A Unique Partnership

The Center for Jewish History is one of the great public Jewish historical and cultural institutions in the world, and its mission is clear: To foster the creation and dissemination of Jewish knowledge and to make the historical and cultural record of the Jewish people readily accessible to scholars, students and the broad public.

The Center embodies a unique partnership of five major institutions of Jewish scholarship, history, and art: the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Yeshiva University Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

The combined collections of the Partners have made the Center the single most important resource, outside of Israel, for the study of the history and culture of the Jewish people. The recorded history of Jewish civilization as it developed over millennia in different corners of the Diaspora, as well as the particular and universal achievements and contributions of the Jews, is documented here more comprehensively than in any other institution in the world.

The Center serves the worldwide academic and general communities with combined holdings of approximately 100 million archival documents, a half million books, and thousands of photographs, artifacts, paintings, and textiles—the largest repository documenting the Jewish experience outside of Israel.

This amalgamation of collections and public programs has brought over 100,000 visitors to use its Reading Room and Genealogical Institute, to view exhibitions of Judaic art and artifacts, and to attend lectures, conferences, symposia, concerts, theatrical performances, films, and other cultural programs.

By sharing resources, the Center and the five Partners have strengthened the Jewish community, enhanced scholarship, and made the richness of the Jewish past and the promise of the Jewish future accessible to all.