Contains records on the formation, purpose, and activities of the American Jewish League for Israel, as reflected in organizational documents (including minutes), event literature, publications (including the AJLI newsletter, AJLI Bulletin, later called the AJLI News Bulletin and other titles), scholarship material, financial information, membership appeals, correspondence, media coverage, and photographs.

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.

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 Hadassah Archives documents the activities of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. Founded in 1912, the organization engaged hundreds of thousands of American Jewish women in the Zionist project. Materials include extensive records of its social welfare projects in Palestine and later Israel, such as Youth Aliyah and the Hadassah Medical Organization. Administrative records document the organization's governance, operations, and functions. The collection also includes the papers of Hadassah founder, Henrietta Szold, as well as the organization's national presidents, executive directors, and other important individuals. Additional materials also document Hadassah's organizational activity in the United States such as annual and midwinter conventions and the dozens of active local chapters from all over the United States. Hadassah maintained an active publishing schedule, and the records include hundreds of published newsletters, flyers, and magazines. Other materials include thousands of photographs, extensive audiovisual material, and hundreds of artifacts.

The Leo Breslauer Collection documents the professional career of Rabbi Leo Breslauer, and to a smaller extent, his personal life, especially in relation to his and his family’s departure from Germany. Prominent topics include his rabbinical work at congregations in Fürth, Germany and in New York City, his writings, and his thoughts on Zionism.

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 material relating to Norman Salit's activities with various organizations, including the Synagogue Council of America, the Rabbinical Assembly of America, the Wartime Emergency Commission for Conservative Judaism, the Boy Scouts of America, the Jewish Education Committee, the American Child Guidance Foundation, Religion in American Life, the Valley Forge Foundation, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the National Community Relations Advisory Council. There are also speeches, writings, sermons, items related to Sharit's legal work and Zionist activities, as well as some letters from Mordecai Kaplan.

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.

This record group contains personal papers and special collections documenting individuals, both Hadassah members and non-Hadassah members, who were important to Hadassah. Much of the material forming the collections in this record group came from the administrative files of the national office of Hadassah, though some of the material was donated to Hadassah. Key individuals represented within this record group include Hadassah national board members Anna Tulin Elyachar, Bertha S. Schoolman, and Denise Tourover Ezekiel, as well as Jesse Zel Lurie who served as the first professional editor of Hadassah Magazine (originally Hadassah Newsletter) from 1947 to 1980.

The papers of Jewish civic leader Philip Bernstein contain writings and professional papers related to his career with the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, including his participation in the establishment of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and the National Jewish Community Relations Council, and his work with many other Jewish communal organizations, including the Jewish Agency for Israel, the Joint Distribution Committee, the United Jewish Appeal, and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.

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 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.