Archives of The Jewish Theological Seminary

The Archives of The Jewish Theological Seminary were established in 1976 with the aid of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). For more detailed descriptions of our collections, please check our: Guide to the JTS Archival Collections.

The archival collections of The Jewish Theological Seminary consist of several major subject areas: the history and development of the Conservative Movement in America, records of Jewish communities and families in Europe and North Africa, the emergence and development of modern Jewish scholarship in Germany and its transfer to the United States, the development of Yiddish literature in America, and papers of Jewish communal leaders.

Highlights of our collection include archives of seminal figures associated with JTS or the Conservative Movement, such as Solomon Schechter, Louis Ginzberg, and Cyrus Adler. They also include the records of European and North African Jewish communities. The NEH grant enabled The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary to survey its collections and produce a Preliminary Listing of Holdings. In 1988, the New York Historical Documents Survey culminated in the creation of archival collection records which can be retrieved via The Library's online catalog.

In addition, two print inventories, titled: An Inventory to French Jewish Communities Record Group and Historical Documents from German Communities and Some Other European Countries, are available in the special reading room.