The records of the American Jewish Historical Society, the oldest national ethnic historical organization in the United States, include correspondence of officers and staff as well as inter-office memos, multiple versions of the constitution and by-laws of the society, meeting minutes of administrative branches and committees, membership and financial records, reports, exhibit materials, records relating to the society’s library and archival holdings, press releases and newspaper clippings, and publications and newsletters created by the society. There are also materials from various programs, such as meetings and conferences, tours, lectures, awards and dinners, films, and educational programs.

The Annual and Mid-Winter National Conventions Records document the proceedings and outcomes of the conventions and conferences attended by Hadassah’s National Board as well as by convention delegates from the various regions of Hadassah. The conventions in particular are where local and regional leaders meet with each other and the National Board and learn about Hadassah’s various projects and committees. This record group also includes annual reports from 1926-2001.

This record group contains materials related to the local units of Hadassah—groups, chapters, regions, and co-ops—as well as Junior Hadassah, a youth organization that functioned as a group within the Hadassah Chapter structure. The record group documents over one hundred years of Hadassah’s growth, and illuminates a century of American Jewish communal life, particularly that of Jewish women, across the United States. The record group reflects the formation, administration and activities of the individual groups, chapters, co-ops and regions, and contains information on local events and programs organized around fundraising, Zionism, Jewish heritage, religion and holidays celebration, the study of Hebrew and Yiddish, women's issues, fashion, health, technology and many other topics.

This record group includes documents created and maintained by the Office of the President, the Office of the Executive Director and the Chair of the Division Coordinators/Directors Committee. Prominent is the Henrietta Szold series, containing correspondence by and to Szold as well as printed materials written by and about her. The files in this record group were created by a national president or executive director, or for their use, or maintained in their office during their years in office. Included are correspondence, minutes, memos, publications, reports and subject files on topics with which these individuals were involved.

The Hadassah subject file record group is a collection of files of organizations, events, and genre subjects originally arranged alphabetically by Hadassah’s central filing department. These files served and serve as a ready reference source that represents both the direct and indirect involvement of Hadassah in both national and international affairs. This collection includes correspondence, clippings, newsletters, photographs, and other ephemeral documents.

The collection consists of the records of the Herman Muehlstein Foundation from 1947 to 2007. The Herman Muehlstein Foundation was a philanthropic organization that gave generously to educational institutes and agencies that supported Herman Muehlstein’s mission to improve the life and quality of young men and women in need of financial assistance. The Herman Muehlstein Foundation was established in 1947 and closed in 2005. The collection consists of correspondence, meeting minutes, legal papers, and grant proposals.

This collection documents the life and work of Kurt Schwerin. Kurt Schwerin immigrated to the United States in 1938 where he became a librarian and professor of law. Contained are several of his writings, research notes and other papers mainly related to his attempts to organize the immigration of his family, to settle down in the United States and regarding to his function as board member and head of the Chicago Chapter of the Leo Baeck Institute.

The Mount Sinai Hospital Records document efforts to establish a Jewish hospital in New York City and the subsequent founding and growth of that hospital, the Jews' Hospital in New York, later renamed Mount Sinai Hospital. The Mount Sinai Hospital became one of the largest teaching hospitals in the United States. Included in the collection are annual reports, clippings, minutes, invitations, pamphlets, programs, publications. Of special note are two folders of compiled memos written by Mount Sinai Hospital staff while serving overseas during World War Two.

The National Committee for Labor Israel (NCLI) was an American fundraising organization closely associated with Israel’s federation of labor and trade unions (Histadrut). NCLI provided financial support for the Histadrut’s educational, health, and social programs in Israel through national and regional solicitation campaigns. Major donors included Labor Zionist organizations, American labor unions, and other Jewish community associations. Financial problems eventually led to the dissolution of NCLI, and the bulk of this collection documents its final decades of operation. A large portion of the records pertain to development projects in Israel during the 1960s -1970s.

This collection contains the records of the National Refugee Service (NRS), a refugee aid organization founded in New York City in 1939 to assist refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. A successor agency to the National Coordinating Committee for Aid to Refugees and Emigrants Coming from Germany, which had operated as an umbrella organization of refugee aid agencies since 1934, the NRS remained in existence until 1946, when it was merged into the new organization United Service for New Americans. The NRS program encompassed a migration service that assisted with affidavits, visas and other legal aspects of the immigration process; temporary relief and casework services; job placement, retraining, and small business loans; help in resettling to localities throughout the country; and social and cultural adjustment to American life. The records include minutes, correspondence, memoranda, and reports related to the board of directors; the executive director; lay advisory committees; the various departments within the NRS; special committees assisting professional groups, including physicians, musicians, rabbis, social workers, and scholars; and cooperating refugee-assistance committees and organizations across the United States.

This collection contains documents relating to Isaac A. Hourwich’s role as an economist, publicist, statistician, lawyer, author, and authority on immigration, as well as his involvement with the labor movement and the formation of the American Jewish Congress. There are reports, minutes of meetings, memoranda, clippings and correspondence, and manuscripts and articles about Jewish labor, Socialism, Russia, Marxism, immigration, and other subjects. These materials demonstrate Hourwich’s important role in American labor, immigration theory, and political and economic theory.

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 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.

The children and descendants of Isaac Mendes and Rachel Levy Seixas included individuals who had a great impact on communal affairs and colonial Jewish life in New York, Philadelphia, Newport, and Richmond. Though this collection does not preserve the total volume of papers produced by every family member, the documents contained herein demonstrate the importance of the family in both Jewish and secular life in late 17th and early 18th century North America.

The collection is valuable to researchers studying the Seixas family; civic, mercantile, and religious contributions of Jews in the colonial era; Jewish communities in New York, Philadelphia, Newport, and Richmond; the importance of religion to Colonial Jews; Jewish participation in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and World War I; Jewish converts to Christianity; Jews as masons; and Congregation Shearith Israel of New York.

Prominent individuals in this collection include: Ephraim Hart, Grace Seixas Judah, Mrs. Jesse Judah, Israel Baer Kursheedt, Sarah Seixas Kursheedt, Hayman Levy, Nicholas Low, Isaac Moses, Naphtali Taylor Phillips, Benjamin Mendes Seixas, David G. Seixas, Gershom Mendes Seixas, Isaac Benjamin Seixas, Isaac M. Seixas, Jacob B. Seixas, Joshua Seixas, and Moses Mendes Seixas.

The collection includes: account records, books, circumcision instructions and register, correspondence, drawings, estate papers, a eulogy, family trees, legal documents, petitions, photographs, prayer books, a sermon, and shipping records.

This collection is arranged into four series: Series I: Family Papers; Series II: Moses Seixas (1744-1809); Series III: Gershom Mendes Seixas (1746-1816) and descendants; and Series IV: Benjamin Mendes Seixas (1748-1817) and descendants.

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.

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.

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.