At the end of this calendar year, Elliot H. Gertel will retire from his endowed position as the Irving M. Hermelin Curator of Judaica, culminating nearly 20 years of dedicated service to the University of Michigan Library. Elliot has worked for the Library as the Curator of Judaica and liaison to the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, initially as part of the library’s Near East Division in the Area Programs unit and later, on the International Studies team.
During his time at the University of Michigan, Elliot has worked tirelessly to build the Judaica collections and to support faculty, student, community, and external user research. Since 2014, Elliot has also served as curator of the Jewish Heritage Collection in the Special Collections Research Center. Under his stewardship, the Judaica Collections have grown to well over 150,000 titles, with strengths in Modern Hebrew literature, Jewish history, history of Israel, Judaism, Hebrew Bible, Holocaust studies, and Yiddish studies. Among Elliot’s noteworthy additions to the collections are the extensive Alterman Collection of Passover Haggadahs, a number of art books by or about the celebrated Polish-born Jewish American artist Arthur Szyk, a collection of Sephardi Biblical commentaries, and numerous rare and antiquarian volumes in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, and Western languages, along with art books and portfolios and artifacts. Elliot’s curatorial expertise has been in evidence in many of the exhibitions in the Library and those the Frankel Center has featured, including recent exhibitions on Haggadahs and pushkes (charity boxes) in the latter location. In 2017, in conjunction with the bicentennial celebration of the University, he curated a major exhibition in the exhibit space of the Special Collections Library entitled "Striving to Stimulate Serious Thought: Jewish Scholarly and Cultural Life at Michigan Across Two Centuries." Elliot has made lasting contributions to Jewish studies and the community through research, presentations, and to the profession through multiple roles in service to the Association of Jewish Libraries, the Jewish information Committee of the ALA Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) of which he has been a longtime chair, and the ALA RUSA Sophie Brody Medal Committee. He has served in numerous capacities in AJL including as president of the Research Libraries, Archives, and Special Collections (RAS) Division and for a number of years as AJL's liaison to ALA. In 1994, he devised a series of joint AJL/ALA programs, many of these--twelve so far at AJL and ALA conferences--which he coordinated and chaired. Elliot’s passion for and expertise in Yiddish have enriched the University of Michigan. He facilitates a weekly Yiddish conversational group and has taught Yiddish at the University of Michigan, Florida Atlantic University, and the University of Kentucky. Jeffrey Veidlinger, Director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, notes especially that “Elliot has also been an important member of the Yiddish community here at Michigan, contributing to our global reputation as a leading center of Yiddish studies.” While he will be retiring from UM, Elliot plans to continue to be active in AJL and ALA and attend their meetings and conferences. Elliot’s last day of work will be December 21st. Please join his colleagues in wishing him a happy retirement. -- Beth Snyder Head, International Studies Technical Services Assistant Head, International Studies The University of Michigan Library
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