Established | 1892 |
---|---|
Location | 15 West 16th Street Manhattan, New York U.S. 10011 |
Coordinates | 40°44′17″N73°59′38″W / 40.738047°N 73.993821°W |
Director | Gemma R. Birnbaum |
Public transit access | Subway: 14th Street – Union Square |
Website | ajhs |
The American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) was founded in 1892 with the mission to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish history and to serve as a national scholarly resource for research through the collection, preservation and dissemination of materials relating to American Jewish history. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) is the oldest national ethnic historical organization in the United States. The Society's library, archives, photograph, and art and artifacts collections document the American Jewish experience. AJHS is located at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. [5]
AJHS serves public educational and interpretive functions by publishing a journal, a newsletter, monographs and reference works; organizing and curating exhibits; and developing resources and curricula on the American Jewish experience.
In 2007, it was among over 530 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. [6]
The Society publishes books, a genealogy program, museums tours, academic assistance and other related educational activities. Additionally, the American Jewish Historical Society publishes the following publications:
The American Jewish Historical Society has some 40 million items in its archives, [11] including manuscripts, printed material, photographs, audio files, film files, digital material, and objects. [12] Important elements of the Society's collection include hundreds of historical manuscripts and other records of American Jewish groups, including the papers of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, the Synagogue Council of America, the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, and the Hebrew Benevolent Society, [13] as well as the papers of HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) from 1954 to 2000; United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York and predecessor organizations from 1909 to 2004; and the American Soviet Jewry Movement. [14]
The Society holds the original manuscript of "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, [11] as well as very early American Jewish documents, including Judah Monis's Hebrew grammar textbook (1735), the first American siddur for Jewish holidays printed in English (1761), and the first Hebrew‐English prayerbook published in the United States (1826). [13] The Society also holds documents from American Jewish Patriots of the American Revolution, including the marriage contract of Haym Salomon (1777). [13] The Society's Loeb Portrait Database of American Jewish Portraits is a repository of more than 400 portraits of pre-1865 American Jews. [14]
The Society also maintains the Jewish-American Hall of Fame, which was founded in 1969 at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California, and became part of the American Jewish Historical Society in 2001. [15]
The Mishnah or the Mishna is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. It is also the first major work of rabbinic literature. The Mishnah was redacted by Judah ha-Nasi probably in Beit Shearim or Sepphoris between the ending of the second century and the beginning of the 3rd century CE in a time when, according to the Talmud, the persecution of Jews and the passage of time raised the possibility that the details of the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period would be forgotten.
The Israelites were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The Romaniote Jews or the Romaniotes are a Greek-speaking ethnic Jewish community native to the Eastern Mediterranean. They are one of the oldest Jewish communities in existence and the oldest Jewish community in Europe. The Romaniotes have been, and remain, historically distinct from the Sephardim, some of whom settled in Ottoman Greece after the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal after 1492.
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures.
The Kuzari, full title Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion, also known as the Book of the Khazar, is one of the most famous works of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher, physician, and poet Judah Halevi, completed in the Hebrew year 4900 (1139-40CE).
The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the genizah or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, Egypt. These manuscripts span the entire period of Middle-Eastern, North African, and Andalusian Jewish history between the 6th and 19th centuries CE, and comprise the largest and most diverse collection of medieval manuscripts in the world.
Abraham (Avraham) ben Samuel Firkovich was a famous Karaite writer and archaeologist, collector of ancient manuscripts, and a Karaite Hakham. He was born in Lutsk, Volhynia, then lived in Lithuania, and finally settled in Çufut Qale, Crimea, where he also died. Gabriel Firkovich of Troki was his son-in-law.
YIVO is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. Established in 1925 in Wilno in the Second Polish Republic as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (ייִדישער װיסנשאַפֿטלעכער אינסטיטוט, pronounced[ˈjidiʃɛrˈvisn.ʃaftlɛχɛrinstiˈtut], Yiddish Scientific Institute.
Judah Leib Gordon, also known as Leon Gordon, was among the most important Hebrew poets of the Haskalah.
Judah Leon Magnes was a prominent Reform rabbi in both the United States and Mandatory Palestine. He is best remembered as a leader in the pacifist movement of the World War I period, his advocacy of a binational Jewish-Arab state in Palestine, and as one of the most widely recognized voices of 20th century American Reform Judaism. Magnes served as the first chancellor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1925), and later as its President (1935–1948).
Judah Touro was an American businessman and philanthropist.
Norman Golb was a scholar of Jewish history and the Ludwig Rosenberger Professor in Jewish History and Civilization at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Antisemitica are images, texts or objects that depict or describe negative stereotypes of Jews, often driven by hatred, devaluation and degradation.
The Australian Jewish Historical Society was founded in 1938 in Sydney. The first president was Percy J. Marks. At the first business meeting of the Society, the then-president of the Royal Australian Historical Society K. R. Cramp expressed the view that the chief object of the Society should be the encouragement of individual research.
The Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East, and whose traditional religion is Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion, although not all ethnic Jews practice it. Despite this, religious Jews regard individuals who have formally converted to Judaism as part of the community.
Arthur A. Goren was the Russell and Bettina Knapp Professor Emeritus of American Jewish History at Columbia University in New York City.
Malcolm Henry Stern was an American rabbi, historian, and genealogist. Through the work he did that supported secular genealogical communities and resources, as well as created what is the structure and backbone of current Jewish genealogical societies, Stern's efforts created long-lasting, far-reaching cooperative organizations. For these reasons, Stern has been described as the dean of American Jewish genealogy.
Samuel Myer Isaacs was a Dutch-born American educator, philanthropist and rabbi. He was the second Jewish spiritual leader in the United States to teach in English instead of Hebrew or German.
Louis Rosenblum was a pioneer in the movement for freedom of emigration for the Jews in the Soviet Union, was a founder of the first organization to advocate for the freedom of Soviet Jews, the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism, founding president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, and a research scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center.
Pauline Ruth "Nina" Salaman was a British Jewish poet, translator, and social activist. Besides her original poetry, she is best known for her English translations of medieval Hebrew verse—especially of the poems of Judah Halevi—which she began publishing at the age of 16.