The Educational Alliance functioned as a settlement house on New York’s Lower East Side beginning in 1889, eventually evolving into a community center in the 1920s. The Educational Alliance Records most comprehensively document the aims and activities of the Educational Alliance following WWII and into the 1960s, beginning with Mordecai Kessler’s tenure as Executive Director in 1945. However, meeting minutes and legal documents date back to 1879. Materials include minutes, correspondence, individual records, newsletters, photographs, announcements, deeds, clippings, reports, and financial records.

Mizrakh Yidisher Historisher Arkhiv Collection consists of diverse materials that pertain to pogroms in the period between 1918 and 1921 that took place mostly in Ukraine but also in Belarus, Poland, and Russia. There is a wide variety of topics that are covered in the collection including Ukrainian-Jewish relations during a short lived Ukrainian Republic, Ukrainian-Jewish political, communal, and governmental organizations, Ukrainian government and the role of politicians and military Commanders in pogroms, most notably Symon Petlyura and Ataman Grigoriev, pogroms and its aftermath, military occupation of Ukraine by the German, Polish, Bolshevik and General Denikin’s armies and its relationship to pogroms, Jewish self-defense and relief work. Also included here are materials pertaining to the trial of Sholom Schwarzbard who was tried in France for assassination of Symon Petlyura. The collection consists of of large amount of lists and eyewitness testimonies, correspondence, complaints and petitions, reports and resolutions, statements and proclamations, memoranda and circular letters, conference materials, statues and by-laws, clippings and bulletins, military orders, and photographs.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Abbo Ostrowsky, including correspondence with many important figures from the art world, several of whom had been students of Ostrowsky at the Educational Alliance Art School. There is also information about Ostrowsky’s career as an artist, including some original artwork, exhibition catalogues, and photographs. These materials show Ostrowsky’s significant influence on modern Jewish art and on the success of the Educational Alliance as an institution.

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 contains the personal and professional papers of Isaac Nachman Steinberg, a Russian-Jewish political writer, leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party during the 1917 revolution in Russia, People’s Commissar of Justice in the first Bolshevik government, leader of the Jewish Territorialist Movement and of the Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonization, and a founding member of the YIVO Institute in Vilna. These materials include Steinberg’s writings, personal correspondence, clippings, journals, meeting announcements, and some photographs. These materials relate mainly to Steinberg’s work with the Freeland League and plans for the large-scale settlement of Jews in various places around the world.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of rabbi, Hebrew scholar, author, and editor Israel Elfenbein. These materials include correspondence with and relating to congregations, Hebrew periodicals, organizations, Elfenbein’s writings, personal correspondence, sermons, clippings, and manuscripts by Elfenbein and by other writers.

This collection contains documents of journalist and left-wing political activist Paul Novick, consisting mainly of correspondence, subject files, manuscripts, photographs, and newspaper clippings. These materials relate to Novick’s career as long-time editor of the Morning Freiheit (Morning Freedom), his important role in the worldwide Communist movement, the history of the Freiheit itself, and Jewish and general politics. These materials demonstrate Novick’s important, and changing, role in the history of Communism, as well as his career as a Yiddish journalist and author.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of historian and bibliographer Philip Friedman. These materials include correspondence with individuals and with organizations, newspaper clippings, subject files, manuscripts of works by Friedman and by others, and some of Friedman’s personal documents. These materials relate to Friedman’s work on the histories of various Jewish communities, particularly those in Poland, and his work gathering source documents about the Holocaust.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Shmuel Mordkhe Zygielbojm, a Jewish-Polish Socialist politician, Bund leader, member of the National Council of the Polish Government-in-Exile in London, and a labor and political leader. These materials include Zygielbojm’s writings, personal correspondence, clippings, and some photographs. These materials relate mainly to Zygielbojm’s work in London as well as the worldwide reactions after his suicide.

This collection, which is a sub-group of RG 245 HIAS, includes the records of the main HICEM office in Europe prior to and during World War II. There are also some records from the post-war period relating to the dissolution of HICEM, HIAS’s taking over of HICEM’s operations and HIAS’s work with displaced persons.

The Records of the Forward Association collection consists of the administrative records of the Office of the General Manager of the Forward Association, publisher of the Jewish Daily Forward. The collection contains correspondence, financial materials, minutes, reports, and information related to various anniversary celebrations. These materials serve to illustrate the professional activities of the Forward Association and its General Manager and show the Forward’s importance.

This collection contains the administrative records of the Hebrew Actors’ Union (HAU), the professional union of Yiddish theater performers, which was based in New York City. Materials include correspondence, membership materials, financial records and members’ dues information, meeting minutes, and a great deal of sheet music and play scripts of performances from the Yiddish theater. A majority of these performances were in New York City, but there are also materials from Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, and Montreal, as well as various locations in Israel and South America.

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.

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.