Under the employ of the New York Kehillah, detective Abraham Shoenfeld infiltrated and documented Jewish crime rings, prostitution houses and gambling establishments from 1912 to 1917. For the American Jewish Committee from 1938 to 1964, he investigated anti-Semitic organizations and individuals. He also authored a controversial book about the New York crime world, The Joy Peddler, and he was at work on other pieces of fiction and his memoirs. The bulk of his papers consist of investigative reports and research for the American Jewish Committee, his manuscripts, and his collection of anti-Semitic literature.

The collection contains papers Abraham Silverstein, an American Soviet Jewry movement activist who co-founded and co-chaired the Academy of the Air for Jewish Studies, an agency that prepared educational shortwave radio programs for Jews in the Soviet Union. The materials include correspondence, memos, project descriptions and reports, news clippings, transcripts of lectures, research materials and 18 audiocassettes with recordings of the programs.

This collection is comprised of papers pertaining to Admiral Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, his career, and his community and organizational activities. He belonged to such groups as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Temple Emanu-El in New York, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Jewish Agricultural Society, and the Union of Hebrew Congregations.

His papers include extensive correspondence, organizational and institutional records, photographs, and publications which document his personal and public life as well as American Jewish issues that he was involved with such as relief efforts for Jewish refugees from Central Europe, interest and involvement in the Reform movement, and endeavors to combat anti-Semitism, especially as propagated by Father Charles E. Coughlin and Henry Ford.

The American Jewish Committee Records, Domestic and Geographic Files consists of materials created by executive offices, departments, local offices and chapters of the committee concerning a variety of matters, primarily Jewish civil and religious rights, integration, Jewish communal organizations and communal issues. However, materials found in this collection encompass other civil, racial, and religious minority groups as well. The records consist of briefs, conference proceedings, correspondence, legal documents, memoranda, minutes of meetings, printed materials, reports, resolutions, statements, studies, and surveys.

The collection documents American Jewish Committee’s efforts to combat all forms of discrimination against the Jews in the United States. Additionally, there are materials pertaining to AJC’s work regarding other minority groups in the United States. The collection offers researchers a unique chance to see how and what was done prior to the changes in public opinion and civic and legal laws. The American Jewish Committee Records, Subject Files consists of materials created by executive offices, departments, local offices and chapters of the Committee concerning a variety of matters; foremost Jewish civil and religious rights, immigration, and the Holocaust.

Internal records of the Tercentenary Committee. Materials of the Board of Directors. Budget Committee records. By-laws. Minutes of the Steering Committee. Minutes of Planning Conferences. Correspondence with organizations and individuals: American Jewish Congress; American Jewish Committee; B'nai Brith; Jewish Publication Society; Jewish Theological Seminary. Individuals include: David Bernstein, Albert Greenfeld, Bernice Koor, Milton Krents, Benjamin Lazarus, Henry Moses, William Rosenwald, Harold Shapiro. Materials relating to celebration activities.

The AVI CHAI Collection contains a breadth of files relating to the administrative and outreach activities of the organization, from its founding in 1984 through 2019.

The AVI CHAI records stored at the AJHS relate to the foundation's activities in North America. The records relating to the AVI CHAI's activities in Israel are stored at the archives of the National Library of Israel.

The records consist of correspondence, reports, minutes, financial documents, digital files, and printed materials that chronicle AVI CHAI’s administrative communication and outreach programming. The collection consists of physical paper records (see detailed breakdown below), born-digital files (including computer files), as well as audiovisual materials such as audiocassettes, microcassettes and DVDs. There are some 35mm slides, but otherwise very few photographic prints or negatives. Of note in the collection are materials that outline the foundation’s research on, and enthusiastic support of, Jewish day schools, camps, teacher training and libraries.

Administration files include by-laws, incorporation documents, and insurance policies, among others.

Board records are comprised of meeting materials, such as minutes and agendas. They document the philosophy, direction and activities of the organization.

Communications files consist primarily the files of Deena K. Fuchs. They include media kits, graphics, working files for annual reports, and other materials.

Files related to AVI CHAI finances include investment portfolio documentation as well as quarterly and annual reports.

The core of the foundation’s history can be found in its Programs files which document the various programs initiated or supported by AVI CHAI. They include detailed files on the foundation’s loans to schools (including building programs) and to summer camps. Also included in this series are files relating to AVI CHAI communications activities, such as media kits, graphics, working files for annual reports, and other materials.

