Bernhard Kahn dedicated 50 years of his life to welfare activities in order to help distressed Jews. Among others he worked for the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Comittee and the American Joint Reconstruction Foundation .The collection contains personal as well as professional correspondence, articles on Bernhard Kahn’s work and biography, lectures and speeches by him and a number of official documents such as letters of consignment, citizenship papers and educational and professional certificates.

This collection contains material on the related Kassel and Bruch (Bruck) families as well as on the immigration experiences of Fritz Kassel. Included among the collection are correspondence, manuscripts, clippings, notes, family trees, and a few publications.

This collection consists of the correspondence of Zalman Reisen, and correspondence to the Union of Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Vilna. In addition, it contains fragments of literary collections which were part of the YIVO Archives in Vilna before 1941 and of materials which originated in Jewish institutions of higher learning in the Soviet Union, specifically the Institut Far Yidisher Proletarisher Kultur (Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture) in Kiev and Invayskult in Minsk. The collection was formed in the YIVO Archives in New York ca. 1950. The bulk of the collection comprises files on about 600 Yiddish writers from Eastern Europe consisting of autobiographical notes and letters, biographies, bibliographies, manuscripts and typewritten copies, newspaper clippings, commemorative materials, announcements about lectures.

David Friedman (Friedmann; 1893-1980) was an artist in Berlin. During the Nazi Holocaust, he was incarcerated in the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz. He resumed his artistic career immediately after the war and then immigrated to the United States. His papers include artwork, memoirs, and essays focusing on his experiences in the Holocaust.

This collection contains various materials related to the Łódź Ghetto which were originally part of the Bund Archives. Materials include memoirs and eyewitness accounts, materials created by the German occupiers, notices from the ghetto administration, documents originating with resistance groups, photographs, post-war articles and newspaper clippings about the Łódź Ghetto, internal ghetto correspondence, and various ephemera items, such as an armband, ghetto money and various work permits.

This collection pertains to the life of Doris Rauch (née Perlhefter), her uncle Norbert Troller, and fellow Holocaust survivors Oscar Bittner and Oscar Jellinek. It encompasses government documents and Rauch’s identification forms issued by the United States and Czechoslovakia, as well as her correspondence relating to family and Holocaust history in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Included are photographs of friends and family engaged in recreation or as posed portraits, the great majority in black and white. Authored by Norbert Troller himself are a memoir manuscript and family tree denoting those members killed during the Holocaust.

This collection documents the life of Eduard Rudnicki, also known as Eli Rottner, a follower and friend of Constantin Brunner. Throughout his life he was devoted to spread Brunner's and Spinoza's philosophy. This collection shows not only his personal and intellectual life, but exposes his relationship to Brunner, to the Brunner circle and the Internationaal Constantin Brunner Instituut in The Hague. Correspondence between Rudnicki and Brunner and several other known Brunnerians are included, as well as a large amount of manuscripts and newspaper clippings written by Rudnicki and others about and dedicated to Constantin Brunner and Baruch de Spinoza. There is also a photo collection of Rudnicki, Brunner and his circle to be found.

The Elias Tcherikower Collection documents the professional and personal life of Elias Tcherikower, a scholar, communal activist, and one of the founders of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and to a smaller extent personal life of his wife, Riva Tcherikower, née Teplitski. Collected here are Tcherikower’s writings, professional and personal correspondence, photographs, manuscripts by other scholars, research materials, printed materials, financial documents, conference and exhibit materials, minutes of meetings, bibliographic materials and personal materials of Riva Tcherikower, née Teplitski, and Chaim Tcherikower.

This collection describes the private and professional lives of Elisabeth Gay and her husband, the businessman Joseph Gay, who came to the United States from Austria in 1939. Topics present in the documents found here include Austria of the 1930s, America during World War II, the economies of several South American countries, and restitution for the Gays' Austrian property. Documents include extensive correspondence, publications, notes and manuscripts, reports, scrapbooks, and photocopies.

