all over the world. In addition, the collection contains many Jewish periodicals. These include Jewish newspapers, as well as newsletters and annual reports of Jewish community organisations. E. S. Marks continued to add to the collection following his brother's death in 1941. On the death of E. S. Marks in 1948, the Percy J. Marks Collection of Judaica was bequeathed to the State Library of New South Wales.

As part of the State Library's eRecords Project, online catalogue records have been created for individual items in the Percy J. Marks Collection of Judaica. While access had previously been via a typescript contents list, researchers can now discover the extent of this impressive collection through a simple search of the Library's catalogue.

> Browse through the Percy J. Marks Collection of Judaica, via the Library's catalogue