The collection documents the activities on behalf of Soviet Jewry of Bert Silver who served as president of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, worked on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and chaired the commission on international affairs of the American Jewish Congress in Washington, D.C.

This collection contains materials pertaining to the life and career of Boris Smolar, a journalist and editor-in-chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and an author of children's books.

This collection contains family trees, marriage records and passports from the 19th century and 1930s, as well as correspondence and several photographs documenting Jules Cortell's professional and philanthropic activities.

Emigration 1864-1952: This collection - encompassing about 90 years - contains papers about the situation and persecution of Jews in Eastern European countries (Russia, Poland, Roumania, Bulgaria, Lithuania). Papers describe the activities of various relief organizations. There are more than 170 papers (ca.900 pages), about half of them written in German, about 30 each in French or English, over 20 in Yiddish and some in Polish. A printed appeal of the Reichsausschuss fuer Russisch-Juedische Fluechtlingshilfe, Berlin (1929) carries among others the signatures of Leo Baeck and ALbert Einstein. (VI, 16).

The General Jewish Council was an umbrella organization founded by the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith, and Jewish Labor Committee in order to coordinate their rights defense activities.

The bulk of the records in this collection date between from 1938-1944, the active years of the Council. Materials consist primarily of correspondence, minutes, memoranda, and reports.

Born in Arkansas and raised in Pennsylvania, Cyrus Adler was a prominent Jewish scholar, educator, and leader. A nephew of the Philadelphian Sulzbergers (Mayer and David), Adler developed an interest in libraries, Semitics, and Assyriology, going on to earn a Ph.D from Johns Hopkins. In 1888, Adler began work at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D. C., and eventually became the President of Dropsie College in Philadelphia. Adler was active in the American Jewish Historical Society, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the United Synagogue, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Agency for Palestine, The Jewish Encyclopedia, and the National Jewish Welfare Board. He also participated in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

This collection represents a small portion of Adler's papers, with materials concerning Jewish activism, Conservative Judaism, and Jewish scholarship and history in America. The collection contains correspondence, page proofs, manuscripts, and published articles, clippings, notes, speeches, and ephemera.

Contains correspondence, mostly of a personal nature, from Mayer Sulzberger, Louis Marshall, Herbert Quick, Thomas W. Page, and Louis D. Brandeis. Also included is correspondence between Nathan Straus and Mayer Sulzberger regarding Friedenwald's candidacy for the House of Representatives in 1912, as well as correspondence with the American Jewish Historical Society regarding a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This collection contains correspondence, brochures, memorandum, pamphlets, fliers, invitations, reports, programs and press releases. The documents in this collection describe issues concerning the Holocaust, Jewish resistance, European labor concerns, the Jewish Labor Movement in America and anti-communism and Soviet Jewry. Included are invitations, programs and general information concerning miscellaneous concerts, conventions, symposia, and summer fellowships. A brochure regarding the Jewish Labor Committee's Child Adoption Program and materials relating to the Women's Division and Workmen's Circle also are found in the collection. In addition the collection contains publications issued by other organizations, including: American Federation of Labor, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Friends of Democracy, National Community Relations Advisory Council, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and the United States Displaced Persons Commission.

Lucien Wolf (1857-1930) was a diplomat, foreign affairs expert, journalist, and historian. As the secretary of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association (earlier the Conjoint Foreign Committee), Lucien Wolf took a leading role in the efforts of Western Jewry to aid persecuted Jews in Eastern Europe. He was also a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference (1919), where he helped to draft the minorities treaties guaranteeing the rights of Jews and other ethnic and religious minority groups. David Mowshowitch (1887-1957) was Lucien Wolf's secretary and aide at the Joint Foreign Committee for many years and continued to work for the Joint Foreign Committee until the 1950s. The collection consists of the papers of Lucien Wolf and David Mowshowitch, as well as fragmentary records of the Joint Foreign Committee. The material includes personal papers, correspondence, reports, memoranda, minutes of meetings, copies of articles, and press clippings. The documents pertain to the situation of persecuted Jews throughout the world, most notably the efforts of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association to aid the Jews of Eastern Europe, and to the Peace Conference at Paris in 1919 and the minorities treaties. There is also material on Lucien Wolf's and David Mowshowitch's other activities, most importantly Lucien Wolf's career as a journalist and as a historian of the Jewish community in Britain.

