Elkan Nathan Adler

Who was Elkan Nathan Adler?

Elkan Nathan Adler was an Anglo-Jewish author, lawyer, historian, and collector of Jewish books and manuscripts. Adler's father was Nathan Marcus Adler, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. He travelled extensively and built an enormous library, particularly of old Jewish documents. Adler was among the first to explore the documents stored in the Cairo Genizah, being in fact the first European to enter it. During his visits to Cairo in 1888 and 1895 Adler collected and brought over 25,000 Genizah manuscript fragments back to England.

In 1921 he published a summary Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in the Collection of E. N. Adler in which he described over 4,500 manuscripts in his collection. Adler collected some 30,000 printed books in Judaica. Unfortunately for him, a business associate's embezzlement forced him to sell most of his library to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City and Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1923. Moreover, Adler agreed to bequeath his subsequent acquisitions to the Jewish Theological Seminary upon his death.