Library

The Parkes Collections form the basis of one of the Hartley Library's special collections at the University of Southampton.

The archive and library contains a wealth of material of interest to the historian of Anglo-Jewry as well as James Parkes's personal papers. In recent years, the Parkes Collections have developed as a place of deposit for archives concerning nineteenth and twentieth century Anglo-Jewry. Of particular interest are materials relating to national and international organisations and to Jewish individuals. These include the papers of Anglo-Jewish leaders, such as Selig Brodetsky, Neville Laski and Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, and those of some of its most important institutions: the Anglo-Jewish Association, the Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor and the London Board of Shechita.

The Parkes Library remains unique since it is the only collection devoted to the relationships between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds. It includes books by most of the important writers on Jewish history from the fifteenth century to date as well as 360 periodical titles of which over 70 are current. The most important sections of the collection are those dealing with the history of Jewish communities, Jewish-Christian relations, antisemitism and the Holocaust, together with a section on the development of Zionism and the history of Palestine up to and including the foundation of the state of Israel.