The MACHAL, the acronym for “mitnadvei hutz laAretz” ("Volunteers from Abroad"), consisted of about 3500 men and women from over 40 countries from a variety of social and religious backgrounds who volunteered to fight for the establishment of Israel. This collection is unique in that it deals specifically with the experience of MACHAL and Aliyah Bet volunteers from Canada and the United States and others living in the United States. The collections consists of files on 500 volunteers, over 2000 original and reproduction photographs, numerous audio-visual material, books, manuscripts, and memoirs.

The Manfred Lewandowski Collection documents the professional life of cantor Manfred Lewandowski with a focus on some of his more prominent compositions. It additionally holds some genealogical material on the Lewandowski family. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence, newspaper clippings and copies of photographs; also included are sheet music, official and professional documentation including certificates, family trees and genealogical notes, and an essay on cantorial music.

This collection comprises the papers of the physician Manfred Mayer-Zachart, including material on his family, service in World War I and professional work. The papers include a large amount of family correspondence, including wartime letters, medical articles, and many photographs. In addition there is some professional correspondence and educational and family papers. Notes on patients are included in the collection but access to them is restricted.

This collection documents the medical career of Marczel Haas (1900-1979) through his education and occupational activities. Items pertaining to his education include Gymnasium transcripts, university enrollment books, matriculation certificates, and diplomas. Haas’s medical career is documented by correspondence pertaining to his medical license, letters of recommendation, contracts for positions at hospitals in Breslau and Cluj, offprints of medical articles written by Haas, and professional certificates, including his New York State medical license.

This collection contains personal papers of Margaret Gabali Rosenfelt (1912-2005), including official documents as well as correspondence with family, German and French authorities, and her friend Rudolf Schneider, a Stuttgart architect. A diary and memoirs are also included.

This collection holds the papers of the author Margarete Susman, with a focus on the significant events of her life and her relationships with others. In addition to drafts of her memoirs the collection contains extensive correspondence with Gertrud Kantorowicz, Georg Simmel and Karl Wolfskehl. Other items include newspaper clippings, among them many obituaries, other correspondence, a few photographs and other papers.

The Marianne Steinberg Ostrand Collection documents the education, emigration, and early professional life of the physician Marianne Steinberg Ostrand as well as the lives of members of her family, especially her husband, engineer Arnold Ostrand, and her mother and siblings, with much documentation of the emigration or attempted emigration from Germany of her family members. About half the collection is correspondence. In addition it contains many educational certificates, official documents, diaries, notebooks, notes, and a friendship album, travel memorabilia, and newspaper clippings and articles.

Personal papers of the American Soviet Jewry movement activist Marilyn Labendz, who participated in the MetroWest Conference on Soviet Jewry, chaired the MetroWest mobilization to Summit II, and Women's Interfaith Plea for Soviet Jewry. The collection contains speeches, memos, correspondence, pamphlets, news clippings and digital photographs.

Marion E Kenworthy (1891-1980) was one of the founders of the Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children. Starting in 1938, they organized a lobbying effort to have the U.S. Congress allow for the migration of refugee children from Europe to the United States. This collection documents, through correspondence, depositions, meeting minutes, and more, the group’s activities. Of particular importance is the congressional testimony relating to the 1939 Wagner-Rogers bill.

This collection contains papers of the philosopher, author and scholar Martin Buber. Notable among the papers are his letters to his colleague and friend Franz Rosenzweig on a number of subjects, including their translation of the Bible. Other material consists of typescripts of lectures, a few letters to other individuals, photographs, invitations and some material on events about him.

This collection focuses on research about Moses Mendelssohn. Included is research correspondence, photocopies of Mendelssohn's handwritten documents and numerous articles on Mendelssohn and his work.

This collection consists of the personal and professional documents of the dermatologist Max Wolf as well as personal documents of other members of the family, including his wife Margareta Wolf. The collection encompasses official and professional documents, copies of correspondence, photographs and articles and educational certificates.

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.

The Max Kurrein Family Collection documents the professional life of metallurgist and professor Max Kurrein and to a smaller extent the genealogy and lives of several other family members. Various types of materials are included, such as official, educational and professional certificates, correspondence, biographical essays, a photo album and photographs, family trees and articles.

This collection contains the research files of Melinda Guttmann on Bertha Pappenheim, also known as "Anna O." It is primarily comprised of documentation of Melinda Guttmann's work on Bertha Pappenheim as well as extensive accumulated research on her, most of which has been translated into English. Included are Melinda Guttmann's manuscripts and notes, as well as copies of many articles on Bertha Pappenheim and the culture and time in which she lived.

The collection documents three generations of a Jewish American family: the Metz, Greene, and Stone families. The collection contains correspondence between family members, newspaper clippings, photographs, scrapbooks, baby, confirmation, and wedding photo albums, and ephemera.

The Milch Family, Breslau Collection consists of documents pertaining to the Milch, Kauffmann and Silbergleit families, including official documents, family trees, correspondence, unpublished manuscripts and newspaper clippings. The bulk of the collection consists of the papers of the literary historian Werner Milch.

The Milton Steinberg (1903-1950) Papers documents the personal and intellectual life of the American author, philosopher, rabbi, teacher, and theologian. The collection contains correspondence, writings, photographs, audio recordings, and memorabilia. In addition to numerous articles, he authored several books including, The Making of the Modern Jew (1934), As A Driven Leaf (1939), A Partisan Guide to the Jewish Problem (1945), Basic Judaism (1947), A Believing Jew (1951), Anatomy of Faith (1960), and A Prophet’s Wife (2010). In a professional career that lasted a little over twenty years, he served as rabbi at three synagogues, primarily at the Park Avenue Synagogue. In addition, he was active in the community at large, and worked with many Jewish community and civic organizations. As a disciple of Mordecai Kaplan, he and others helped to establish the Reconstructionist movement of American Jewry.

