Jewish Bookstore Aaron Beker No 20 Herren Street
In the 1800s the Latvian city of Riga developed a reputation for being culturally open which proved an appealing draw for many Jews who came to settle in the city. Throughout the 1800s the city’s Jewish populat... More
Libary of the Kharkhaver Jewish Workers Cooperative Self Education
In the years following the end of the First World War and the Russian Revolution the city of Kharkiv – in Ukraine – became home to a large and vibrant Jewish community; indeed, the Jewish population of Kharkiv ... More
Library of the Pskov Pedagogical Institute
Library of the Pskov Pedagogical Institute. This stamp most likely indicates the pre-World War II incarnation of the present-day Pskov State Pedagogical University in Pskov, Russia...This book stamp is from a b... More
Library of the Mens Sunday School, Riga
Library of the Men's Sunday School in Riga. This private school was founded in 1890 by a group of Russian teachers to serve those who never had a chance to get a sufficient education at a regular school. The o... More
Foreign Delegation of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party
The Socialist Revolutionary Party was a major political party in Russia in the early twentieth century. It was a revolutionary socialist party espousing a democratic and agrarian socialist platform. It was no... More
Baruch Kunstadt Dayan, Israel
Rabbi Baruch Kunstadt was born in Pressburg (Bratislava, Slovakia) in 1884 and as a young man he studied in that city’s yeshiva – he was the grandson of Rabbi Lippman Kunstadt. From 1907 to 1939 he was the Av-B... More
Synagogue of Lubavitcher Hasidism Vilna
Synagogue of Lubavitcher Hasidim. Vilna. Vilna Street, private house number 21. ...The Lubavitcher Hasidim are adherents of a Hasidic movement known as Chabad (also known as Lubavitch and Chabad-Lubavitch). T... More
Club Ivria Riga - A black and white image of a logo
Club "Ivria". Riga. Club Ivria was a Zionist social club, established in Riga in the early 20th Century. It functioned as a historical and literary institution, and as a library...This book stamp is from a bo... More
Library of the Riga Infantry School - Public domain map
A census of Kovno from 1923 indicated that 27 percent of the city’s population was Jewish – and the city was the scene of a thriving Jewish community that would befit such a high percentage. The city was home t... More
Central Yiddish School Organization_Central Secretary Vilna
In 1921 the Central Yiddish School Organization (Tsentrale Yidishe Shul Organizatsye – often known by the acronym TSYSHO) was founded in Warsaw to advance and administrate a network of secular Yiddish schools. ... More
Library of the Union of Russian Teachers in Latvia
The Union of Russian Teachers in Latvia was established in January 1919 during the Latvian War of Independence against Soviet Russia. It served mostly as a professional and scientifically-oriented organization.... More
Library of Free People - A stamp with a picture of a man holding a ten...
Library of Free People, 4th District (arrondissement), Paris...This library was located in Paris, in the 4th arrondissement; an arrondissement is an administrative district, of which Paris is divided into 20. T... More
Josef Jona Zwi Halevi Horovitz
Josef Jona Zwi Halevi Horovitz. Chief of the Court (Av Beit Din). Kehal Adath Jeshurun Frankfurt Am Main...Born in 1892, in Hunsdorf (Czech Republic), Rabbi Josef Jona Zwi Horovitz – the “Hundsorfer Rav” – was ... More
Saltykov-Shchedrin Library
This library was named after one of the most prominent satirists in the history of Russian literature, Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Schedrin. His writing focused on social issues such as serfdom, corruption, ... More
Yakov Yehusha Son of Zvi Shulman - Public domain map
The city of Yelisavetgrod (Kirovohrad) was the site of many notable anti-Jewish pogroms including ones that took place in 1881, 1905 and several pogroms that took place during the Civil War which followed the B... More
Latvian SSR Yiddish Theater, Israel
After the Soviet Army occupied the Republic of Latvia it renamed the territory the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Latvian SSR) – it was a region that saw heavy fighting throughout the Second World War as co... More
Baltinava Jewish Culture Society - Public domain map
Though the village of Baltinava’s Jewish community never numbered higher than a few hundred the village was still home to Jewish mutual aid and cultural societies – as this book stamp demonstrates. In the years... More
Rabbi Chaim Lubotski - A stamp with the name of a person on it
Rabbi Chaim Lubotski. City of Rezhitsa, Vitebsk Governorate. ...Rabbi Chaim Lubotski was a rabbi in the city of Rezhitsa. Rezhitsa was part of the Russian Empire from 1772 to 1917.It was part of the Vitebsk Go... More
Association of Hebrew Language and Culture
