Jewish collection of the Regional and Study Library of Murska Sobota
In January 2021, the Regional and Study Library of Murska Sobota began the project of cataloguing Jewish prayer and ritual books, which most likely belonged to the former Jewish religious congregation of Murska Sobota. The data entry into the COBISS was completed in October 2021 and it encompassed a total of 72 titles or 99 books. The covers of these books, some of which are bilingual, were printed in Hebrew, German, Hungarian, and Yiddish languages. Content wise, they are prayer books for various religious observances (i. e. siddurim and machzorim), copies of the Haggadah, and textbooks on how to read and perform prayers. The oldest book in the collection dates from 1779, while the youngest dates from 1942. They were published in Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Vilnius, and Sulzbach in Bavaria. Some of them, interestingly, carry signatures of Jews from Murska Sobota, e. g., of Rabbi Lazar Roth, who was murdered in Auschwitz along with most of the members of his Jewish community. In 2023, the Regional and Study Library of Murska Sobota began digitizing these books with the help of a contractor and it is safe to assume the entire collection will be digitized in a few years’ time.