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 Steven M. Lowenstein Collection documents professional activities of Steven Lowenstein, writer, researcher, historian, and teacher and consists of manuscripts, printed materials, statistical data, and correspondence. Documents comprising the collection reflect Dr. Lowenstein’s interests in a wide spectrum of topics related to Jews and Judaism, such as modernity and tradition and their influence on the religion and common folks, Berlin Jews of the upper strata, similarities and differences between agrarian/rural and urban Jews, Eastern and Western Jewry, popular and official Judaism, and secular and religious Jews, to name but a few topics.

The primary contents of these papers are a collection of communal records created by the Sudan Jewish Community (approx. 183 pp.). These records deal with the lives and interactions of the Sudan Jewish Community, including such materials as Betrothals (Ketubot), Marriages (Kiddushin), and Divorces (Gittin). These records were initiated by Rabbi Eliahu Hazzan Chief Rabbi of Alexandria, and continued by Rabbi Shlomo Malka (Rabbi from 1906 until 1949). Originals are to be found in the Jewish Nation and University Library in Jerusalem; its signature JNUL Heb 4 7306/I-2. Copies are in the library of Beit Hatefsoth in Tel Aviv, and Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem. Includes photo-copies of: A) Betrothals (Ketubot) B) Divorces (Gittin) C) Marriages D) Conversions

This collection contains research files on émigrés from Germany, Austria, and German-speaking Czechoslovakia during the Nazi period (1933-1945). These files were compiled by researchers at the Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration in New York and the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich in preparation for the publication of The Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933/International biographical dictionary of Central European émigrés 1933-1945.

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.

Uriah Phillips Levy rose to the rank of Commodore in the United States Navy despite religious hostility. He succeeded in abolishing corporal punishment in the Navy, and is credited for preserving Thomas Jefferson's estate, Monticello. His papers consist of correspondence, financial and legal records, publications, papers, newspaper articles, a notebook, and a book.

The Victoria (Zetlin) Russman Pordes Collection holds the correspondence, personal, and professional papers of Victoria Pordes, along with other members of her family, especially her sister Anna (Zetlin) Jarosik. Much of the collection consists of correspondence, notably the personal family correspondence between Zetlin siblings. In addition, the collection includes official, and educational papers, postcards, photographs, scrapbooks, tourism materials, immigration and citizenship papers, notebooks, address books, diaries, and other items.

The bulk of the collection consists of documents of the Wald family. Most of them were used to get American visas or citizenship. A body of correspondence is also part of the collection. The focus of these letters concerns emigration / immigration, and the possibility of fleeing Germany.

The Center for Jewish History has, in close collaboration with Internet Archive, captured the websites, content, and peripheral web-based applications of websites chosen by the Center for Jewish History and its five partner organizations to better fulfill their collecting missions.

Rabbi William F. Rosenblum was head rabbi of the reform congregation at Temple Israel in New York City, 1930-1963. He was also an active leader in a number of Jewish social welfare and religious organizations. In addition to broadly documenting his rabbinical career and organizational activities, the William F. Rosenblum Papers reflect Rosenblum's interests in military chaplaincy, relations between Catholicism and Judaism, the media, race relations, post-WWII Europe, and the Vietnam War. Materials include correspondence, scrapbooks, sermons, speeches, notes, radio transcripts, clippings, photographs, audiotapes, and film.

The Wolf-Oppenheimer Collection provides details on the lives, both personal and professional of more than three generations of members of the related Wolf and Oppenheimer families. Most prominently represented among the collection's papers are Hermann and Irene (née Oppenheimer) Wolf and their daughter Marlies (née Wolf) and Eugene Plotnik, but the papers relate to many other family members as well. The collection includes personal papers, official and educational documents, family correspondence, photographs, family trees, articles as well as personal family writing, and newspaper clippings.

Record Group 1.1, the primary collection of records from the period when YIVO was headquartered in Vilna, reflects the wide range of activities YIVO engaged in from 1925-1941. Founded as an institute for the study of Yiddish speaking Jewry, YIVO grew to become a research institute, library, archive, and graduate program in one. The collection consists primarily of administrative material such as correspondence, financial records, minutes, reports, lists, and newspaper clippings, as well as essays and publications of the Aspirantur, Division of Youth Research, and the Economic-Statistical, Psychological-Pedagogical, and Philological sections. It incorporates material generated by the Vilna office, satellite offices in Berlin, Warsaw, and New York, and by supporters and collectors throughout Poland, Europe, and indeed the world.

The material in this record group was culled from Hadassah's Central Files in Israel in the early 1980s to document Hadassah's role in Zionist history. Originally formed from a Zionist women's study group, the first Hadassah chapter in New York had a strong relationship with the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA; then known as the Federation of American Zionists). The material in this record group documents Hadassah's relationship to the ZOA and to other Zionist organizations in the United States, Europe, and Palestine/Israel, particularly in the years leading up to Israeli statehood in 1948. Other subjects addressed in this record group include the founding of Hadassah; World War II, particularly relating to Jewish emigration and refugees; the founding of the United Nations and the debate over recognition of a Jewish state; the partition of Palestine; and Arab-Jewish relations. Included are articles, clippings, convention resolutions, correspondence, diary extracts, memorandums, minutes, press releases, printed ephemera, publications, reports, and speeches.