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Creator
Patai, Raphael, 1910-1996
Call number
MssCol 2349
Physical description
50.02 linear feet (114 boxes, 6 volumes, 4 oversized folders); 1.02 mb (34 computer files)
Preferred Citation

Raphael Patai Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.

Repository
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.Restrictions apply
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online.

Raphael Patai (1910-1996) was a cultural anthropologist specializing in Jewish and Arab cultures. His papers, 1903-2011, document his career through extensive correspondence with colleagues, drafts and manuscripts of his many publications, lectures, research notes, photographs, scrapbooks, and sound and video recordings. The collection includes files created by his daughter, Daphne Patai, after his death, and correspondence and writings of his father, Jozsef Patai.

Biographical/historical information

Raphael Patai was born in Budapest, Hungary on November 22, 1910, the son of Hungarian Jews, Edith (Ehrenfeld) Patai and Jozsef (or Joseph) Patai (1882-1953). Until 1935, Patai used his birth name Ervin George Patai. His father was a prominent scholar, editor and Zionist who published a biography of Theodor Herzl and who was the editor from 1910 to 1940 of a monthly journal of Jewish affairs entitled Mult es Jovo (Past and Future). Patai's father was also a founder of the Zionist Organization in Hungary and was instrumental in procuring the support for the settlement of Jews in Palestine where he also settled in 1939.

Raphael was educated in rabbinical seminaries and at the universities of Budapest and Breslau. In 1933, after receiving a doctorate in Semitic languages and Oriental history from the University of Budapest, he settled in Palestine where he continued his studies at the Hebrew University from which he received (in 1936) a doctorate in Palestinology. Afterwards, he returned briefly to Budapest where he was ordained at the Rabbinal Seminary.

In Palestine, Dr. Patai held several teaching posts at Hebrew University and at Haifa Technion. In 1944, he founded the Palestine Institute of Folklore and Ethnology, serving until 1948 as its director of research and editor of its quarterly journal Edoth, which he also founded.

In 1947, with the aid of a fellowship from the Viking Fund for Anthropological Research, Patai studied the Jews of Mexico. Upon the completion of his research, Patai settled in the United States where he became a naturalized American citizen in 1952.

During his academic career, Dr. Patai held numerous visiting professorships at American universities including Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, New York University and Ohio State University. He held professorships of Anthropology at Dropsie College (1948-1957) and at Fairleigh Dickinson from 1966 until his retirement. He also directed (1955-1956) a research project on Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan for the Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (New Haven, Connecticut) and prepared a special report on social conditions in the Middle East for the United Nations in 1952 .

Patai also served as Director of Research for the Herzl Institute and editor of the Herzl Press, and as an advisory editor of Encyclopedia American. He was President of the American Folklore Society and a fellow of the American Anthropological Association.

Dr. Patai's principal contributions to scholarship were in the fields of cultural anthropology of the ancient Hebrews and Jews and of the modern Middle East. He published hundreds of scholarly articles and authored or edited some thirty-five books including The Arab Mind (1973), Gates to the Old City (1980), The Hebrew Goddess (1967), The Jewish Mind (1976), The Messiah Texts (1979), and The Vanished Worlds of Jewry (1980). With Robert Graves he co-authored Hebrew Myths (1964).

By his first marriage to Naomi Tolkowsky, Dr. Patai had two daughters, Jennifer (Dr. Jennifer Patai-Schneider, born 1940), and Daphne (Dr. Daphne Patai, born 1942). Patai was married three more times, to Irene Patai, Ann Uhl Drevet, and Frances Sheldon.

Raphael Patai died in 1996 in Tucson, Arizona.

Scope and arrangement

The Raphael Patai papers date from 1903 to 2011. The collection documents Patai's career as a scholar, editor, professor and author on the subjects of Jewish culture and history and the modern Middle East. Patai's publications and speaking engagements are extensively documented through manuscript drafts, research notes, and transcripts and recordings of lectures and interviews. Patai's personal and professional activities are further documented through photographs, correspondence, scrapbooks, and diaries. The collection contains some papers of Patai's family members, including his parents Edith and Jozsef Patai and sister Eva Patai. Files of Raphael Patai's daughter, Daphne Patai, document her stewardship of her father's estate and posthumous publications of his work. The collection also contains artwork created and collected by Patai, comprising sketches, paintings, and prints. Materials are in English, German, Hebrew and Hungarian.

The Raphael Patai papers are arranged in ten series:

  • Series I. Correspondence
  • Series II. Writings
  • Series III. Family Papers

    This series contains papers of Raphael Patai's parents Edith and Jozsef Patai and sister Eva Patai (Koigen Patai), and files of correspondence with his family members.

  • Series IV. Photographs

    Photographs consist of prints, slides and negatives (including many glass plate negatives). Some of the photographs are held in albums which have been disassembled. Many photographs are no longer attached to the pages.

    Photographs depict Patai, his family, his appearances at events and lectures, and travels in Europe, Mexico, and Israel. The glass plate negatives are mostly images of Patai when he was a teenager and images of his parents and siblings. The files also contain images that were used for his books, including Jews of Kurdistan, Myths of the Jewish Race, and The Jewish Alchemists.

  • Series V. Personal Miscellany

    This series consists of Patai's diplomas and certificates; identification cards and passports; scrapbooks containing clippings, printed matter, and correspondence related to Patai's career; and a recording of his daughters singing as children.

  • Series VI. Recordings of Lectures and Interviews

    Most of the recordings are lectures in front of a live audience at universities and similar settings.Interviews include both interviews conducted by Patai, and interviews where his life and work were the subject. This series includes many talks on The Hebrew Goddess, as well as several interviews and conversations with Robert Graves related to Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis.

    All recordings are sound recordings, except for two video recordings of interviews with Patai. The lectures are mostly in English with some in Hungarian.

  • Series VII. Diaries

    Diaries contain brief entries documenting Raphael Patai's social and professional activities.

  • Series VIII. Artwork

    Artwork consists of prints, drawings, and paintings. Most of the artwork is unrelated to Patai's research.

  • Series IX. Publishing Files

    Publishing files contain contracts and correspondence regarding Raphael Patai's books, especially posthumous publications. The series contains files concerning Daphne Patai's efforts to have her father's Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore completed and published after his death. The series also contains correspondence and clippings concerning the public and scholarly reaction after The Arab Mind was cited in a 2004 article by Seymour Hersh as one of the inspirations for the U.S. Army's abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

  • Series X. Death and Estate

    Death and Estate files contain condolence letters written to Raphael Patai's daughters; obituaries; documents related to his estate and the disposition of his library; fliers for the Patai memorial lecture; and an essay on mortality that Patai wrote shortly before his death.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Raphael Patai, 1987, 1991 and by his estate, 1998-1999, 2001, 2014, and 2015.

Processing information

Collection processed by John D. Stinson, 1991. Later additions integrated and finding aid revised by Valerie Wingfield, 2009, and Kit Fluker, 2015.

Using the collection

Location

Manuscripts and Archives Division
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328

Access restrictions

Correspondence between Raphael Patai and his daughters, Daphne Patai and Jennifer Patai Schneider, is restricted during their lifetimes. Diaries (Series VII) and interviews that Daphne Patai conducted with her father between 1988 and 1996 (located in Series VI) are closed until 2030, except by written permission from Daphne Patai. Original sound and video recordings are unavailable until digitized.