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.

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 correspondence between Mendel Osherowitch and many important literary and political figures, as well as Yiddish manuscripts by Osherowitch, clippings, photos, and obituaries and letters written to his family after his death. These materials illustrate Osherowitch’s importance in the Yiddish literary field as well as his role in various Jewish organizations.

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.