The LBI's Rare Book Collection consists of ca. 3,000 volumes primarily in the field of German Judaica, dating from the earliest period of printing in the 15th century through the annihilation of European Jewry under the Third Reich. These rarities include dozens of Hebrew religious texts from the 17th-19th centuries, Martin Luther’s infamous anti-Semitic tract “Von den Juden und iren Luegen” (1543), and first editions of Moses Mendelssohn’s and Heinrich Heine’s works, as well as those by more recent prominent German-Jewish writers.
Many of these volumes were salvaged from famous Jewish libraries that were confiscated and dispersed by the Nazis and, thus, cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The LBI has digitized more than 1600 of these works.