The records of the American Jewish Congress, a national Jewish agency, concerned primarily with Jewish and other minority civil rights, include the constitution, by-laws, and minutes of the Administrative and Executive Committees and Governing Council of the Congress. The collection has materials generated by the National Biennial Conventions, Executive Directors, including Phil Baum and Henry Siegman, and the General Counsel files of Will Maslow, Commissions and the Jerusalem Conferences of Mayors, Regional Chapters, National Women's Division, Business and Professional Chapters, Public Relations, and miscellaneous activities conducted by American Jewish Congress.

This collection contains the office records of the American Sephardi Federation. Documents focus on the daily functioning, annual conventions, finances, events, and activities of the ASF. The records consist mainly of correspondence, but also include memoranda, reports, financial records, and other organizational documents, as well as newspaper clippings, publications, and photographic media.

The collection documents the activities of a human rights non-government organization on behalf of Soviet Jewry and Jews in the Former Soviet Union. Organized by Harold Light in San Francisco in 1967, the group worked to bring the Soviet Jewry issue to national and international attention. The collection contains correspondence, minutes, case files, publications, newspaper clippings, card files of Refuseniks, subject files, audio/visual materials, and information on other Soviet Jewry and interreligious organizations. Also included are materials relating to Soviet Jewish emigration, Cold War relations, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and human rights conditions in Russia and the former Soviet republics.

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.

The collection includes materials pertaining to the Jewish Defense Organization, a radical Zionist Jewish organization devoted to protecting Jews from their enemies, imaginary and real, using all means possible. Collection consists of correspondence, financial documents, legal documents, such as depositions, subpoenas, transcripts, and a large amount of printed materials. The bulk of the materials consist of a variety of printed materials and materials pertaining to a number of legal cases against various members of the Jewish Defense Organization and the organization itself.

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 records chronicle the ideology behind the Reconstructionist movement, the founding and activities of the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, and its growth and transformation from an ideology and movement into an established American Jewish denomination, Reconstructionist Judaism. The records also document two seminal figures in Reconstructionist Judaism, Mordecai Menahem Kaplan and Ira Eisenstein. Included in the collection are the administrative records of the Foundation (minutes, financial records, bylaws), publications produced by the Foundation including manuscript submissions for the influential publication The Reconstructionist, correspondence, sermons, prayer books produced by the Foundation, syllabi, sheet music, photographs, and speeches, among other material. In the correspondence are letters from Martin Buber, J. Edgar Hoover, and Albert Schweitzer.

Part of the Lithuanian Kingdom from the beginning of the fourteenth century, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the mid-sixteenth century, Minsk was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1793, following the second partition of Poland. Under tsarist rule, the city became the capital of the Minsk province. From 1920 to 1991, it was the capital of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). At present, Minsk is the capital of the Republic of Belarus. The Records of the Minsk Jewish Community Council, or Kahal, are a fragment of the original archives of the Minsk Jewish community, which dates back to the sixteenth century. Most of the documents in this collection, which covers the tsarist period from the 1820s to the 1917 Russian Revolution, were assembled between the last decade of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The collection is of fragmentary nature, and consists of miscellaneous materials that relate to the role and activities of the Minsk Kahal in Jewish life; the relation between the Jewish body politic and local authorities; and between the Jewish body politic and the Jewish residents in the Minsk province

Spanning from its inception and incorporation in 1925 to its culmination in 2002, the Queens Jewish Center collection highlights this congregation's wide-range of religiously oriented and secular educational activities, ceremonies, developments, events, and programs. Predominant in this collection are the reports, bulletins, financial, legal and property records, and meeting minutes. In addition, books, clippings, correspondence, pamphlets, programs, publications, negatives photographs are also contained with in this collections.

The Rabbinical School and Teachers’ Institute in Vilna was one of two Jewish state schools established in the Russian Empire in 1847 to train state appointed (kazënnye) rabbis and teachers for Jewish elementary state schools in the Pale of Settlement. The purpose of these schools was to undermine and replace the traditional kheder system of education. The other such school was in Zhitomir. The state schools were unpopular because of their assimilationist policies. The Vilna Rabbinical School was closed in 1873, but the Teachers' Institute remained in existence until 1914

From the 16th century onward the Jewish community of Vilna was governed by an autonomous administrative body, called the Kehillah (or Kahal). Under the Russian domination (from 1794) the Kehillah steadily declined in power until the institution of Kahal was altogether abolished in 1844 by an imperial edict throughout the Russian empire. The Tsedakah Gedolah which replaced the former Kehillah in Vilna was limited to charitable and religious functions. In 1919, as Vilna became part of Poland, the Tsedakah Gedolah was replaced by an elected New Kehillah (Yid. Naye kehile). This institution was eventually dissolved in 1940 by the Soviet authorities. These are incomplete records of the Kehillah covering mainly the period of the Tzedakah Gedolah, 1844-1918, and the New Kehillah, 1919-1940. Some pre-1844 records are included. Originally part of the YIVO Archives in Vilna, only a third of the collection was recovered after World War II. Additional records of the Vilna Kehillah are in the custody of the Central Historical Archives in Vilnius, Lithuania. The collection relates to all three administrations, although records of the first "kahal" period cover only the years 1800-1844 and these are very sparse. The collection also includes numerous documents of the Jewish Refugee Relief Committee, established at the beginning of World War II under the auspices of the Kehillah. That committee functioned from 1939-1940.

