Jewish history, life, and culture

The Papers of Khaykl Lunski are comprised of Lunski’s manuscripts, correspondence, notes and records, as well as documents from the administrative files of the Strashun Library and the S. Ansky Historical Ethnographic Society in Vilna.

This collection documents the research of Jewish historian Samuel Oppenheim (1857-1928) concerning the lives of colonial Jews in the Americas, and the early history of the United States. Included in the collection are his notes, transcripts of original works, photocopies of the records of the Dutch West India Company, correspondence relating to his research, his writings, and original documents from the Mayor’s Court of the City of New York that date from 1653-1760.

This collection is primarily comprised of administrative materials, journal issues, editorial content, and interviews. Interviews are transcribed for inclusion in editorial content. The collection was pre-arranged by the organization prior to donation.

The complete run of Sh'ma is available via our shared digital asset management and preservation system. Links to the digitized serial can be found in two parts. For 1970-2002, please see https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE10853379. For 2002-2019, please see https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE10940070.

While our collection is arranged archivally in its original order, Stanford's Berman Jewish Policy Archive offers the ability to search the Sh’ma Journal database by article title, author, or keywords. Cross referencing these two collections increases discoverability and makes the Sh’ma collection more accessible to all users.

Each entry in Stanford’s database contains a selection of keywords, or “topics”. A keyword search will typically yield a range of files within the scope of your chosen topic. For example: entering “kosher” into the search bar will retrieve any files containing “kosher” as a topic, as well as files containing shared keywords such as “food,” “Jewish law,” and “tradition”. The ability to cast a wider net allows for the discovery of more resources and can be particularly helpful when conducting preliminary research.

The Sh’ma Journal collection at AJHS allows the user to browse the journal’s complete run in chronological order. Each volume has been digitized as a single entity and can be accessed by issue number, rather than individual articles. Once the user has identified a relevant article through a keyword search in the Stanford database, they can then locate the complete publication in the AJHS collection and continue their research from there. Likewise, the user might identify an article or topic of interest within the AJHS collection and then utilize the Stanford database to locate related articles through a keyword search.

Click here to browse the Sh'ma Collection hosted by the Berman Jewish Policy Archive