American Jewish Historical Society American Sephardi Federation Leo Baeck Institute Yeshiva University Museum YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

2Center for Jewish History

The Center for Jewish History, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is one of the greatpublic Jewish historical and cultural institutions in the world. Opened to the public in October 2000 as the campus to its five partner organizations - American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research - the Center has achieved recognition as a venue of unrivaled historical documentation and scholarship, imaginative exhibitions of art and artifacts, and vital public dialogue. The collections of its partners total more than 500,000 volumes and 100 million archival documents, and include thousands of pieces of artwork, textiles, and ritual objects, as well as music, films, and photographs. They comprise, taken together, the largest repository of the modern Jewish experience outside of Israel.

The mission of theCenter is vital and unassailable – to save the records of the Jewish past, preserving the legacy of our people so that generations to come will have access to the materials, which chronicle our successes, our struggles, and our history. A whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, the synergy of Eastern European Jewry, Sephardic Jewry, German-speaking Jewry, and the American Jewish experience makes the Center for Jewish History a unique institution of historic significance.

Tzu Der Zun (To the Sun), Yiddish children’s book by L. Lasavin. Warsaw, 1936. Courtesy of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Above image: Biblical Species, Michele Oka Doner. Permanent exhibit lining the floor of the Center for Jewish History.

3Center for Jewish History

Since its founding, the Center for Jewish History has become a major presence in New York’seducational and cultural landscape, and a prime destination for scholars from around the world. Located in the heart of New York City’s Chelsea district, the Center for Jewish History is housed in a unique building that is as multifaceted as the institutions and collections found within its walls. The architecture of the building is designed to blend aesthetics with function, enabling visitors to experience, absorb, and readily access a wealth of information about the history and culture of the Jewish people.

Lillian Goldman Reading Room The Lillian Goldman Reading Room is both the heart of the Center and the gateway to the collections of its five partners. It combines the ambiance of a traditional library with state-of-the-art features that accommodate 21st-century research methods, including Internet connectivity at each workstation and wireless Internet access. The Reading Room’s staff, comprised of experienced librarians, archivists and historians, wields fluency in over 20 languages, and includes professionals with over 50 years of experience working with the collections. This multifaceted team is truly an unparalleled resource anywhere in the research world.

The Reading Room houses several thousand important reference books in an open-stack collection, including major publications of the Center’s partners and a wide variety of one-of-a-kind and out-of-print books in many languages. In addition, the Reading Room’s electronic catalog offers details on the extensive archives and library holdings of each of the five partners, vastly expanding the resources available to visitors.

Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy InstituteA key area of research for Center visitors is family history, and the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at the Center for Jewish History provides outstanding guidance and resources for those seeking information on their family background and relatives’ lives and experiences. Established by the Center’s partners and the Jewish Genealogical Society in 2000 as the Center Genealogy Institute, the Institute draws on the vast archival records of the partners, and offers reference services both on site and by telephone, letter, fax, and e-mail.

The Institute maintains an open-stack genealogy reference library containing books, periodicals, maps, and a variety of electronic resources including online databases, CD-ROMs, and more. Professional staff and experienced volunteers are available to orient patrons to the Center’s extensive resources, and also conduct workshops for beginning researchers, highlighting the scope of genealogical resources in the partners’ collections.

Education and Research: The Cornerstone of the Center’s Mission

Photograph by Fred Charles

Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC)In late 2006, the Center for Jewish History launched its much anticipated Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC), enabling anyone with Internet access to browse the wealth of holdings at the Center from anywhere in the world. The initiative was originally made possible by a grant from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission (NHPRC), a division of the United States National Archives.

The OPAC, a groundbreaking initiative, is one of the first online catalogs of its type to integrate search capabilities across three types of collections – libraries, archives, and museums. The resulting integrated descriptive system is an invaluable tool for researchers, enabling them to conduct one search across all formats, and is the hallmark of the Center’s innovation and forward-thinking. Users of the OPAC can search the holdings by many different criteria, such as name, subject, geographic areas, date, and format, and the Center’s eventual goal is for every item in the partners’ collections to be entered. The OPAC can be accessed through the Center’s Web site at www.cjh.org. Recent grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Leon Levy Foundation are enabling the Center to add to the catalog, which currently includes more than 600,000 records.

