Jacques Judah Lyons, hazzan, rabbi and community leader, was born in Surinam and emigrated to Philadelphia in the early 1800s. Minister of the New York Congregation Shearith Israel for 38 years, he gathered extensive materials on early Jewish history in the United States, Canada and the West Indies. His papers include manuscripts, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, notebooks, photographs, and a Sansom ship's log book. Contains material relating to Jews in North and South America generally and more specifically to Congregation Shearith Israel and the Jews in New York, the Touro Synagogue and cemetery and the Jews in Newport, Rhode Island, Philadelphia and the West Indies. Also contains material relating to Jews in the wars of the United States, correspondence of the Jews with George Washington and items relating to Haym Salomon. Collection consists of manuscript material and five notebooks and three scrapbooks of Lyons. Contains material not listed in calendar consisting of sermons by Lyons, a manuscript prayer book used in Surinam and a guide for religious ceremonies at Congregation Shearith Israel, as well as letters written during the Civil War period and correspondence relating to the personal life and career of Lyons.

The collection consists primarily of correspondence reflecting Calmenson’s involvement in numerous national and local Jewish organizations. The largest quantity of materials is in relation to his work with the United Palestine Appeal (1926-1945, primarily 1926-1929), and the Zionist Organization of America (1919-1952). Among the local St. Paul Jewish organizations, the largest quantity of materials relates to the Emergency Committee for Palestine (1942-1951), and the Zionist Organization of America, St. Paul Chapter (1918-1950). Among his correspondents are Harry S. Truman, H.V. Kaltenborn, and Emanuel Neumann. Among the topics dealt with are the 1929 riots in Palestine, the protest against the Passfield paper, and the establishment of a Jewish army after World War I. The collection also contains materials relating to Calmenson’s private activities, and miscellaneous writings and papers belonging to the Calmenson family.

The Lev Aizenberg Collection documents Lev Aizenberg’s professional activities as a lawyer in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. Collected here are materials pertaining to a large number of cases involving Jews of Kursk and Kursk Guberniya (Province) and their attempts to fight eviction orders and subsequent relocation back to the Pale of Settlement

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.

Abraham Charasch Collection documents Abraham Charasch’s involvement with various Jewish political parties and Jewish student organizations in the Russian Empire and abroad prior to the October Revolution of 1917. Most materials collected here deal with the Union of Eastern Jewish Student Organizations in Western Europe and Zionist Socialist Worker’s Party. Included here is correspondence, by-laws, reports, resolutions, minutes of meetings, declarations, circular letters, lists of delegates to student conferences, memoranda, manuscripts, bibliographies, and applications sent to the Swiss Central Committee for the Return of Political Immigrants.

Maxim Vinawer Papers consist of materials pertaining to Maxim Vinawer’s activities as a political and a communal leader. The collection covers the period between 1915 and 1926. These materials illuminate Vinawer’s participation in Russian politics as one of the leaders of the liberal Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets), his appointment as a Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Crimean Regional Government in 1919, and his activities as a prominent figure among Zionist and émigré groups in Paris. The collection consists of correspondence, circular letters, memoranda, bulletins, clippings, minutes of meetings, essays, manuscripts, drafts and notes

Included here are YIVO materials discovered at the Wroblewski Library in Lithuania. Materials cover a wide range of topics that include Jewish education, Jewish communities, Jewish religious life, immigration, commerce, persecution, and other topics. The collection consists of correspondence, minutes of meetings, reports, decrees, proclamations, educational materials, certificates, vital documents including birth and death certificates, travel documents, and other.

The May Cohn Russia and Soviet Union Collection (Vilna Archives) includes materials dealing with a wide range of topics mostly pertaining to Jewish life in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and to a smaller extent to everyday life of ordinary Russian citizens. The collection consists of official government documents such as reports, decrees and regulations, circular letters, lists, vital records, Census records, residency and emigration permits. Also included here are manuscripts, correspondence, printed materials, petitions, announcements, posters, questionnaires, and minutes of meetings. Materials collected here shed light on the way Jewish religious and civil life was administered in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.