The Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Historical Collection contains letters, manuscripts, and historical documents which were saved by the Yiddish poets Avraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski in the Vilna Ghetto. Sutzkever, Kaczerginski, and other members of the Paper Brigade, conscripted Jewish workers who were forced to work under the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, saved thousands of books, manuscripts and documents at great risk to their lives by hiding them in various places in the Vilna Ghetto. After the war the surviving members recovered many of the hidden items. Sutzkever sent many of these rescued materials to the YIVO Institute in New York from the period 1947 to 1956. The collection consists of 8 series and includes correspondence of writers, intellectuals, communal leaders, rabbinical figures; manuscripts of Yiddish and Hebrew writers; theater documents; folklore materials; rabbinical responsa and writings; historical and legal documents; pinkasim and Jewish communal records.

The materials in this collection constitute a semi-random sample of the pre-war archive that was transferred to the Central State Archives of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic following the liquidation of the Vilnius Jewish Museum in 1949. The collection includes records of YIVO work and activities, financial records, correspondence, and publications; documents about pogroms in Ukraine, and Red Army and Soviet activity in Vilna and Bialystok; and a significant amount of records of socialist, communist, and Zionist political parties, as well as associated newspapers and one-time publications.

Hadassah Functions and Operations Records represent the bulk of aid and services provided to Hadassah's membership, from the 1920s to 2011. Materials found in the record group include correspondence, clippings, press releases, manuals and kits for chapters and members to implement programming and chapter structure, fundraising campaigns, scripts, study guides, programming for local and national meetings, biographical files, and training documentation. Departments documented in the record group include Public Affairs, Education, Women's Health, American Affairs, Zionist and International Affairs, Speakers Bureau, Fundraising, Program, Organization, Outreach and Tourism Departments. Materials related to the general administration of Hadassah are also in the record group; these materials include research and development of projects, archives department correspondence and other materials, Hadassah House administration, and strategic planning. The record group also documents Hadassah's efforts to expand membership outside of the United States, by the development of Hadassah International.

The records of the People's Relief Committee for Jewish War Sufferers consist of correspondence with Jewish communities and relief organizations in Europe, Palestine, Cuba, South America, the United States, and Canada; as well as scrapbooks containing U.S. and Canadian Yiddish and English newspaper clippings and printed promotional literature pertaining to the fundraising activities of the People's Relief Committee in North America and abroad.

This collection contains correspondence between Chaim Zhitlowsky and many important political figures and organizations, as well as manuscripts and other writings, some written by Zhitlowsky and some written by others. There are also notes and other materials from speeches and lectures that Zhitlowsky gave, financial documents, articles written about Zhitlowsky, newspaper clippings of articles by Zhitlowsky, materials from celebrations held in Zhitlowsky’s honor, photographs, excerpts from his works, and various other assorted items. These materials serve to illustrate both Zhitlowsky’s importance in the Yiddish and Russian literary field and his deep involvement in the American and Russian-Jewish Socialist, Territorialist and Diaspora Nationalism movements.

This collection contains papers of Nokhem Shtif, a Yiddish philologist, editor, literary historian, translator, and political activist, and one of the founders of the YIVO Institute in Vilna. The bulk of the materials pertains to Yiddish language, philology, and literature, as well as to the administration and activities of the Kiev-based Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture, especially the Philological Section, which was directed by Shtif. The materials include manuscripts of Shtif's writings and speeches; correspondence; reports; meeting minutes; departmental planning documents and course programs/syllabi; materials related to Shtif's teaching of Yiddish stylistics courses; newspaper clippings; several manuscripts of articles and research works by other scholars; and notes, transcriptions, and other research materials, including memoirs related to the lexicographer Y. M. Lifshits.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of William Edlin, editor of The Day and a prominent Socialist. It includes correspondence with individuals and with organizations, newspaper clippings, manuscripts of works by Edlin and by others as well as translations done by Edlin, and some of Edlin’s personal documents. These materials relate to Edlin’s involvement with The Day, with the Socialist Party, the Workmen’s Circle, various labor and Zionist organizations, literary clubs and activities, and with music, art and drama.

The Poland (Vilna Archives) Collection is comprised of documents that were amassed at the YIVO in Vilna (Vilnius), mainly as a result of collecting work by the volunteer YIVO “zamlers” (collectors). The bulk of the collection relates to Jewish communities in over 260 cities and towns in interwar Poland (1919-1939). Documents of earlier years are also included.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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 Vilna Collection represents fragmentary materials that were part of the original YIVO Archives in Vilna before WWII. The collection includes a wide array of materials dealing with a great variety of aspects of Jewish life in the Pre-revolutionary Russian Empire and post-revolutionary Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Soviet Russia. The Collection consists of personal correspondence, official correspondence with organizations and governmental institutions, financial and statistical reports, minutes of meetings of Jewish communal and political organizations, bibliographic materials, including card catalogues and bibliographies. Also included here are vital documents, such as birth certificates and birth registers, affidavits, certificates, diplomas, and travel documents. Additionally, there are petitions, resolutions, appeals, printed materials, manuscripts, lists, and questionnaires. There is a wealth of materials dealing with Jewish book trade and publishing, youth and sports organizations, education, Jewish communal life, and political activities.