Encouraging Scholarship – the Fellowship and Graduate Seminar ProgramsThe Center works actively to encourage and advance scholarship, so that the rich collections of its partners will have an impact on the world in which we live and that of the future. Working with an elite group of academic advisors, the Center engages the public in its scholarly work. The Center’s Academic Advisory Council oversees its Fellowship and Graduate Seminar Program, which is designed to foster the intellectual growth of young scholars. Center Fellows are required to access resources from at least two of the partners’ collections, encouraging collaboration and cross training among the organizations. After completing their research, Fellows have the opportunity to share their work with the larger academic community and with other young scholars through the Center’s Graduate Seminar Program. To date, the Center and its partners have proudly cultivated more than 200 Fellows from a wide range of renowned universities from around the world.

A Wealth of Treasures to be Found Nowhere Else – Preservation and DigitizationEssential to the work of the Center, preservation and digitization efforts ensure that the treasures housed at the Center can continue to live on for generations.

The Werner J. and Gisella Levi Cahnman Preservation Laboratory serves the critical mission of stabilizing, maintaining, and prolonging the life of the partners’ extensive paper-based collections, which are subject to deterioration due to age and handling. The Preservation Lab reformats brittle materials, treats items damaged by use, microfilms documents for safe access and retrieval, and preserves and stores collections in customized protective containers and sleeves. Without this preservation effort, many materials, some of which date back four centuries, would not be accessible to the public.

The Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory works in concert with the Preservation Laboratory, providing the Center community with high-quality digital multimedia facsimiles of items from the partners’ collections. Its experienced staff works with state-of-the-art hardware and software to produce images, audio files, and other digital resources that make delicate and vulnerable treasures from the partners’ archives accessible to a wide audience. A Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) catalogs, manages, preserves, and provides integrated access to the repository’s assets.

4Center for Jewish History

The Center Facility: A Resource, Venue and DestinationPaul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Great Hall The Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Great Hall offers an elegant and versatile space that is frequently used for special programs. Gracing the Great Hall are the emblems of the Center’s five prestigious partner organizations and two permanent art installations that are both rich with historical meaning and inspiring in their visual beauty:

Biblical Species, a lyrical terrazzo floor that depicts botanical species, was inspired by a story from the Old Testament and created by Michele Oka Doner. Embedded with aluminum, bronze, and mother-of-pearl, the 4,000-square-foot floor illustrates the shevat haminin, or seven species, that Moses’ scouts brought back to show that the land of Israel “flows with milk and honey.” Its mixture of bronze and aluminum melds the ancient and the contemporary – a fusion that reflects perfectly the Center’s overarching philosophy.

Luminous Manuscript by Diane Samuels is an intricate, exquisite mosaic that the Pittsburgh-based artist views as a metaphoric table of contents and preface to the Center as a whole. Comprised of more than 80,500 pieces of glass and 440 underlying stone tiles, the work of art features 112,640 individual alphabet characters from 57 writing systems, resulting in an imaginative and visually stunning metaphor for the myriad possibilities of interpreting the signs and symbols of human communication.

Leo and Julia Forchheimer Auditoriumand Steven J. Kumble StageThe Leo and Julia Forchheimer Auditorium is an architecturally beautiful, state-of-the-art venue that provides 248 seats, in a handicapped-accessible space, designed with superb lighting and acoustics. It is fully equipped with the latest technology for film projecting, sound recording, and videoconferencing. The Steven J. Kumble Stage is a perfect setting for lectures, films, concerts, and other performances and events within the auditorium.

Valentin M. Blavatnik Orientation Theater The Valentin M. Blavatnik Orientation Theater offers first-time or returning visitors an informative and engaging introduction to the wealth of resources and programs offered at the Center for Jewish History. The Orientation Theater is suited for both intimate lectures and special presentations and is technologically equipped for viewing archival images, DVD-based materials, and PowerPoint presentations.

