Contracts

The collection mainly pertains to Abraham Liebmann and his son Wilhelm, as well as on Abraham's grandson Siegfried and his great-grandson Albert, including their wives. It contains various documents, poetry and a large amount of correspondence from the 19th century. Prominent topics are related to the education, professional and military careers, politics, and marital lives of the family members. Also included are two restitution cases.

The Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Historical Collection contains letters, manuscripts, and historical documents which were saved by the Yiddish poets Avraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski in the Vilna Ghetto. Sutzkever, Kaczerginski, and other members of the Paper Brigade, conscripted Jewish workers who were forced to work under the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, saved thousands of books, manuscripts and documents at great risk to their lives by hiding them in various places in the Vilna Ghetto. After the war the surviving members recovered many of the hidden items. Sutzkever sent many of these rescued materials to the YIVO Institute in New York from the period 1947 to 1956. The collection consists of 8 series and includes correspondence of writers, intellectuals, communal leaders, rabbinical figures; manuscripts of Yiddish and Hebrew writers; theater documents; folklore materials; rabbinical responsa and writings; historical and legal documents; pinkasim and Jewish communal records.

Founded by Shlomo and Rivka (Wolman) Shulsinger, Camp Massad was the pre-eminent Hebrew camp in the United States. The collection, comprised of material donated by former staff, counselors, and campers contains administrative records, correspondence, newsletters, play scripts, photographs, oral histories and movies.

The Edith Neumann Estate Collection documents aspects of the microbiologist Edith Neumann's private life. Included is a large amount of personal correspondence to herself and her husband as well as documentation on the art collection of her father Alfred Spitzer. Other papers include correspondence of her husband Fritz Neumann with colleagues and his professor Martin Heidegger and some personal papers of Edith Neumann, primarily documenting her death.

The Ennis Brandenburger Family Collection documents the Brandenburger genealogy as well as the family business they established in Wil, Switzerland. Information on the history of the Jewish Community in Gailingen, Germany is also present. The collection includes various official and citizenship certificates, family trees and narratives on the family history, contracts relating to marriage or the transfer of property, photographs and a newspaper clipping.

The Ettinghausen-Oppenheimer Family Collection holds the papers of members of the Oppenheimer, Ettinghausen and related families. Much of the collection consists of a comprehensive assortment of birth and death certificates, last wills, military documents, school reports, marriage contracts, estate inventories for various family patriarchs, and other financial papers. Notable are two letters of protection (Schutzbriefe) for two family members.

This collection holds the papers of publisher and rare book dealer Felix I. Kauffmann, and contains documents relating to the family publishing house, his military service in World War I, and membership in Jewish organizations. The collection includes some correspondence with Leo Baeck as well as other correspondence, official documents such as military, vital and legal papers, curricula vitae, newspaper clippings and articles, and other papers.

The Fleischer Family papers document the family of Simon and Lilly (née Hammerschlag) Fleischer. Simon and Lilly emigrated from Poland to New York City in the early 1920s and married in 1928. They became naturalized United States citizens in the late 1960s. The Fleischers had two sons, Martin and Bernard. The Fleischers owned Fleischer Brothers Butchers in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, as well as Fleischer’s New Star Mountain Hotel in the Catskills area of Monticello, NY. The collection contains correspondence, passports, marriage records, naturalization records, some business documents, and many family photographs dating from the 1890s to the 1950s.

The collection contains documents and correspondence of the Fleischer and Steiner families. Prominent topics are the Fleischer's family business as well as restitution and inheritance matters. The papers in this collection include a vast amount of correspondence, business and restitution papers, as well as some documents regarding immigration.

The Hirsch Family, Halberstadt Collection documents the lives of Hirsch family members in the city of Halberstadt and the business of Aron Hirsch & Sohn located there. Included in the collection are personal papers such as vital documents and correspondence, business records including balance sheets and account books, correspondence, certificates and official announcements. Other papers include family trees, genealogical notes, and articles and essays about the family and their business.