The Records of the YIVO Ethnographic Committee is a sub-group of Record Group 1, Records of YIVO - Vilna. The activities of the Ethnographic Committee consisted of collecting folklore materials, preparing and analyzing folklore questionnaires, corresponding with folklore collectors throughout the world, and maintaining a museum. This collection also includes surviving fragments of the collections of the S. Ansky Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society which was active in Vilna from 1920 until 1940, and of Invayskult, also known as the Jewish Bureau of the Belorussian Academy of Science in Minsk (founded in 1925 and dissolved in the 1930s). Record Group 1.2 includes both administrative files of the aforementioned institutions and folklore and historical materials, which were gathered in these institutions' archives.

This collection, also known as the "New Discoveries" at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania (MMNL), in Vilnius, Lithuania, comprises documents from YIVO’s prewar archives in Vilna, the Vilna Ghetto, and postwar Vilna, which were newly discovered at the MMNL in 2017. The physical collection continues to be held at the MMNLL.

The Aspirantur, a graduate training program for scholars of Jewish culture, was founded by the YIVO Institute For Jewish Research in 1935. Led by key figures such as Simon Dubnow, Max Weinreich, and Zalmen Reyzen, the Aspirantur educated students who continued to play an important role in the growth of Jewish studies, including Lucy Dawidowicz, Avraham Sutzkever, and Yosl Mlotek. This collection contains research projects produced by the students, evaluations by their professors, and administrative materials produced in the course of running the program, including planning documents, applications, and correspondence.

This collection contains records of the Zukunft monthly journal, which was devoted to publishing political, scientific and literary articles in Yiddish. It contains newspaper clippings, correspondence, meeting minutes, materials relating to conferences and anniversary issues, financial reports, programs, mailings, subscription materials, and typed and handwritten manuscripts submitted for publication.

This collection contains material by and about the family of German-Jewish physician Richard Koch, collected by his daughter Naomi Laqueur. In the 1930s Richard and Maria Koch and their five children left Germany for the Soviet Union, Israel, England, and the United States. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence sent to Laqueur from her parents and her siblings. Spanning the 1930s to the 1970s, the letters paint a rich portrait of the differences in mid 20th-century life in the Soviet Union, Israel, England, and the United States. Additional correspondence includes letters from Laqueur’s friends and extended family, and correspondence between other family members. The collection also documents Richard Koch’s professional activities as a physician, and additionally contains some of his poems and portions of a memoir. It also has materials about friends and relatives, a collection of Alfred Koch’s love poems from the 1910s, and photographs.

This collection contains over 2,000 Yiddish songs performed by some of the most extraordinary traditional singers of the 20th century, including the renowned vocalist and scholar Ruth Rubin herself.

Ruth Rubin's entire life's work can be found in this collection: field recordings recorded by Rubin between 1946 and the 1970s on 78rpm acetate discs, reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes, lectures, concerts, radio interviews, videos, notes, correspondence, manuscripts and published materials.

This collection contains the papers of Sallyann Amdur Sack, “The Godmother” of Jewish Genealogy. In 1980, Sack founded the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington (JGSGW); in 1984, she organized the First International Seminar on Jewish Genealogy in Jerusalem, Israel; and in 1985, she co-founded AVOTAYNU: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy, known as “The Voice” of Jewish Genealogy research. These papers chronicle Dr. Sack’s groundbreaking work, which ranges from the early 1980s through 2007. The collection contains correspondence, conference and seminar materials, planning and research papers, as well as photographs and audio/visual material.

The Salomons-Fox family collection documents the lives of various family members of the extended Salomons-Fox family. Topics of the collection are the education; the emigration or attempted emigration to the United States, the establishment of a new life in America; and the professional career of the individuals represented in the collection. An extensive amount of the collection focusses on the artistic career and life of Dave Fox. Also included are papers pertaining to the circus artist and actor, Jackie (Leo) Gerlich, who appeared in the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz."