Gallery SpacesVisitors to the Center can enjoy a wonderful selection of exhibitions in a wide range of spacious and versatile gallery spaces within the facility, including installations curated and displayed by staff of the Yeshiva University Museum in the Betty and Walter L. Popper Gallery, the Ann and Marcus Rosenberg Gallery, the Winnick Family Foundation Gallery, and the Selz Foundation Gallery. Additionally, visitors can experience rare and fascinating presentations of materials from the partner collections in a host of other spaces throughout the Center.

5Center for Jewish History

Photograph by Fred Charles

Luminous Manuscript (detail). Photograph by Joshua Kessler

The American Jewish experience is rich and varied – and nowhere is that experience as well documented as in the wealth of materials found at the American Jewish Historical Society. For more than 117 years, the Society has been collecting, preserving, publishing, exhibiting, and sharing with researchers a vast trove of materials that tell the remarkable story of Jewish contributions to American civilization, and American contributions to Jewish identity.

The American Jewish Historical Society’s library, archives, and collections encompass 20 million documents, 50,000 books, plus photographs, art, and artifacts that illustrate and illuminate the life and accomplishments of the American Jewish community from the 16th century to the present. Among the Society’s treasures are the first American book published in Hebrew; the handwritten original of Emma Lazarus’ The New Colossus, which graces the Statue of Liberty; records of the nation’s leading Jewish communal organizations; and important collections in the fields of education, philanthropy, science, sports, business, and the arts.

Through exhibitions, events, and other programs, the Society provides both researchers and the general public with new insight into the American Jewish past. Its activities seek to shine a light on key events or people from the fabric of American Jewish life, or to uncover forgotten or unacknowledged chapters from history – such as a recent exhibition of photos and documents that celebrated “Jewish Chaplains at War: Unsung Heroes of the Greatest Generation, 1941-1945.”

Central to the Society’s mission is to ensure that critical details of the American Jewish experience are not lost to present and future generations. A perfect example is one of the Society’s most ambitious projects: its initiative to preserve the history of the American Soviet Jewry Movement. The goal of the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement is to create the most comprehensive collection possible of materials documenting the American campaign to rescue Soviet Jews. The multi-faceted, multi-year project includes gathering oral histories as well as collecting personal papers, photographs, broadsides, news releases, films, and other items that detail the heroic effort to liberate oppressed Jews in the Soviet Union.

In keeping with its mission, each year the organization hosts the Emma Lazarus Statue of Liberty Awards, commemorating individuals for exceptional deeds or accomplishments. Among past honorees was former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Schultz, to whom Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel presented the award in acknowledgement of Secretary Schultz’ personal and official advocacy for the freedom of Soviet Jews.

American Jewish Historical Society

6 Center for Jewish History

Group portrait of the sheet metal class of the Baron de Hirsch Trade School. New York City, circa 1910. Courtesy of American Jewish Historical Society.

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, 1883. Courtesy of American Jewish Historical Society.

Sephardic communities represent an integral part of Jewish heritage. But without the efforts of the American Sephardi Federation (ASF), vast resources illuminating the Sephardic legacy and traditions might not exist for present or future generations. Since its founding in 1973, ASF has worked to support, revitalize, and strengthen American Sephardic communities – a mission that continues even more strongly since Sephardic House joined with ASF in 2002, creating one unified organization to preserve and support the rich cultural traditions, spirit and history of all Sephardic communities as an integral part of Jewish experience and heritage.

ASF maintains the only permanent exhibition gallery dedicated to the Sephardic experience. Its library and archives boast more than 7,000 catalogued books and 20,000 archival documents, including materials from Spain and Portugal, as well as the Middle East and North Africa. Educational and cultural programs of both contemporary and historical significance are presented to the public on a regular basis, celebrating the diversity and richness of the Sephardic heritage. Among these events are lectures, panel discussions with experts and scholars, concerts, and more.

