Leo Baeck Institute works to preserve and promote the history and culture of German-speaking Jews.
Hollywood Legends at LBI
New Library Acquisitions
Closing Borders: Immigration and World War I
Help LBI keep the past present with a financial donation or by contributing historical materials.
The collections of the Leo Baeck Institute contain a wealth of material on some of the most legendary figures from the Golden Age of Hollywood. View Collection
New Library Acquisitions View Collection
The story of Lisbeth Behrendt Mayer, born in Breslau in 1916, who studied and practiced biodynamic agriculture in Europe before moving to South America in 1939. View Collection
The incredible story of Zalman Unreich On, a wrestler from Bratislava, Czechoslovakia who became an undercover Israeli spy. View Collection
The Leo Baeck Institute library has a large collection of German language literature from the Weimar era. These are just a small selection of books with striking cover illustrations. View Collection
Highlights in German-Jewish education in LBI's Library and Archives View Collection
The Schweitzer Fürstenheim Family - a Tale of Generations and Separations View Collection
LBI collections grew out of our founders’ effort to salvage the material and intellectual culture of German-speaking Jews that was nearly lost in the Holocaust. Today, these collections are an essential resource for scholars, genealogists, families, educators, students, and the public.
The LBI Archives preserves over 13,000 archival collections, consisting of millions of pages of correspondence, genealogical materials, and business and civil records that touch upon virtually every aspect of the German-Jewish experience; in addition to more than 4,000 memoirs and manuscripts, more than 25,000 photographs, and about 1000 audio interviews. Entrusted to LBI by refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe and their descendants, these papers document the lives and work of luminaries such as Albert Einstein and Joseph Roth as well as ordinary people from all walks of life since the 18th century.
LBI’s 80,000-volume library is internationally recognized as the world’s foremost collection focused on the history of German-speaking Jews. Rich in rarities including early Renaissance-era pamphlets, first editions of works by Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, and Franz Kafka, and limited edition art books, the Library also collects the latest publications in the field. A comprehensive collection of periodicals encompasses publications ranging from congregation bulletins to the major émigré paper, Aufbau.
From engravings depicting Jewish life in German lands in the 16th century to abstract works by German-Jewish émigrés in the second half of the 20th century to everyday life objects, the works in the art and objects collection complement the archival and library collections as a visual record of German-Jewish history. Among the thousands of paintings, sculptures, watercolors, drawings, prints, and objects are many fine works of great artistic and historical significance. More importantly, the art collection in its totality forms an unparalleled documentation of the material culture of German-speaking Jewry.
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