Association of Hebrew Language and Culture – Breslau. Hebrew..By the time the Nazis rose to power, Breslau was home to the third largest Jewish community in Germany. The Jews of Breslau had developed strong com... More
Library of the Israelite Consistory of Paris
Library of the Israelite Consistory of Paris. ..A consistory was a religious authority governing the Jews of various geographic localities in France, in accordance with a Napoleon I decree circa 1808. Whenever... More
Library of Guardianship of National Sobriety in the city of Volmar
Library of Guardianship of National Sobriety in the city of Volmar. ..Starting in 1894, the Finance Ministry in the Russian Empire began creating a network of committees for “Guardianship of National Sobriety”... More
House of Ethics Rabbi Yisrael Salanter
House of Ethics. The Foundation, Our Master, Our Teacher, and Our Rebbe (admur) Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. Kovno..Born in Lithuania in 1810, Rabbi Yisra’el ben Ze’ev Volf Salanter (also known as Lipkin) was a pro... More
Jewish Democratic Teachers' Association
The cultural openness that was often attributed to the Latvian capital of Riga, made the city an appealing destination for many Jews. After 1842, when the Jewish community received formal recognition by the aut... More
Society for the Guarding of the Health of the Jewish Population
At the beginning of World War I, as many Jewish (as well as non-Jewish) refugees poured away from the Western boundaries of the Russian Empire where fighting with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires was tak... More
Student Library Reading Room fo the Kiev Polytechnic Institute
Student Library-reading room of the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. ..Founded in 1898 with the support of the originator of the Periodic Table of Elements, Dmitri Mendeleev, among others, the Kiev Polytechnic Inst... More
Rabbinical School Vacquelire Street Paris
Rabbinical School, Vauquelire Street – Paris. .The Séminaire Israélite de France (also referred to as the École Rabbinique) has been training rabbis since 1829. Though founded in Metz, the school was transferre... More
Western Oblast Pioneer House
Western Oblast Pioneer House. Smolensk, Sotsialisticheskaya Street 1/5. ..The Pioneer movement is an organization for children in communist countries. It is similar to the Scout movement in the US, but is dist... More
Literary Circle in Reval - public domain postal stamp scan
Literary circle in the city of Reval. ..This stamp most likely denoted ownership by a private library or literary society/book group. Given that the name on the stamp is Revel, rather than the current name of T... More
Administration of the Estonian Railroad of the Tartu Branch
USSR. NKPS. Administration of the Estonian Railroad of the Tartu Branch. _ _ _ _ 194. Nr. 475. ..While some of this stamp is illegible, there is enough to ascertain that it is from the library of the NKPS, whic... More
People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR
On June 20th, 1934, the older People’s Commissariat of Military and Marine Affairs became the People’s Commissariat of Defense of the U.S.S.R. In December 1937, naval affairs were handed over to the new People’... More
Chatzi Kaddish Intellectual Books
Karlsruhe is the capital city of the grand duchy of Baden in Germany, a city with a lengthy Jewish history dating back to the early 1700s when Jews were attracted to the city by pledges of non-discrimination by... More
Seal of the Rabbi of Riga S. Pukher
Seal of the Rabbi of Riga S. Pukher..Solomon Pukher was born in 1829 in Vladislavov, a town then in the Russian Empire. It is currently in modern-day Lithuania and is called Kudirkos Naumiestis. He was educat... More
Library of the Kiev Branch of the Society for the Promotion of Culture...
Library of the Kiev Branch of the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia. 1570. ..The Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia was a civic and educational associatio... More
The First Jewish Workers Club in Yekaterinoslav
As it was a busy industrial city, Dnipropetovsk also provided a rich urban setting for the development of a large and active Jewish community. Jewish workers were involved in numerous trades in the city, but Je... More
Library Culture Riga - A black and white photo of a sign
Library "Culture". Riga, Saraynaya Street 11. No. 6771899. This stamp is for a Riga library, formerly located at 11 Saraynaya Street. The orthography on the stamp is consistent with the language used before t... More
Union of Food Workers Lozovsky Club - Public domain map
The Lozovsky referred to in this stamp is most likely Solomon Lozovsky, a prominent Bolshevik and, during the times he was expelled from the Bolshevik Party (in 1914 and 1918), a Mezhraionets (a Russian Social ... More
May He Live Zalman Tuviyah Markovicius the Rabbi fo Antaliepte in Lith...