A particular highlight of the ASF calendar is its annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. Each year, the film festival presents more than a dozen riveting films related to Sephardic culture and heritage, many of which represent U.S. premieres. Directors or others involved in the films are often in attendance to address the audience and provide additional insight into the work.

Through its mission of preserving and promoting the Sephardic heritage, ASF provides new and unparalleled insight into world cultures in which Sephardim have played an important role. For example, the organization recently launched a series entitled “Historic Jewish Communities in the World of Islam,” enabling the public to gain new understanding of the relationship of Sephardic Jewish communities with Muslim communities in nations of the Middle East. The first event of the series, Back to Babylon: 2600 Years of Jewish Life in Iraq, took participants beyond current news headlines to uncover one of the most fascinating chapters of Jewish history. The four-day program explored the venerable and multi-faceted culture of Iraqi Jewry, and included a special exhibition of art and artifacts, photographs from London’s Jewish Museum, film screenings, a concert of Iraqi Jewish music, a symposium, and an Iraqi-themed community Shabbat celebration.

Also in keeping with its goal of sustaining and celebrating Sephardic history and traditions, the American Sephardi Federation created the Leon Levy Leadership Awards. Bestowed annually, the awards were established to honor community leaders, benefactors, and scholars who in the course of their careers have helped preserve the legacy of their communities. Among the first to receive the award were seven honorees from the Iraqi-Jewish community.

American Sephardi Federation

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Synagogue in Ankara, Turkey, 1996. Courtesy of American Sephardi Federation.

“Departure for Jerusalem” Sephardic family, Salonika, Greece, 1908.

Courtesy of American Sephardi Federation.

At its founding in 1955, Leo Baeck Institute had the sole mission of collecting as much authentic, original documentation as possible on the remarkable, diverse, and long history of German-speaking Jewry before its destruction by the Nazis. Thankfully, this history was not lost – and today, the mission of the Institute remains compelling, as it continues to collect and catalogue irreplaceable resources that document the legacy of German-speaking Jewry.

The extensive library and archives of Leo Baeck Institute house a unique collection of materials reflecting the breakthroughs in science, innovations in architecture, contributions to industry and commerce, and milestones in music, theater, and avant-garde literature that are just some of the accomplishments of Central European Jewry. The 70,000-volume library is recognized as the foremost reference source in its field, while the archives are rich with family papers, community histories, and business and public records dating back centuries. The Institute is also home to more than 35,000 photographs, as well as Judaica paintings, sculptures, prints, and an extensive collection of drawings by inmates of concentration camps.

More than 50 years after its founding, there continues to be a wealth of new material being added to the Leo Baeck Institute library and archives, all of which is made available to students, genealogists, filmmakers, historians, and all others whose research interests span the past 200 years. Leo Baeck Institute also shares the rich scope of its holdings through a variety of programs, lectures, and exhibits for the public. Programs and activities span a wide range of themes and topics, designed to address important issues or present new views on historical people or events. One recent conference, Freud’s Jewish World, for example, explored the life and work of Sigmund Freud specifically within the context of his Judaism.

The Annual Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture is yet another vehicle by which the Institute seeks to shed further light on key elements of the legacy of German-speaking Jewry. Prominent speakers who have shared extraordinary insights with attendees include The Honorable Shimon Stein, Israeli Ambassador to Germany from 2001-2007. The LBI Annual Award Dinner also draws a remarkable group of distinguished guests each year. Past honorees of the Leo Baeck Medal include James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank, who was presented the award by Horst Kohler, President of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In addition, Leo Baeck Institute operates a branch in Germany at the Jewish Museum Berlin. Housed there are thousands of reels of microfilm of the most important and most frequently used collections. The Institute also hosts several events each year in Berlin, designed primarily to introduce the German public to German Jews whose names and accomplishments were in many cases eradicated by the Nazis.

Leo Baeck Institute

8Center for Jewish History

Rabbi Leo Baeck and philosopher Martin Buber. London, England, ca. 1950. Courtesy of Leo Baeck Institute.

