American Jewish Archives
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[edit] Address and Contact Info:
The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, 3101 Clifton Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45220-2488.
Phone: (513) 221-1875
Fax: (513) 221-7812
E-mail: AJA@huc.edu
Web page: http://www.americanjewisharchives.org
Online Finding Aid: http://www.americanjewisharchives.org/catalog/
[edit] Hours and usage restrictions
[edit] Collection Summary:
The American Jewish Archives (AJA) was founded in 1947 by Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus (1896–1995), at a time when American Jews faced the awesome responsibility of preserving the continuity of Jewish life and learning. In 1995 the AJA was renamed The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in honor of its founding director, and is located on the Cincinnati Campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
The AJA began with a small assortment of congregational and societal minute books and a few collections of private papers. It now contains approximately 10,000 linear feet of manuscripts and records. The collection includes the papers of famous Reform rabbis such as Isaac Mayer Wise and David Einhorn; scholars Trude Weiss-Rosmarin and Maurice Samuel; scientists and physicians Selman A. Waksman and Leo A. Kallen; politicians Samuel Dickstein and Richard Stone; and philanthropists and Jewish leaders Louis Marshall and Felix Warburg, among many others. The holdings also include documents and letters of prominent colonial and Civil War-era Jews such as Aaron Lopez, Raphael J. Moses, Judah P. Benjamin, and the Gratz and Franks families. The AJA also has in its collections the records of district and local B’nai B’rith lodges and organizations such as the American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism, the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, the World Union for Progressive Judaism, the American Council for Judaism, and the Socialist Labor Party of America. In 1998 the Marcus Center was designated the official repository of the archival records of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Congregational branch of the Reform Movement. This material is complemented by records of the Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Institute of Religion, and the combined Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, as well as the records of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. The records of the New York office of the World Jewish Congress are currently housed at the Marcus Center, and comprise approximately 1,400 boxes of records relating primarily to its activities during and after World War II.
These vast holdings are complemented by a large collection of ephemeral materials classified as nearprint, which include newspapers, magazine clippings, leaflets, brochures, pamphlets, and organizational news releases. Nearprint are divided into three categories: biography, special topics and institutions, and geography. The AJA’s broad recorded tape collection consists of over 6,500 cassettes of oral histories, lectures, religious services, and music. In addition, a photograph collection of well over 15,000 images is used by scholars and filmmakers, among others, to illustrate books, articles, movies, and television programs. The Marcus Center also has a growing genealogy collection, which is used to answer thousands of mail and telephone inquiries received annually from individuals seeking information on their ancestry and family history.
[edit] Usage Discussion
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