This collection contains papers of Nokhem Shtif, a Yiddish philologist, editor, literary historian, translator, and political activist, and one of the founders of the YIVO Institute in Vilna. The bulk of the materials pertains to Yiddish language, philology, and literature, as well as to the administration and activities of the Kiev-based Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture, especially the Philological Section, which was directed by Shtif. The materials include manuscripts of Shtif's writings and speeches; correspondence; reports; meeting minutes; departmental planning documents and course programs/syllabi; materials related to Shtif's teaching of Yiddish stylistics courses; newspaper clippings; several manuscripts of articles and research works by other scholars; and notes, transcriptions, and other research materials, including memoirs related to the lexicographer Y. M. Lifshits.

This collection contains documents of journalist and left-wing political activist Paul Novick, consisting mainly of correspondence, subject files, manuscripts, photographs, and newspaper clippings. These materials relate to Novick’s career as long-time editor of the Morning Freiheit (Morning Freedom), his important role in the worldwide Communist movement, the history of the Freiheit itself, and Jewish and general politics. These materials demonstrate Novick’s important, and changing, role in the history of Communism, as well as his career as a Yiddish journalist and author.

This collection contains manuscripts of plays, articles and other writings, correspondence, memoirs, photographs, theater programs, and personal materials of Yiddish playwright, novelist, journalist, travel writer, and theater director Peretz Hirschbein. The collection helps to illustrate Hirschbein’s importance and lasting impact upon the revival of Yiddish theater and literature in the early twentieth century.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of historian and bibliographer Philip Friedman. These materials include correspondence with individuals and with organizations, newspaper clippings, subject files, manuscripts of works by Friedman and by others, and some of Friedman’s personal documents. These materials relate to Friedman’s work on the histories of various Jewish communities, particularly those in Poland, and his work gathering source documents about the Holocaust.

This record group includes research materials.

This collection contains materials that document Sebastian Steiner’s time in Shanghai during WWII. Materials include professional correspondence related to the jobs Steiner held in Shanghai, and correspondence with officials regarding his residency as well as his eventual departure.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Shmuel Mordkhe Zygielbojm, a Jewish-Polish Socialist politician, Bund leader, member of the National Council of the Polish Government-in-Exile in London, and a labor and political leader. These materials include Zygielbojm’s writings, personal correspondence, clippings, and some photographs. These materials relate mainly to Zygielbojm’s work in London as well as the worldwide reactions after his suicide.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Shmuel Niger, including correspondence with many important literary figures, as well as manuscripts by Niger, writings about Niger written by others, Niger’s speeches and lectures, selections from his published writings, and biographical materials. These materials serve to illustrate Niger’s great importance to Yiddish literary criticism and Jewish historical writing as well as his role as a writer on contemporary themes, a teacher and lecturer, editor and communal leader.

This collection contains the papers of Siegfried Bernfeld, a writer, educator, psychoanalyst, organizer of the Zionist youth movement in Austria during and after World War I, and founder of several Jewish educational institutions in Austria. These materials include correspondence, by-laws, minutes, programs, newspaper clippings, manuscripts, and financial records of Jewish educational institutions, youth organizations, student clubs, sports, tourism associations, and youth publications, mainly in Austria and Germany, which were collected through the various organizations with which Siegfried Bernfeld was associated and maintained in the Archival institutions which he established.

This collection consists of a book with profiles of 328 German Jews from Breslau, and correspondence between Mrs. Lightfoot and the government agencies she sought to persuade to help them.

Born in Chashnik, Vitebsk Gubernya (now part of Belarus) on March 28, 1893, Vladmir Heifetz emigrated to the USA in 1922. He died on May 3, 1970 in the middle of a concert at the Suffolk Jewish Center in Deer Park, L.I. The papers include correspondence, manuscripts, and publications by Heifetz, and publications by other composers of art, folk, and liturgical music. There are also some choral arrangements, song compilations, programs of concerts, and photographs. The collection contains both published and unpublished works, by Heifetz and by others. The bulk of the collection is devoted to his career and activities in the USA, with a few materials pertaining to his activities in Russia.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of William Edlin, editor of The Day and a prominent Socialist. It includes correspondence with individuals and with organizations, newspaper clippings, manuscripts of works by Edlin and by others as well as translations done by Edlin, and some of Edlin’s personal documents. These materials relate to Edlin’s involvement with The Day, with the Socialist Party, the Workmen’s Circle, various labor and Zionist organizations, literary clubs and activities, and with music, art and drama.

The Poland (Vilna Archives) Collection is comprised of documents that were amassed at the YIVO in Vilna (Vilnius), mainly as a result of collecting work by the volunteer YIVO “zamlers” (collectors). The bulk of the collection relates to Jewish communities in over 260 cities and towns in interwar Poland (1919-1939). Documents of earlier years are also included.