The Ernst Heumann Family Collection documents three generations of this family, including members of the Messer, van Gelder, Oppenheim, Haas, and related families. Much of the collection centers on how the businessman Ernst Heumann and his wife Hedi née Messer established themselves in the United States and built their family, although documentation on their early lives in Germany and their emigration is also present. Although the bulk of the collection consists of the family's extensive personal correspondence, official and personal documents are also a central part of the collection. The collection contains correspondence; official documents; educational documents; family writing including poems, essays and short stories; travel memorabilia; some immigration papers; legal documents; Ernst Heumann's business correspondence and papers; family trees; and other documentation.

The Gertrud Kurth Collection consists of material related to Gertrud Kurth and her family members. This collection has over 5 linear feet, and includes personal documents, correspondence and manuscripts. The last 3 linear feet of the collection contain photographs, photograph negatives and slides.

This collection comprises letters, official documents, and photographs that pertain to the lives of members of the Gettinger family, specifically the brothers Isadore (Isidor) and Israel, as they attempted to emigrate from Austria amid the rise of the German Reich and the implications thereafter.

This collection contains manuscripts on the history of the Gleiwitz community, with an emphasis on the period from 1933-1945, as well as some original programs and correspondence related to the local Bne Briss (B'nai Brith) lodge and deportation lists.

This collection contains a large amount of business and legal correspondence and documents pertaining to Auerbach's tenure with Tri-Ergon AG and Tobis Tonbild Syndikat AG, most of which revolve around legal proceedings (patent and civil) in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States concerning Tri-Ergon's sound-on-film technologies which had become film industry standard. The collection also has a folder of Auerbach's personal papers, a considerable number of family and personal photographs (some arranged in albums), some personal correspondence, and a few manuscripts for film projects.

This collection contains the minutes, correspondence and financial records of the I.L. Peretz Yiddish Writers’ Union from its founding in 1915 until 1973. Among the correspondence is a fair amount concerning the Fund for Jewish Refugee Writers, unions and union grievances, requests for aid from Jewish writers and activists in New York and abroad, and labor disputes and strikes.

The Irving Massey Research Collection consists of documentation of his research for his book, Philo-Semitism in Nineteenth-Century German Literature. The collection includes numerous notes, correspondence, photocopies of articles, relevant portions of books, and archival material, bibliographic lists and search results, drafts of sections of his abovementioned book, newspaper clippings, a few photographs, and other papers. The collection represents original order established by an assistant of Irving Massey.

This collection contains documents pertaining to Israel Cohen's role as author, reporter, Zionist leader, as well as his profound interest in documenting and reporting on the changes in European Jewish life between the wars. The collection is comprised primarily of notes, correspondence, clippings, and manuscripts of books about Zionism and topics in Jewish history, articles and reports on Jewish life in Austria, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Russia, Spain, the Balkans, and North Africa, circa 1910-1930s. The manuscripts of works on Jewish history include biographies of Jewish personalities and a report on the Czernowitz Yiddish Language Conference of 1908.

Records of several Jewish communities assembled by Jacob Jacobson.

Jacob Shatzky (1893-1956) was an historian, literary and theater critic, editor, bibliographer, lexicographer, lecturer, teacher and librarian. The Papers of Jacob Shatzky cover the period of 1910-1960's and reflect to different degrees all aspects of his activities. Some papers of Jacob Shatzky's wife, Ida, consist for the most part of materials relating to his death. Manuscript and other materials relating to memorial books published posthumously in commemoration of Jacob Shatzky, such as the Shatzky Book, (Buenos Aires, 1957) and Yakov Shatzki in Ondenk, (New York, 1957) constitute another significant part of the collection.