The Hirsch Family Collection, Mergentheim holds the papers of Abraham Hirsch, his children and one grandson. The collection consists of various official, business and personal documents as well as four folders of personal correspondence, including the courtship letters of Jakob Abraham and Esther Hirsch.

The Hirschland Bank and Family Collection contains the family papers and banking records of the Hirschland banking firm established by Simon Hirschland in Essen. Family papers pertain to members of the Hirschland, Grünebaum, Neumann and other families, with an emphasis on family members' emigration and role in the family firm. Banking records focus on the history of the family firm from the 1930s through the 1960s, including records of successor financial firms. The collection includes prolific correspondence, banking files and financial records, family papers, official documents, photographs and photo albums, contracts, and other papers.

This collection contains materials about Jack Gerber and Miriam Gerber née Sondheimer. In particular, it includes materials about their emigration to and settlement in the colony of Sosúa in the Dominican Republic.

This collection contains handwritten and typed drafts of plays, a novel, and notes for plays and for a newspaper column by Yiddish writer Jacob Lazarus Snitzer (1874-1947). There is also correspondence and contracts relating to Snitzer's plays and five scrapbooks of newspaper articles.

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.

This collection concerns the "Aryanization" of the Schwarz department store (Kaufhaus Schwarz) in Salzburg, Austria. All materials are photocopies of the files found in the Salzburger Landesarchiv under Ar 037/45/97, Box 85.

This collection contains an itemized assemblage of documents, correspondence, clippings, genealogical tables, and photographs illustrating the history of the Lepehne and Jastrow families.

This collection consists of papers of the Loewen family, including Samuel Liepmann Loewen and Liepmann (Leopold) Loewen. It includes personal, business and official papers, correspondence, genealogy, a collection of wax seals, some newspaper clippings, art prints, and a few photographs.

The Manfred Lewandowski Collection documents the professional life of cantor Manfred Lewandowski with a focus on some of his more prominent compositions. It additionally holds some genealogical material on the Lewandowski family. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence, newspaper clippings and copies of photographs; also included are sheet music, official and professional documentation including certificates, family trees and genealogical notes, and an essay on cantorial music.

This collection comprises the papers of the physician Manfred Mayer-Zachart, including material on his family, service in World War I and professional work. The papers include a large amount of family correspondence, including wartime letters, medical articles, and many photographs. In addition there is some professional correspondence and educational and family papers. Notes on patients are included in the collection but access to them is restricted.

The Margarete Katzenstein Family Collection contains correspondence, letters of recommendation, contracts, and certificates regarding Margarete Katzenstein's career as a physician. The collection also contains documents and correspondence regarding Margarete Katzenstein's immigration to the USA. Post and prewar photographs are also included in this collection.

The Meyer Ems Family Collection contains papers of the jeweler Meyer Ems, correspondence of his father Abraham Leeser Ems with the prince of Bentheim-Tecklenburg and material on the Ems family, including a family tree.

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.

Collection contains the surviving briefs (cases and points) of the City Court (until 1883, the Marine Court) of the City of New York, a statutory court of inferior civil jurisdiction within the County of New York and with limited maritime jurisdiction. The briefs were randomly selected from archives which were subsequently destroyed and represent primarily 1872-1881, 1884-1901, and 1904-1907, with some examples 1860-1871 and 1882. A sampling suggests that Jews were involved in 20-30 percent of these cases.