Die Verwandlung. The original first edition of Franz Kafka’s 1916 classic is part of LBI’s collection of the Prague circle of German-speaking Jewish intellectuals.

Founded in 1973 and originally located on the campus of Yeshiva University in upper Manhattan, Yeshiva University Museum is a significant Jewish cultural resource and tourist destination. Its exhibits, concerts, workshops, and other programs attract audiences young and old as they bring to life the Museum’s mission to collect, present, research, and interpret Jewish art, history, and culture from the four corners of the world.

Yeshiva University Museum’s collection of art and artifacts represents 3,000 years of Jewish life, and includes fine and folk art, rare ethnographic and archaeological artifacts, clothing and textiles, Jewish ceremonial objects, documents, books, and manuscripts. The rich and vast holdings, which include more than 8,000 artifacts, provide the focus for a wide range of multi-disciplinary exhibitions and activities.

The Museum promotes cross-cultural and multi-ethnic understanding; it is also committed to nurturing creative potential and professional development in students and to engaging youth audiences. One experiential exhibition, for example, invited young audiences to travel back in time to the year 1000 in Exploring the North Atlantic: Traders, Scholars and Vikings, which included an imaginative, hands-on recreation of Rashi’s study.

Through its programs, the Museum provides a window into Jewish culture around the world and throughout history, frequently mounting two concurrent exhibitions, with one featuring contemporary artists working on Jewish themes and the other examining a Jewish community or historic event. One recent exhibition, for example, documented the faces of Polish Jewry and their everyday activities before the Holocaust through photographs and albums that were saved from obscurity by the Shalom Foundation. Another spotlighted rare photographs of the Holy Land by James Graham and Mendel Diness, two leading pioneers of photography working in Palestine in the 1850s.

As a resource for scholarly research, Yeshiva University Museum’s exhibitions provide unique opportunities for artists, historians, collectors, and ethnographers to examine, compare, and research objects, ideas, and techniques. Its contemporary art shows offer the public the opportunity to survey art being created by living Jewish artists throughout the world.

The Museum is dedicated to developing artistically creative and thought-provoking programs that open the eyes and minds of their audience to new ideas or points of view, or that reveal new perspectives on historic events. A perfect example is an ambitious, multi-disciplinary program mounted recently that focused on the Dreyfus Affair. The exhibition component, titled Alfred Dreyfus: The Fight for Justice, featured more than 200 documents and objects, including materials never before on public view from the collection of the grandchildren of Alfred Dreyfus. An international conference, A Century Later: Legacy & Lessons, was also organized in conjunction with the exhibit. Introduced by Dreyfus’ grandson Charles Dreyfus, the conference featured discussion of the impact of the Dreyfus Affair on French and American history and on contemporary anti-Semitism.

Yeshiva University Museum

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“Ketubbah” Jewish marriage contract, 1943. Courtesy of Yeshiva University Museum.

Leo Baeck Institute

Founded in Vilna, Poland, in 1925 and headquartered in New York since 1940, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is the premier custodian of 1,000 years of Ashkenazi Jewish history and culture. It is recognized as the world’s preeminent resource center for East European Jewish studies, Yiddish language, literature, and folklore, and the American Jewish immigrant experience.

YIVO’s library and archives are a priceless repository, encompassing some 360,000 books in 12 major languages and more than 24 million archival items, including photographs, handwritten Holocaust testimonies, sound recordings, art works, films, and many other irreplaceable pieces of history and culture. In addition to its wealth of archival materials, the organization offers cultural events and films, adult education and Yiddish language classes, scholarly publications, research opportunities, and fellowships.

A vivid illustration of YIVO’s dedication to documenting Ashkenazi history and culture is the 2008 publication of a monumental new scholarly work, The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Seven years in the making, the two-volume, 2,400-page reference, published by Yale University Press, provides an unparalleled source of information on all aspects of the history and culture of East European Jewry.

