Attal Robert Archives.

Abraham (Robert) Attal, was a bibliographer, librarian, and one of the most prominent researchers of North African Jewry in the 20th century. Attal was born in Paris in 1927, but spent most of his childhood and early adulthood in Tunisia and then Algeria. Attal developed a historical awareness and concern for the preservation of the tradition of North African Jews, and in the 1950s engaged in collecting publications and manuscripts published in Tunisia, an activity he continued after immigrating to Israel in 1956, as one of the immigrants from the Maghreb region. Upon arriving in Israel, he deposited the rare books and certificates that he had collected diligently with the Ben Zvi Institute, and established at that institute a unique library for the literature of the Jews from Middle Eastern countries. Attal served as a librarian at the Ben Zvi Institute, and published studies on the history of North African Jews, as well as bibliographies of leading researchers in that field. Abraham Attal died in Jerusalem in 2011. Prior to his death, a large collection of his publications from Tunisia and Algeria, including Arabic-Jewish press, was sold to the National Library of Israel. In 2021, Attal's children deposited his personal archive with the National Library. This archive includes personal and professional correspondence, awards and certificates of appreciation, genealogical research, as well as a collection of autographs compiled by Attal. The archive was made available thanks to the Samis Foundation, Seattle, Washington Read more