The collection includes memoirs, poems, notes, correspondence, photographs and clippings pertaining to Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal, to her husband Peter and to her mother Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss.'Materials concentrate on the 1940s, when Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal and her mother Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss lived in Amsterdam and New York, as well as on correspondence from the 1950s and 1960s.

The Morawetz-Glaser Family Collection documents these two Czech families, and in particular the notable events in the lives of the industrialist and philanthropist Richard Morawetz and his wife Frida (née Glaser) and of their children. The collection includes extensive family correspondence; family writings including diaries, memoirs, and poems; photographs and photo albums; family trees and genealogical research correspondence; newspaper clippings and articles; and official documents and other papers.

This collection contains the papers of Morris "Moe" Berg, who was a professional baseball player, linguist, lawyer, and international spy during WWII. Berg's papers are in the form of correspondence, contracts, telegrams, newspaper and magazine clippings.

The collection contains papers of one of the pioneers of the American Soviet Jewry Movement. Starting in the early 1960s Moshe Decter instigated broad publicity campaigns to raise global awareness about the persecution of Soviet Jews and authored hundreds of articles on the subject in a variety of publications. Mr. Decter established and directed the Jewish Minorities Research bureau, served as the executive secretary of the Conference on the Status of Soviet Jews and as a director of research at the American Jewish Congress. Moshe Decter Papers consist of materials dating from the late 1950s to the early 2000s, with the bulk of the collection dating in 1960s-1970s. The documents include articles, correspondence, transcripts, notes, memoranda, publications, news clippings, broadsides and photographs.

The Mühlfelder and Roeckert Families Collection contains both primary sources and research materials that, together, combine to record the history of these families. Charles C. Milford (born Klaus Mühlfelder) compiled the research materials; the greatest quantity of correspondence, documents, and photographs in the collection also pertains to his life. Documents include vital documents, educational records, military service records, and materials relating to Charles C. Milford’s career as a librarian. In addition to Milford, his father Simon Mühlfelder and wife Patricia E. Milford feature most prominently in the first three series of the collection. Family history research focuses on Simon Mühlfelder’s first wife Martha Kassel and people within her milieu. This research is compiled from Milford’s correspondence with scholars and archives, relevant archival finding aids and photocopies of documents held by various archives, articles, photocopies from books, catalog records for pertinent books, and Wikipedia pages and other printouts of biographical information from the Internet. These same types of material also make up Milford’s research on topics of interest, including the history of Jews in Germany broadly and of the Mühlfelder family specifically.

Papers of Murray Levine, a rabbi at Temple Beth Sholom in Framingham, MA, worked extensively to help resettle Jewish immigrants arriving from the former Soviet Union and traveled to the Soviet Union to deliver spiritual and material support to Soviet Jewish Refuseniks. The materials include photographs and slides, trip reports, notes, memos, clippings, Refusenik profiles, a notebook with coded names of Soviet Jews, and correspondence, including a letter of support from Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

The Nadelmann and Wolff Families Collection provides documentation about members of the Nadelmann, Wolff, Lewinsohn, and Kann families, including details on their professions, early lives, the towns from which family members derived, and including details on the emigration and deportation of family members. The collection consists of family correspondence, photographs, genealogical research, and research on family members' hometowns.

Contains correspondence, judicial opinions, addresses and speeches, newspaper clippings, and published material relating to Perlman's career as a judge in various municipal courts of the city of New York (1935-1952), his political career as a New York State Assemblyman (1915-1917), member of the United States House of Representatives (1920-1927), and as an unsuccessful candidate for New York State office.

It also contains published material relating to Perlman's activities on behalf of the Jewish community, especially the American Jewish Congress (1942-1946), where he served as chairman of its National Executive Committee.

Approximately half of this collection consists of the official minutes; memoranda; administrative and investigatory reports; and correspondence of the Mayor's Committee on Unity established by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia in 1944, of which Perlman served as a member on the subcommittees on Housing, City Services, and the Timone Investigation.

The collection documents the National Jewish Welfare Board's (JWB) evolution from an organization founded in 1917 to provide support for soldiers in times of war to an agency involved in all aspects of Jewish life both in the United States and abroad. In 1990 JWB recreated itself as the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America.

The New York Board of Rabbis is a cross-denominational Jewish organization for rabbis that seeks to foster fellowship, provide educational enrichment, and rise above theological differences to strengthen and defend the Jewish community advancing its’ educational, religious, and social values. The collection documents the governance of the Board and its activities in serving the Jewish community of New York and at large.

This collection contains material relating to Norman Salit's activities with various organizations, including the Synagogue Council of America, the Rabbinical Assembly of America, the Wartime Emergency Commission for Conservative Judaism, the Boy Scouts of America, the Jewish Education Committee, the American Child Guidance Foundation, Religion in American Life, the Valley Forge Foundation, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the National Community Relations Advisory Council. There are also speeches, writings, sermons, items related to Sharit's legal work and Zionist activities, as well as some letters from Mordecai Kaplan.

University professor, historian, and scholar Oscar I. Janowsky sought to understand Jewish culture and human rights in light of modern anti-Semitism, imperialism, and pluralistic states. Throughout his robust career he was a professor of history at the City College of New York, he also served as an advisor to League of Nations High Commissioner James G. McDonald, directed and authored major studies in the fields of Jewish community centers and education. The papers in this collection include his correspondence with colleagues and friends, research notes and article drafts, and his unpublished memoirs.