The Colmar Fragments: A Collection of Books for Praying, Studying, and Living according to Halakhah

After describing and identifying 330 Hebrew fragments glued to the incunabula bindings in Alsatian libraries, I reconstructed the collection of texts owned by Jews in and around Colmar in the Middle Ages. While it is impossible to know who these books belonged to and where they were kept, they certainly reflect the collections of works read, studied and used by the Jews of Colmar and its surroundings for their spiritual and intellectual needs. All the texts essential to daily Jewish life (Torah scrolls, liturgical works, Talmud, halakhah books, astronomical tables, grammar books) are included. We shall try to determine whether the Colmar fragments have preserved interesting elements and what they tell us about the intellectual life of this community.