Minutes, 1971-1975. Financial ledger, 1912-1926 (German). Certificates, banners, capes.

Minutes, 1915-1919 (German); financial documents, 1928-1947; membership registration book, 1890-1899; miscellaneous membership records, 1920-1947; correspondence, 1930s; calendar booklets; ballots; announcements; invitations; cemetery maps; history of the I.O.B.A., 1937; constitution, I.O.B.A., 1928; incorporation records of the Boris Schatz B.S., Inc., 1932; photograph; gavels.

This collection, which is a sub-group of RG 245 HIAS, includes the records of the main HICEM office in Europe prior to and during World War II. There are also some records from the post-war period relating to the dissolution of HICEM, HIAS’s taking over of HICEM’s operations and HIAS’s work with displaced persons.

This collection contains original compositions and printed and handwritten sheet music collected by Al Glaser as well as Glaser’s own arrangements of traditional Hungarian, Romanian and Jewish music.

The collection represents the papers of Morris David Waldman (1879-1963), a rabbi, social worker and communal leader, who was appointed executive secretary of one of the main Jewish defense organizations, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), in 1928. The executive secretary had top executive function at the organization and was in charge of working out and implementing the organization’s projects and policies regarding monitoring the civil and human rights of the Jews, and intervening on behalf of the Jews both in the U.S. and abroad. In 1942, Waldman was promoted to executive vice-president, a position he held until his retirement in 1945. The Morris Waldman Files relate to all of Waldman's activities as acting executive secretary and vice-president of the AJC.

The collection contains the records of the Paris Office of the American Jewish Committee, established in 1947 to study conditions of Jewish refugees and Jewish communities in Europe and North Africa. The Paris Office was involved in major programs and projects of the AJC to study the needs of and aid to the Jews of Europe and the Middle East. The materials include correspondence, memoranda, reports, clippings, photographs and published materials.

This collection contains mainly correspondence between staff of the JDC Landsmanshaftn Department and members of various landsmanshaftn, benevolent organizations of immigrants originally from the same communities, as well as between the Landsmanshaftn Department and the interest-free loan associations (gmilas khesed societies) and heads of the various Jewish communities, mostly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The Association of Jewish Deaf-Mutes in Poland was founded in 1930 in Krakow, through the efforts of Bogumil Liban, as a union of local deaf-mute societies and sports clubs. It was active until the outbreak of war in 1939. This collection contains correspondence and other administrative records of the association.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Wąbrzeźno, known in German as Briesen. The records date from 1871 to 1921, concentrated in the era when the town of Briesen was part of the province of West Prussia, in the German Empire; only a handful of items date from the years 1920-1921, when the town was part of Poland. The collection comprises administrative and financial records kept by the Briesen Jewish Community Council, except for one volume of records kept by the Jüdischer Lese-Verein (Jewish Reading Society) of Briesen, in the years 1901 to 1908. Approximately 40% of the collection comprises financial records, 1882-1921, including official budgets and tax lists; 20% concerns the community's religious institutions; and another 20% comprises records related to community employees, especially rabbis and cantors. The remainder of the collection includes correspondence, communal meeting minutes and decisions, circulars announcing meetings, and a variety of administrative records. Included are records pertaining to communal council elections; synagogue seat rentals; burials and the care of graves; the construction and maintenance of the mikveh (ritual bath house); the expansion of the cemetery; synagogue rules and the renovation of the synagogue; charitable activities, often in cooperation with regional and national Jewish organizations; and the religious school and Jewish elementary school.

This collection contains the records of the Union of Jewish Student Associations in Germany (Yiddish: Farband fun di Yidishe Studentn Fareynen in Daytshland; German: Verband Jüdischer Studentenvereine in Deutschland), an umbrella organization of associations of East European Jewish students who were pursuing their education in cities throughout Germany in the 1920s. Along with the Union's records are the records of two of its affiliate associations, the Jewish Student Association in Berlin and the Jewish Student Association in Jena. The student associations and the umbrella organization that they founded aimed to further Jewish cultural life among members; to provide material assistance to members in need; and to advocate for the interests of members vis-à-vis state and academic authorities. Included are administrative records such as bylaws, minutes, and announcements; materials documenting membership meetings of the Berlin association and conferences of the umbrella organization; petitions and correspondence from members concerning financial aid; materials documenting libraries maintained by the students, and other activities; and general correspondence. Among the correspondents are Jewish charitable and social-welfare organizations that contributed to the support of East European Jewish students through the student associations, including the Yidishe Velt-Hilfs-Konferents (Conférence Universelle Juive de Secours, Paris), the Verband der Russischen Juden, the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, and the Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Deutschen Juden, as well as the Jewish Community of Berlin, and Jewish communities in other cities in Germany. The collection also includes a relatively small amount of materials of mixed provenance documenting the activities of other associations and umbrella organizations of East European Jewish students, both in Eastern Europe and the West, the greatest portion related to interwar Poland, especially Vilna.