May He Live, Zalman-Tuviyah Markovicius // the Rabbi of Antaliepte in Lithuania..After serving as the Rabbi in the small Lithuanian town of Inturke (Anturke), Rabbi Zalman-Tuviyah Markovicius (Markovitz) reloca... More
No 1093 State Picture Gallery of the BSSR
No. 1093. State Picture Gallery of the BSSR. ..The State Picture Gallery of the BSSR was founded on January 20, 1939 and was not evacuated during the war. Much was lost. Its current name is the National Arts Mu... More
Talmudic Library of Congregation Israel Salonica
Talmudic Library of Congregation Israel -- Salonica..In 1912, when Salonica was reincorporated into Greece, the city already had a large and vibrant Jewish community. A devastating fire ravaged Salonica in 1917... More
Library of the Metropolitan Flavian - Public domain map
Born Nikolai Gorodetsky into an aristocratic family in Orel, Russia in 1840, the future Metropolitan (the 3rd highest class of rank in the Russian Orthodox Church) dropped out of law school at Moscow University... More
Uman Public Library - A stamp with the name of a city on it
The city of Uman remains an important location for Jews due largely to its connection to the famed Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav who lived in Uman in the months previous to his death. The Jewish population of Uman w... More
Library of the Business Institute MORKO
Library of the Business Institute M.O.R.K.O. Inventory 1301. Section 944. Number 176. ..This stamp comes from the library of the Moscow Institute of Commerce of M.O.R.K.O. M.O.R.K.O. is an acronym for the Mosc... More
Library of the Krasnodarsk Institute of Wine Making and Viticulture
Library of the Krasnodarsk Institute of Wine-Making and Viticulture. .Krasnodarsk is the capital of Krasnodar Krai, which is a large region of Russia that borders Ukraine. This region has the most wine factori... More
Drug Store and Perfumers Shop of N. L. Temkin
Drug store and perfumer's shop of N. L. Temkin. Rakovskaya Street. ..Rakovskaya Street is located in Minsk, which is currently the capital of Belarus. The Offenbach index has this particular stamp, denoting a b... More
Russian Philanthropic Society in Poland
Russian Philanthropic Society in Poland. Branch in Brest on the Bug. This stamp appears to be the Brest Branch of the Russian Philanthropic Society; Brest is located on the Polish border.. The main location of ... More
Bookstore G Gutman Kovno Birstono Street no 10
A census of Kovno from 1923 indicated that 27 percent of the city’s population was Jewish – and the city was the scene of a thriving Jewish community that would befit such a high percentage. The city was home t... More
Russian Social Deomcratic Workers' Party
This party was formed in 1898 and attempted to combine all Marxist revolutionary groups in the Russian Empire. The three main original constituents were the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Worki... More
Democratic Zionists Guild Hakhsharah
Many Zionist groups throughout Europe worked to actively prepare their members for eventual immigration. Therefore, numerous “Haksharah” (Zionist Training Farms) were set up to provide young Zionists with the t... More
Society of Jewish Science in the Netherlands
Society of Jewish Science in the Netherlands.Founded in Germany, in 1819, the Wissenschaft der Juden (Society for Jewish Culture and Science) sought to establish a construct of the Jewish people as a people – i... More
Library of the Gatchina Palace Museum
Library of the Gatchina Palace-Museum. ..The Gatchina Palace was originally built in the late 18th Century for a Russian count; however, Catherine the Great eventually purchased the property and it became an im... More
Military Engineering Academy Riga - Public domain map
Military engineering academy. Riga. N. V. Kuybishev Library. This was a library for an officer training school, located in Riga. These schools were for commissioned officers in the Russian army; there were a gr... More
Publication of Rabbi B. Israelzon
Publication of Rabbi B. Israelzon. Courland Governorate. Kandau. Kandau is the German name for the town of Kandava, which is located on the outskirts of Riga. The stamp also references the Courland Governorate,... More
Kiev Workers School no 85
After the Russian Revolution, and the subsequent civil war, the Communist leaders in the Soviet Ukraine embarked on a project to reconstruct the devastated regions along Marxist-Leninist lines. Part of this pro... More
Rostselmash Technical Library - Public domain map
Rostselmash is a Russian agricultural equipment company based in Rostov-on-Don and founded in 1929. It started out as a as a government contractor. In 1941 they evacuated their factory from Rostov to Tashkent ... More
All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) Kiev Oblast Library, Number 581...
