The American Jewish Historical Society is to be located on the campus of Brandeis University according to an announcement made today by president Leon J. Obermayer of Philadelphia. Plans for a new Society and Library building are now being drawn with construction to be completed in 1967, the organization’s 75th anniversary year, Mr. Obermayer said.
Founded in 1892, the Society is composed of 2,600 members who encourage the study of the history of Jews on the American continent. It collects and publishes materials relating to the settlement and story of Jews in the United States and the other countries of the Western Hemisphere maintaining these items in a research library of more than 25,000 volumes.
The library also contains original letters, scrap books and relies, as well as an art collection. A selection of the Society’s American colonial Jewish paintings is on long term exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, and materials relating to immigrants in New York City have been made available to the Jewish Museum for an exhibit on the East Side “ghetto.” The Society publishes the American Jewish Historical Quarterly.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.