This collection contains the papers of Siegfried Bernfeld, a writer, educator, psychoanalyst, organizer of the Zionist youth movement in Austria during and after World War I, and founder of several Jewish educational institutions in Austria. These materials include correspondence, by-laws, minutes, programs, newspaper clippings, manuscripts, and financial records of Jewish educational institutions, youth organizations, student clubs, sports, tourism associations, and youth publications, mainly in Austria and Germany, which were collected through the various organizations with which Siegfried Bernfeld was associated and maintained in the Archival institutions which he established.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Wąbrzeźno, known in German as Briesen. The records date from 1871 to 1921, concentrated in the era when the town of Briesen was part of the province of West Prussia, in the German Empire; only a handful of items date from the years 1920-1921, when the town was part of Poland. The collection comprises administrative and financial records kept by the Briesen Jewish Community Council, except for one volume of records kept by the Jüdischer Lese-Verein (Jewish Reading Society) of Briesen, in the years 1901 to 1908. Approximately 40% of the collection comprises financial records, 1882-1921, including official budgets and tax lists; 20% concerns the community's religious institutions; and another 20% comprises records related to community employees, especially rabbis and cantors. The remainder of the collection includes correspondence, communal meeting minutes and decisions, circulars announcing meetings, and a variety of administrative records. Included are records pertaining to communal council elections; synagogue seat rentals; burials and the care of graves; the construction and maintenance of the mikveh (ritual bath house); the expansion of the cemetery; synagogue rules and the renovation of the synagogue; charitable activities, often in cooperation with regional and national Jewish organizations; and the religious school and Jewish elementary school.

The Friends of Ida Kaminska Foundation, Inc. was formed in 1969, shortly after the world-renowned Yiddish actress, Ida Kaminska, immigrated to the United States. The purpose of the foundation was to establish, fund, and promote the Ida Kaminska Theatre in New York. Though the foundation managed to put together one theatrical production, financial difficulties forced the foundation to stop its activities in 1973.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Krotoszyn, known in German as Krotoschin. The records span the years 1828 to 1919, when the town was part of the Posen (Poznań) region of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Empire; in 1919, it became part of newly independent Poland. The records are mainly those of the Jewish communal administration, or council, of Krotoschin, along with some records kept by communal voluntary associations, or, in one instance, the teacher of the Jewish elementary school. The collection consists predominantly of correspondence and minutes, with inclusion in some periods of documents such as tax lists and lists of eligible voters; records concerning charitable aid to community members and donations to external causes; and other types of documents, including insurance policies, mortgage records, debt repayment plan, and drawings/plans of property. Highlights include records related to property damage in a town fire of 1827; documentation of income and expenses for the year 1835; records of communal elections, 1834-1872; correspondence concerning marriages, 1838-1841, and requests for death certificates, 1834-1858; a small amount of material pertaining to the religious school, circa 1880s-1902; correspondence with regimental commanders of the German army regarding Jewish soldiers from the Krotoschin area, 1891-1910; applications for the position of rabbi, 1895, and cantor/shochet, 1904-1910; and continuous proceedings of the communal council in the period 1905 to 1913.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Ostrów Wielkopolski, today in west-central Poland, in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. The region was annexed by Prussia in 1793, in the Second Partition of Poland; in German the town was known as Ostrowo. The records date mainly from 1834 to 1919, with a few materials from as early as 1822. During this period the town was part of the Posen (Poznań) region of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Empire; in 1919, it was incorporated into the Second Republic of Poland. The community numbered nearly 2,000 members in the late 19th century and declined steadily thereafter due to migration of members to larger German cities or overseas; only a small Jewish community remained during the interwar period. The records are mainly those of the Jewish communal administration, or council; a small amount of material pertains to several community voluntary organizations. Included are financial records such as budgets, balance sheets, and tax lists; communal minutes and decisions throughout the period; correspondence with the government, and, to a lesser extent, with Jewish organizations and other Jewish communities; records pertaining to community members' naturalizations, marriages, births, and synagogue seat contracts; petitions from individual community members, especially pertaining to charitable aid in the mid to late 19th century; records pertaining to communal educational and religious institutions; records on the hiring and employment of community rabbis,cantors, and other personnel, including application materials from candidates not hired; property records and mortgages; documentation of construction and renovation of communal buildings; records related to court cases, bequests, and estate and guardianship matters; and ephemera such as meeting notices and announcement fliers, as well as scattered clippings.

The Salomon Benedikt Goldschmidt Family Collection encompasses family papers and genealogical information on the family, documenting several generations of the Goldschmidt family as well as the related Porges von Portheim family. Included are short memoirs and diaries along with official and legal documents and two genealogical works with numerous family trees. Other items include account books, newspaper clippings, and a few letters and photographs.