Center for Jewish History
Opens in New York City
The collaborative efforts of five Jewish-interest nonprofits resulted in the October 26 opening in Manhattan of the Center for Jewish History. The $50-million center combines for the first time under one roof the collections of the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Yeshiva University Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
The opening-day collection of the 125,000-square-foot research center constitutes some 500,000 books and 100-million archival documents. Another highlight is a genealogy institute that will offer training materials on using the “tons of records people don’t really know about or know how to use,” genealogy institute Director Rachel Fisher explained October 23 to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service.
The catalogs of the five collections are being converted to machine-readable form, although there are no plans to digitize any sizable portion of the materials themselves. Describing the merged collection as a “giant step forward in the ability to study Jewish history,” center Vice-president Lois Cronholm remarked, “You can’t just do that all in cyberspace.”
Posted October 30, 2000.
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