Joseph Roth was one of the most prominent Austrian writers of the first half of the 20th century. Particularly his novels and newspaper essays gained him the respect of contemporary critics. Joseph Roth's papers at the Leo Baeck Institute Archives consist of handwritten and typewritten manuscripts of novels, novellas, short stories, and essays, including mostly complete manuscripts of his works Die Hundert Tage (The Ballad of the Hundred Days), Büste des Kaisers (The Bust of the Emperor), and his 'Trozki' novel Der stumme Prophet (The Silent Prophet). Joseph Roth's journalistic work is also well represented. There are a few personal items and over one hundred photographs of Joseph Roth and his wife Friederike. The Joseph Roth collection also contains correspondence with family and publishers, clippings about Joseph Roth, and reviews of his work. The addenda mostly consist of invitations to conferences and exhibitions, and scholarly articles on Joseph Roth's work and life.

This collection documents Helmuth Lasker's genealogical research project on the origins of his family. In addition to drafts of Lasker's genealogical manuscript, there is extensive correspondence, as well as some family, personal, and vital papers.

The Leo Glueckselig Collection includes materials pertaining to Leo Glueckselig and other members of the Glueckselig family and consists mostly of personal correspondence, photographs, and documents, whereas other document types such as printed materials, manuscripts, art works, and a cookbook constitute a smaller part of the collection.

The Max Rieser Collection predominantly documents the life and work of the lawyer, philosopher and writer Max Rieser. The main subjects of the collection are his life, his writing and his publishing work. The collection consists of manuscripts, correspondence, clippings, official documents and photographs.

This collection contains personal and professional material of Meinhardt Lemke such as a large amount of manuscripts, correspondence and various documents like his immigration papers and religious school material from Silesia.

The Otto Mainzer collection documents the life and professional activities of Otto Mainzer, lawyer, writer, and financial consultant; the collection also sheds light on the life of Otto Mainzer’s wife, Ilse Wunsch, a musician and a teacher. The collection includes correspondence, financial, vital, immigration, and legal documents, notes, photographs, printed materials, and writings, by Otto Mainzer and Ilse Wunsch as well as a small number of manuscripts by other authors. The collection is divided into two distinct sections, one pertaining to Otto Mainzer and the other to Ilse Wunsch.

This collection contains correspondence between Abraham Cahan and many important literary and political figures, as well as Yiddish manuscripts sent to Cahan for consideration in the Forward and notes and drafts of Cahan’s own writings. There are also several articles written about Cahan, before and after his death. These materials serve to illustrate both Cahan’s importance in the literary and publishing fields as well as his involvement in the American socialist and labor movements.

This collection contains manuscripts of some of the earliest Yiddish plays, correspondence between playwright, poet, and director Abraham Goldfaden, the father of Yiddish theater, and various actors and writers, as well as some family correspondence, newspaper clippings on Goldfaden and his impact on Yiddish theater, articles by Goldfaden on a variety of topics, and various other theater materials, such as title pages of plays, programs and song sheets. The collection illustrates Goldfaden’s great and ongoing influence on Yiddish theater.

This collection contains documents relating to David Pinski’s role as a Yiddish writer, playwright, essayist, translator, editor, literary critic, and author of novels, plays, short stories, essays, and poems. There is personal and professional correspondence, manuscripts of novels, plays, poems, essays, and articles, translations of Pinski’s works into English and Russian, lectures made on various occasions, personal documents and photographs, programs, notes, and newspaper clippings. These materials demonstrate Pinski’s important role in Yiddish drama and literature, Jewish community life and Yiddish cultural institutions.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Isaac Nachman Steinberg, a Russian-Jewish political writer, leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party during the 1917 revolution in Russia, People’s Commissar of Justice in the first Bolshevik government, leader of the Jewish Territorialist Movement and of the Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonization, and a founding member of the YIVO Institute in Vilna. These materials include Steinberg’s writings, personal correspondence, clippings, journals, meeting announcements, and some photographs. These materials relate mainly to Steinberg’s work with the Freeland League and plans for the large-scale settlement of Jews in various places around the world.