The Papers of Max J. Kohler (1871-1934) document his life's work as lawyer, historian, writer, researcher, and defender of Jewish and immigrant rights. Correspondents include many of Kohler's contemporaries in the field of history and immigration law including Cyrus Adler; William Taft; John Bassett Moore; Mortimer Schiff; David Hunter Miller; Baron and Baroness de Hirsch; the Straus Family including Oscar Straus; Luigi Luzzatti; Leon Huhner; and Julian Mack. Subjects include U.S. immigration law, American-Jewish history, Col. Alfred Dreyfus, Haym Salomon, Ellis Island, Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, the publication God in Freedom, international treaties, and the Peace Conference of 1919.

Collection contains: correspondence; memoranda; notes; press releases; speeches; resolutions; bills; Congressional Records; House of Representative's reports; articles; newsclippings concerning Refuseniks and the plight of Soviet Jews; and material regarding the Middle East Crisis (1953-1969), Arab Boycotts (1965-1967, 1973), the American Jewish Committee's response to affirmative action programs (1972), and an article outlining Hasidic Jew's treatment by police (1973).

This collection consists of the papers of Nathan Perlmutter, a lawyer, lecturer, author, political activist, and a long-time leader of the American Jewish community. It contains certificates, newspaper clippings, correspondence — including numerous condolence cards and letters sent to his family after his death — manuscripts and drafts of Perlmutter’s writings, obituaries, printed materials, programs, and subject files relating to topics he was interested in and that he wrote about.

This collection documents the activities, administration, planning, proceedings, and correspondence of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, 1944-1994. The collection includes correspondence, programs, minutes, proposals, reports, clippings, press releases, and publications.

This collection contains annual reports, board minutes, case studies, correspondence, newsletters, survey reports, and other items.

Present Tense magazine, which was published by the American Jewish Committee from 1973-1990, published articles on Jewish affairs with an international bent. These papers contain the letters of the magazine’s editor, Murray Polner, photographs collected for publication, and subject files which consist primarily of article proofs and correspondence with contributing authors.

This collection consists of general reference files from the New York City headquarters of the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Materials originated in various AJC departments and were maintained by a Central Records office until 1962, when records retention policy was decentralized. Document types include correspondence, memoranda, reports, clippings, and published materials concerning individuals, businesses, government agencies, and other organizations related to the work of the AJC.

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.

Collection contains records of donations made throughout New York State to assist in the rebuilding of schools and synagogues destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. Includes the membership lists of the New York Board of Rabbis, Rabbis in New York State, and of congregations in New York State.

The Industrial Removal Office was created as part of the Jewish Agricultural Society to assimilate immigrants into American society, both economically and culturally. It worked to employ all Jewish immigrants. The collection contains administrative and financial records, immigrants' removal records, and correspondence. A database has been constructed to search for persons removed by the Industrial Removal Office.

The Galveston immigration records document the attempt of the Jewish Immigrant Information Bureau, working in cooperation with several other Jewish organizations, to receive Jewish immgrants through the port of Galveston, Texas rather than New York City. The papers further describe the JIIB's efforts to resettle the immigrants in communities throughout the United States. Papers include ship passenger lists, correspondence, and statistical reports, as well as papers dealing with individual immigration cases.

This collection contains programs and papers read at the Annual Meetings of 1915-1916, the resolution passed at a special meeting in 1915 regarding the founding the School for Jewish Communal Work, the pension plan proposals, and correspondence regarding the Summer School for Social Work held jointly with the Jewish Chautauqua Society. Includes correspondence with the American Jewish Committee, National Americanization Committee, National Conference of Jewish Charities, New York City Board of Education, and the U.S. Dept. of Labor Immigration Bureau relating to the work of the association. Contains also the correspondence of Cyrus Adler, Ludwig Bernstein, Louis d. Brandeis, Lee K. Frankel, Israel Friedlander, Oscar Leonard, Louis Levin, Irving Lipsitch, Minnie F. Low, Louis Marshall, Belle Moskowitz, Milton Reizenstein, H.L. Sabsovich, Philip Seman, and Morris D. Waldman.

This collection contains constitutions, by-laws, membership organizations list, minutes of the 1912 Annual Meeting, Executive Committee Minutes (1911, 1913), Committee on Confidential Exchange Minutes (1912), Committee to Discuss Medical Examinations Minutes (1912), 1912 meeting with the Jewish Immigration Committee of New York, and a special meeting on the problem of illiteracy (1913). Also includes the correspondence of the American Jewish Committee, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Jewish Colonization Association offices in Canada and Paris, and the Jewish Emigration Congress in Vienna. Also included is the correspondence of Simon Wolf, counsel to the National Jewish Immigration Council.