Owner’s Script Bookplates on Jewish Printed Books from the Collection of the Kamianets-Podilskyi Historical Museum-Reserve

In Ukraine, many national and state libraries and museums keep collections of Jewish printed books. To date, there have been only a few attempts to investigate individual aspects related to the history of the formation of collections, the book culture of Jewish communities, and the practices of book ownership and reading. A similar situation has long existed for the collection of Jewish printed books from the “Old Prints” fund of the Kamianets-Podilskyi State Historical Museum-Reserve. This collection and information about it as a whole and individual books are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. In the article, we analyse the bookplates from the collection mentioned above. Readers and owners of the books were members of the Jewish community of Kamianets-Podilskyi. Some books belonged to the libraries of various religious institutions. The books have preserved many traces left by the people who read, owned or used them: bookplates, signatures, numerals and numbers, handwritten notes, drawings, poems, and more. Bookplates that indicate the ownership of books are a primary source for the socio-religious history of the Jewish community of Kamianets-Podilskyi. They help distinguish different religious institutions and groups within the community structure. Clarifying the names and types of religious institutions makes it possible to study different identities within the Jewish community further. They depended on social origin, affiliation with movements of followers of various Hasidic teachings and leaders, religious traditions, and others. In addition to studying the aspects of the book culture of the Jewish community of Kamianets-Podilskyi, the collection’s provenance is an important issue. Given the limited information from archival documents or any other sources, analysing marks and signatures in books allows us to reconstruct some stages of how the collection was formed and appeared in the museum.