+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ THE CENTER FOR JEWISH HISTORY New York City A new center for Jewish learning and culture +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ A JewishGen InfoFile By: Bernard Kouchel The Center for Jewish History The Center for Jewish History emerged from a vision of a unique central repository for the cultural and historical legacy of the Jewish people. The Center embodies the unique partnership of five major institutions of Jewish scholarship, history and art: the American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. 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. Their magnificent campus complex, is in two adjacent Manhattan [New York City] buildings on West 16th and 17th Streets, just west of Fifth Avenue that have been renovated and transformed into a high-tech facility. Here, in one location, genealogists are able to research modern and contemporary Jewish diaspora history. General amenities of the building include a 250 seat auditorium, a shop and a kosher cafe. ADDRESS: The Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street (between 5th & 6th avenues) New York, NY 10011 Tel: 212-294-8301 Fax: 212-294-8302 Website: http://www.cjh.org/index2.html American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The AJHS holdings include some 40 million archival documents, 30,000 books and thousands of paintings and memorabilia related to Jewish life in the Americas. Leo Baeck Institute (LBI) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The LBI is the single most important source for documenting the vibrant life of German-speaking Jewry that existed for hundreds of years prior to its annihilation. The 60,000 volume library tells the story of almost every Jewish community in Germany. There are family histories, business reports and a rare collection of 700 periodicals from the 19th and 20th centuries. Individuals, families and organizations have deposited their personal and historical treasures in the archives. For genealogists, the archives include letters, family trees, and family histories that trace ancestry back to the 18th and sometimes earlier centuries. There are birth marriage and death records compiled by Jewish communities, municipal records and more. YIVO Institute For Jewish Research (YIVO) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In 1925 YIVO (Yiddish for 'Jewish Scientific Institute') was established in Vilna, Poland, with a New York branch established that same year. Now they hold the world's largest collection of books and materials on the history and culture of Eastern European Jewry. Yeshiva University Museum (YUM) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ YUM is the only museum in the building with four spacious galleries, its own office floor, a children's workshop center, a docent room, and an outdoor sculpture garden. YUM will initiate exhibits, festivals and other events, creating a public window for the Center's rich collections and the presentation of Jewish culture and history in a creative format. Sephardic House ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sephardic House, a cultural organization, is dedicated to fostering Sephardic history and culture. It was founded in 1978 at Congregation Shearith Israel, the historic Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue, in New York City. The Center Genealogy Institute (CGI) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.cjh.org/family/index.html The Center Genealogy Institute (CGI) helps new and experienced family history researchers learn about the world of the ancestors. The CGI provides reference and educational services to family history researchers, and creates programming on family history and its connections to the broader sweep of Jewish history. The Institute also leads researchers to the primary sources at the Center: Yizkor books and landsmanshaft records at YIVO, family and community histories at the Leo Baeck Institute, and military records at the American Jewish Historical Society are just a few of the rich primary sources open to researchers. The CGI's open-stack, browsable genealogy reference collection includes how-to books, gazetteers to help locate towns, guides to translating vital records, maps, and directories of family history resources around the world. It also includes a nearly complete collection of newsletters from Jewish genealogical societies and special interest groups, donated by the by the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York. ----------- [28Mar01bik filename- cjh-ny.txt Information edited from published sources. Copyright 2001 by JewishGen Inc. http://www.jewishgen.org +----------------------------------------------------------------------+