This collection contains the organizational records of the American Jewish Congress, which was founded in 1918 and has worked to fight for civil rights and civil liberties of all U.S. citizens. Collection materials include but are not limited to internal correspondence and memorandum, pamphlets, legal papers, publications, clippings, articles, political statements, notes, bulletins, press releases, and much more.

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.

This collection documents the life and activities of dancer and activist Ronya Schwaab. The collection contains material related to her activities advocating for Soviet Jews, lecturing on various topics, her trips abroad, and writing reviews for numerous books. It also includes correspondence with family, friends, and various officials in both the public and non-profit spheres of politics and business. The collection contains numerous photographs and certificates that further document her activities and accomplishments.

The Seder Ritual Committee was created to compose a prayer memorializing the Holocaust. This collection documents their activities, and includes correspondence, publicity, orders, and copies of the Seder Ritual of Remembrance.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Shad Polier, including legal files from cases with which Polier was involved, particularly those concerning adoptions and civil liberties, articles and speeches by Polier, correspondence, and materials from several of the organizations with which Polier was affiliated, including the American Jewish Congress, the World Jewish Congress and the NAACP. These materials reflect his widespread participation with the civil liberties movement, equal rights and anti-discrimination law.

The collection has been arranged according to the following broad subject areas: personal affairs; speeches, sermons, and articles, both manuscript and published; the Free Synagogue in New York City; the Jewish Institute of Religion; American Jewish affairs; relations between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities; New York City affairs; United States affairs; the press (both Jewish and non-Jewish); world affairs; the American Jewish Congress and World Jewish Congress; refugees; Zionism; Palestine and Israel; arts and letters; and individual corrspondence of a general nature.

The collection encompasses the personal papers of Virginia Snitow, especially during her active years in the Women's Division of the American Jewish Congress and an organization she founded, US/Israel Women to Women. Papers contain correspondence, writings and voluminous notes with both fiction, and non-fiction writings on racial, gender and class equality. Also included are family stories and diaries chronicling Snitow's time spent in her summer home in Grenada.

General correspondence relating mainly to Tygel's activities in Polish Jewish fraternal organizations. Letters from Hayim Greenberg, Yizhak Grunbaum, George Medalie, Baruch Vladeck, Stephen Wise. Correspondence and other materials relating to the Hayim Solomon Monument Committee, 1925-1931. Tygel's published and unpublished articles.