YIVO’s vast archives house hundreds of thousands of moving personal stories of ordinary and sometimes extraordinary Jews from Eastern Europe; and ongoing initiatives to catalogue each and every file are continually unveiling new resources for researchers and the general public. For example, YIVO made headlines around the world with its release of a newly discovered file of letters and documents from its archives detailing the efforts of Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, to escape Holland with his family. The file, containing nearly 80 pages and spanning dates from April 1941 to June 1945, includes personal correspondence and official records, and is available on site for research purposes.

The richness and breadth of YIVO’s efforts span aspects of the Ashkenazi experience from the political and historical to the cultural and artistic. For example, the organization recently produced a new book of traditional Yiddish folksongs, based on the ethnomusicology work of the late Ruth Rubin, and published by Wayne State University Press; and completed the restoration and archiving of Yiddish theater memorabilia – including programs, photographs, costumes, props, and more – made possible by a donation from the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Foundation.

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

10Center for Jewish History

Paris un Viene (Paris and Vienna), the first printed Yiddish romance story by Eliahu Bakhur Levita. Verona, Italy, 1594.

Courtesy of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Holocaust refugee case files from the New York Association for New Americans. Courtesy of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Securing our future and the legacy of the Jewish people...As we look back on the first ten years, we take great pride in the significant role we haveplayed to help protect the vast archives of our partners, including the rare books, original documents, one-of-a-kind artifacts, and other irreplaceable items that give testimony to the history and achievements of individuals, communities, and nations, and that weave countless unique threads through the rich tapestry of the history of humankind. As the Center for Jewish History embarks on its second decade, it is with a clear vision of the future: one in which our partners continue to add to the wealth of archival materials and resources; in which we continue to develop new and more precise ways for the public to access those resources in person and online; and in which we continue to create meaningful programs that excite and engage visitors, while encouraging even greater dialogue in the celebration of the Jewish experience.

15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011 (212) 294-8301 www.cjh.org

1892American Jewish Historical Society

is founded in New York City.

1973Yeshiva University Museum is established and opens its first

exhibition, Synagogues throughout the Centuries.

1994The Center for Jewish History is conceived. Prominent members of the academic and philanthropic communities bring together

four pioneering Jewish organizations – American Jewish Historical Society, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum and

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research – with the goal of creating one institution to house and make accessible the single largest archive

of recorded Jewish cultural history outside of Israel.

2002The Center launches its highly competitive Fellowship Program to support the work of emerging scholars as

they research and complete their doctoral dissertations.

2005The Center welcomes its 150,000th visitor during

YUM’s landmark exhibition, A Perfect Fit.

1925The Yiddish Scientific Institute – soon to be renamed YIVO Institute for Jewish Research – is founded in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania). In 1941, YIVO escapes the Nazi invasion of Vilna and relocates its headquarters to New York City.

1955Leo Baeck Institute is founded, with the plan that the collections will reside in New York City and

affiliates will operate in London and Jerusalem.

1973American Sephardi Federation is founded, unifying the heritage of Sephardic communities from the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkans, to the Jews of North Africa and Muslim lands including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Ethiopia and Bukharian Jews.

1999American Sephardi Federation joins the Center, officially making the Center the home for the history of Jews from all geographic origins and communities.

2000The Center for Jewish History opens its doors, forever transforming the study of modern Jewish history for students, scholars and the general public.

2004The Center marks the 350th anniversary of American Jewry and is designated by the State of New York, as the official site of its celebration.

2006The Center’s Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) goes live to the public, enabling anyone, anywhere in the world, to search the holdings of the Center’s partners. The OPAC is one of the first of its kind – providing access to books, archival collections and museum objects in a single searchable database. Search the OPAC at www.collections.cjh.org

2010The Center enters its second decade committed to preserving,

interpreting, and making accessible the primary historical documents of the Jewish people. With a set of initiatives

designed to engage researchers in new ways, the Center will build a community of scholars and work to secure our

place in history, as one of the world’s most exciting and diversified hubs of Jewish scholarly and artistic life.