FUKS, LAJB

FUKS, LAJB (1908–1990), librarian and Yiddish scholar. Born in Poland, Fuks immigrated to Holland in 1934. In 1946 he became assistant librarian of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, the Hebraica and Judaica Department of the Amsterdam University Library (see Jewish libraries ), and was its librarian from 1949 until his retirement in 1973. He lectured in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish at the University of Amsterdam from 1964. His main scholarly interest was the history of Old Yiddish language and literature. He edited The Oldest Known Literary Document of Yiddish Literature (c. 1382), 2 vols. (1957); and wrote Die hebräischen und aramäischen Quellen des altjiddischen Epos Melokîm-Bûk (1964). His other works deal with the history of Dutch Jewry, especially the history of Hebrew printing and bibliography in Holland. Together with R.G. Fuks-Mansfeld he edited Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts in Amsterdam Public Collections, 2 vols. (1973–75), and Hebrew Typography in the Northern Netherlands 1585–1815, 2 vols. (1984–87). He was the editor of and frequent contributor to the Studia Rosenthaliana from its founding in 1967. (Henriette Boas / Shlomo Z. Berger (2nd ed.)