The All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) was the name of the ruling party in the Soviet Union between 1925 and 1952. It’s original name was the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (bolsheviks). It became ... More
May He Live Zalman Tuviyah Markovicius the Rabbi of Antaliepte in Lith...
May He Live, Zalman-Tuviyah Markovicius // the Rabbi of Antaliepte in Lithuania..After serving as the Rabbi in the small Lithuanian town of Inturke (Anturke), Rabbi Zalman-Tuviyah Markovicius (Markovitz) reloca... More
Secretariat of the Local Union Mulhouse
Secretariat of the Local Union, Mulhouse. ..This stamp is from the city of Mulhouse, which is located near the German and Swiss borders. The city was annexed by Germany as part of the territory of Alsace-Lorrai... More
Library of the Rabbi Zwi Perez Chajes
From the Library of the Rabbi Zwi Perez Chajes of Blessed Memory (Zikhrono Lebrakha)..Rabbi Zwi Perez Chajes was a prominent Jewish scholar, teacher, community leader, and Zionist. Born in 1876 in Brody (Galici... More
Imperial University of Saint Vladimir Library
Imperial University of Saint Vladimir Library- Now known as the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev, the Imperial University was first established in 1834 by Emperor Nicholas I. It was renamed after al... More
Library Reading Room Welfare Society
Library and Reading Room of the Welfare Society of Poor Jews of the City of Melitopol. Prior to the outbreak of WWII, Melitopol had a large and active Jewish community, which explains this bookstamp belonging t... More
Bookstore G Gutman Kovno Birstono Street no 10
A census of Kovno from 1923 indicated that 27 percent of the city’s population was Jewish – and the city was the scene of a thriving Jewish community that would befit such a high percentage. The city was home t... More
Fundamental Library of the Volhynia Theological Seminary
The Volhynia Theological Seminary was founded in 1796. It is a Ukrainian Orthodox Church institution. It was moved several times in the 1800s, and by the mid 1800s, when it was located in the small Ukrainian ... More
Justingrad Library Society - Public domain map
Justingrad was a shtetl created after Jews were expelled from the nearby village of Sokolovka in 1825 in accordance with a decree by Nicholas I of Russia which expelled non-farmer Jews to special Jewish settlem... More
Central Jewish Library of the State - Public domain map
On April 1, 1919 the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR issued a decree that transferred control of numerous historical and cultural institutions, including libraries, to the People’s Commissar... More
Library of the factory committee of the factory Red Vyborger
The “Red Vyborger” is one of the largest facilities for the processing of non-ferrous metals and alloys (those that do not contain a significant amount of iron) in Russia today. It was founded in 1857 by a mec... More
Vitebsk Governorate Statistical Committee
Vitebsk Governorate Statistical Committee. 28 December 98. ...The Vitebsk Governorate Statistical Committee was the organ of government statistics in the Vitebsk Governorate for most of the 19th and the beginn... More
Library of the Vilna House of the Red Army
Library of the Vilna House of the Red Army. Number 3633. 12-86. ..A “House of the Red Army” was a cultural institution whose function it was to serve the cultural, educational, and recreational needs of Red Ar... More
Library of Eretz Yisrael - Public domain map
Library of Eretz Yisrael The Sacred Community (Kehila Kedosha) of Zagreb ..After Nazi forces occupied Yugoslavia in April 1941, Zagreb was made the capital of the puppet-state the Independent State of Croatia w... More
A.S. Pushkin Brest Regional Library - Public domain map
A.S. Pushkin Brest Regional Library. This library was named after the famed Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, widely considered to be one of the founders of modern Russian literature. This library was located in ... More
RSFSR Soviet Library, Pskov - public domain postal stamp scan
R.S.F.S.R. Soviet Library-reading room. In the city of Pskov. R.S.F.S.R. is an acronym for the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which was the largest of the Russian republics within the U.S.S.R. Th... More
Pioneering Scouts Youth Organization Hashomer Hatzair in Lithuania
Founded in 1913, as a merger between Tse’ire Agudat Tsiyon and Ha-Shomer, the organization Hashomer Hatzair was a Zionist-socialist youth movement that trained young people to immigrate to kibbutz in Palestine.... More