The collection contains the papers of Shalom Schwarzbard (1886-1938), the Russian-born French Jewish watchmaker, revolutionary, writer and activist for Jewish self-defense. In May 1926 in Paris, Schwarzbard assassinated the exiled Ukrainian nationalist leader Simon Petlyura, whom he held responsible for the pogroms against the Jews in the Ukraine in 1918-1921. His trial in October 1927, at which he was acquitted, drew worldwide attention. The collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts of Shalom Schwarzbard's autobiographical writings, personal documents, clippings, and printed ephemera, as well as poems by Schwarzbard's wife Anna and others. Materials in this collection mostly relate to Shalom Schwarzbard's writings, his speaking engagements following his acquittal, and his efforts in the 1930s to organize Jewish war veterans and war victims of the First World War.

This collection consists of materials gathered by Simon Dubnow, an influential political thinker, educator, writer, activist, and preeminent historian of Russian Jewry. The materials reflect central subjects of his historical research, such as communal organization, persecutions, and Hasidism, as well as pressing issues of his time, most significantly pogroms and the question of Jewish emancipation. Much of the material comprises information meticulously copied and sent to Dubnow by individuals throughout the Russian Empire for the purpose of aiding his research. The collection demonstrates Dubnow's importance in helping to establish the idea of Jewish ethnographic history.

This collection consists of manuscripts and correspondence related to Jewish dietary laws, sermons, Passover, and various personal matters.

This collection contains correspondence, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, press releases, writings, clippings, brochures, fliers, and posters from the era of the Spanish Civil War, and later, documenting American and international fund-raising for humanitarian relief of Republican Spain; American and international public opinion about the war; the participation of Jews in the International Brigades; and reminiscences and commemorations of the war and, particularly, of the International Brigades, in later years. A portion of the material on relief work pertains to trade union activities, as documented in papers of Charles S. Zimmerman, of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, in his capacity as leader of Trade Union Relief for Spain, in New York City. Other organizations represented include the Medical Bureau and North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy; the Spanish Information Bureau in New York; the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade; and the Israeli branch of the association of volunteers in the International Brigades. There are also autobiographical manuscripts by Benjamin Lubelski and Sigmund Stein, who participated in the International Brigades; and contemporary publications in a variety of languages, including publications of the anarchist-leaning Spanish trade union confederations CNT-FAI.

The Territorial Collection, Poland 2 is comprised of documents that were amassed at the YIVO in New York City. The collection is of mixed provenance and is fragmentary in nature, consisting of miscellaneous materials dating back to World War II and its immediate aftermath. The Territorial Collection Poland 2 is a portion of the greater Territorial Collection (RG 116), which incorporates materials that are relevant to over 42 different countries and geographical regions. The overarching theme of the collection Poland 2 is the annihilation of the Jewish life in Poland under the Nazi rule. Chronologically, the Territorial Collection Poland 2 follows the Territorial Collection Poland 1, which pertains to pre-World War II Poland; and precedes the Territorial Collection Poland 3, which pertains to post-World War II Poland.

This collection consists of assorted types of financial records, some correspondence and a few photographs related to efforts to develop the infrastructure of Israel during the 1800s, the First and Second Aliyah periods, the time of the British Mandate, and the early years after the founding of the State of Israel.

Contains the surviving papers of Rabbi Tobias Geffen who served as a rabbi in New York City (1904-1907), Canton, Ohio (1907-1910), and Atlanta, Georgia (1910-1970). Includes extensive correspondence with members of his family, autobiographies in Yiddish and English (several versions) and other material relating to his personal life.

Collection documents the activities and missions of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (UOJCA), primarily during the presidencies of William Weiss (1933-1942), Samuel Nirenstein (1942-1948), Moses Feuerstein (1954-1965), and Rabbi Pinchas Stolper’s tenure as Executive Vice President (1976-1994).

Founded in 1898, the UOJCA, also known as the Orthodox Union, serves as the leader, organizer, and voice of affiliated Orthodox Jewish congregations in North America. Divisions of the UOJCA reflected most prominently in the collection include the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, the Women’s Branch, the Kashruth Division, the Department of Synagogue Services, the Israel Center, as well as regional branches.

Subjects addressed in the collection include Sabbath and high holiday observance, dietary laws, Baal Teshuva, slaughterhouse legislation, funeral standards, education, and synagogue management and outreach. Materials include correspondence, minutes, clippings, speeches, UOJCA publications, financial documents, and a few photographs.

The Victoria (Zetlin) Russman Pordes Collection holds the correspondence, personal, and professional papers of Victoria Pordes, along with other members of her family, especially her sister Anna (Zetlin) Jarosik. Much of the collection consists of correspondence, notably the personal family correspondence between Zetlin siblings. In addition, the collection includes official, and educational papers, postcards, photographs, scrapbooks, tourism materials, immigration and citizenship papers, notebooks, address books, diaries, and other items.

The collection is of a fragmentary nature, and consists of miscellaneous materials that pertain to the role and activities of the Vilna Chief of Police in the everyday life of the city and province of Vilna, and to the relationship between the Vilna Chief of Police and other police, military and civil organs in the Vilna province. Most of the documents in this collection, which covers the tsarist period from the 1830s to 1918, were assembled during the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century