The Records of the Forward Association collection consists of the administrative records of the Office of the General Manager of the Forward Association, publisher of the Jewish Daily Forward. The collection contains correspondence, financial materials, minutes, reports, and information related to various anniversary celebrations. These materials serve to illustrate the professional activities of the Forward Association and its General Manager and show the Forward’s importance.

This collection contains the administrative records of the Hebrew Actors’ Union (HAU), the professional union of Yiddish theater performers, which was based in New York City. Materials include correspondence, membership materials, financial records and members’ dues information, meeting minutes, and a great deal of sheet music and play scripts of performances from the Yiddish theater. A majority of these performances were in New York City, but there are also materials from Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, and Montreal, as well as various locations in Israel and South America.

Collection consists of records of the HICEM Office in Prague, documenting efforts to assist Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia. Records include minutes of National Committee Meetings, correspondence from the HICEM office, including with various aid societies, and extensive individual refugee case files.

Almost all of the materials in this collection pertain to the period between the fire of 1917 and the beginning of the German occupation of Salonika in 1941. The materials are arranged and divided into series to reflect both the chronological development and the structure and functioning of a wide cross-section of the Jewish community and its bureaucracy. The materials include metrical records of the Jewish population, most significantly three volumes from the 1917 census of the Jewish community (Series I), records of the Beit Din (Series II), financial records and correspondence of the communal council (Series III and IV), correspondence pertaining to the production and distribution of matzah (Series V), correspondence related to housing and the administration of Jewish neighborhoods (Series VI), records and correspondence of the commission of education (Series VII), records of the Salonika-Palestine company (Series VIII), records of the Banque Union (Series IX), printed materials from Salonika (Series X), and miscellaneous documents and printed materials from World War II on (Series XI).

The Jewish People’s Chorus of Los Angeles was a chorus associated with the Jewish Music Alliance, an organization meant to promote Yiddish folk and revolutionary music, founded by Jacob Schaefer in 1925. This collection contains manuscripts of music performed by the chorus as well as a few performance notes.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Krotoszyn, known in German as Krotoschin. The records span the years 1828 to 1919, when the town was part of the Posen (Poznań) region of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Empire; in 1919, it became part of newly independent Poland. The records are mainly those of the Jewish communal administration, or council, of Krotoschin, along with some records kept by communal voluntary associations, or, in one instance, the teacher of the Jewish elementary school. The collection consists predominantly of correspondence and minutes, with inclusion in some periods of documents such as tax lists and lists of eligible voters; records concerning charitable aid to community members and donations to external causes; and other types of documents, including insurance policies, mortgage records, debt repayment plan, and drawings/plans of property. Highlights include records related to property damage in a town fire of 1827; documentation of income and expenses for the year 1835; records of communal elections, 1834-1872; correspondence concerning marriages, 1838-1841, and requests for death certificates, 1834-1858; a small amount of material pertaining to the religious school, circa 1880s-1902; correspondence with regimental commanders of the German army regarding Jewish soldiers from the Krotoschin area, 1891-1910; applications for the position of rabbi, 1895, and cantor/shochet, 1904-1910; and continuous proceedings of the communal council in the period 1905 to 1913.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Ostrów Wielkopolski, today in west-central Poland, in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. The region was annexed by Prussia in 1793, in the Second Partition of Poland; in German the town was known as Ostrowo. The records date mainly from 1834 to 1919, with a few materials from as early as 1822. During this period the town was part of the Posen (Poznań) region of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Empire; in 1919, it was incorporated into the Second Republic of Poland. The community numbered nearly 2,000 members in the late 19th century and declined steadily thereafter due to migration of members to larger German cities or overseas; only a small Jewish community remained during the interwar period. The records are mainly those of the Jewish communal administration, or council; a small amount of material pertains to several community voluntary organizations. Included are financial records such as budgets, balance sheets, and tax lists; communal minutes and decisions throughout the period; correspondence with the government, and, to a lesser extent, with Jewish organizations and other Jewish communities; records pertaining to community members' naturalizations, marriages, births, and synagogue seat contracts; petitions from individual community members, especially pertaining to charitable aid in the mid to late 19th century; records pertaining to communal educational and religious institutions; records on the hiring and employment of community rabbis,cantors, and other personnel, including application materials from candidates not hired; property records and mortgages; documentation of construction and renovation of communal buildings; records related to court cases, bequests, and estate and guardianship matters; and ephemera such as meeting notices and announcement fliers, as well as scattered clippings.