Library of the Destroyer Artem
This destroyer was originally built for the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Empire in 1916 and named “Azard.” It held this name until 1922 when it was renamed “Zinoviev” after Grigoriy Zinoviev, a prominent Soviet ... More
Library of the factory Proletarian Victory
This shoe factory was built in Saint Petersburg in 1914 and later changed its name to “Proletarian Victory.” It employed a large number of workers. In 1926, they began making women’s shoes. During the war, i... More
The Lounge Bookseller_b
This stamp is not from a library but from a bookstore called “The Lounge”, which was located on Rue Etats-Unis (United States), in Cannes. This particular street is renowned for luxury, high end shopping establ... More
Rabbinical School Vauquelire Street Paris
Rabbinical School, Vauquelire Street – Paris. .The Séminaire Israélite de France (also referred to as the École Rabbinique) has been training rabbis since 1829. Though founded in Metz, the school was transferre... More
Jewish Workers Club Bronislav Grosser Kharkov
Jewish Workers' Club. Bronislav Grosser. Kharkov. . .This Jewish workers’ club located in Kharkov, Ukraine was named after Bronislav Grosser. Bronislav Grosser was a well-known Bundist, writer, and theoreticia... More
Yitzhak Jamenfeld - A close up of a sign on a wall
Yitzhak (Isaak) Jamenfeld. Amsterdam Plantage Doklaan 28 huis. Holland. ..Born on September 24, 1913 in the region of Tarnopol (Ukraine), Isaak Jamenfeld eventually relocated to Holland with his mother Dora Ja... More
Rabbi Haim Cohen, Tripoli - Public domain map
Rabbi Haim Cohen – Tripoli..The Jewish community of Tripoli dates back to the Phoenician period. While the early centuries of Jewish presence in Tripoli were marred by repression and shifting legal decrees, by ... More
Universal Israelite Alliance - Public domain old map
The Alliance Israelite Universelle was founded in Paris in 1860, with the purpose of educating Middle Eastern Jews in French language and culture. The organization is still in existence to this day, offering e... More
Library of the “Hebrew Language”
Library of the “Hebrew Language” (literally: “Language of Zion”) Antwerp ..Between the World Wars, Antwerp grew into an important site for European Jewry with the city’s Jewish population making up nearly 20% o... More
Pskov Technical School of Land Management
This institution was originally founded as the Pskov Land Surveying School in 1874, and was reorganized as the Pskov Technical School of Land Management in 1921...This book stamp is from a book looted by the Na... More
Lenin Library of Gorky Oblast - Public domain map
Lenin Library of Gorky Oblast. City of Gorky. An oblast is a Russian term for an administrative zone or province; this particular one was named after famed Russian author and revolutionary Maxim Gorky. This spe... More
Library of the Rumyanstev Museum
Library of the Rumyanstev Museum. The Rumyanstev Museum was Moscow’s first public museum. Founded in 1831, it was originally located in St. Petersburg, and moved to Moscow in 1861. Post-revolution, the museum w... More
Perm Branch Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Rus...
Perm Branch of the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia. Library-reading room. This learned society was originally founded in Saint Petersburg in 1863 by prominent and wealthy Russian J... More
Professional Union of Bookdealers, Magnitogorsk
Professional Union of Bookdealers. Magnitogorsk group committee. Magnitogorsk is a city founded in 1743 by the Empress Elizabeth. Given the city’s large reserves of iron ore, it was of importance to Soviet lead... More
Communist Academy Library - Public domain map
Communist Academy Library ..A research institute and institution of higher learning established in Moscow in 1918 as the Socialist Academy, it was renamed the Communist Academy in 1924. It had an implicit riva... More
Museum of the Revolution of the BSSR
Museum of the Revolution of the BSSR. Exhibit number. Inventory number 2403. ..The Museum of the Revolution of the BSSR was opened on May 2, 1926 in Minsk. It held materials dealing with the history of the revo... More
Publishing House of E. Gitlin Warsaw
Publishing house of E. Gitlin. Warsaw. Nalevki, Ivanovskiy Bazaar No. 1. Telephone no. 31-59. ..There were multiple Gitlin publication houses in Warsaw- in addition to “E”, there was also an “A” and an “F” Gitl... More