Jews in Upper Silesia
A brief history of the Upper Silesian Jewish community and a comprehensive guide to LBI's Upper Silesian collections. View Collection
Julie Elias's Fashionable Cuisine
Julie Elias, a Jewish fashion journalist in 1920s Berlin, introduced home cooks to stylish entertaining with her cookbook Das neue Kochbuch. View Collection
David Ludwig Bloch
David Ludwig Bloch, a deaf printmaker from Bavaria, created vivid depictions of life as a refugee in the Shanghai Ghetto in the 1940s and focused his attention on the Holocaust in his later career. View Collection
Johanna Meyer: The Radio Princess
Johanna Meyer-Lövinson (1874-1958) captivated audiences with her literature readings. She was one of the first women on the radio in Germany and a friend and promoter of German authors and literature. View Collection
Lene Schneider-Kainer
In 1926, the artist Lene Schneider-Kainer embarked on an epic journey along the route traveled by Marco Polo. Over 100 of her watercolors in the LBI Art Collection focus on the lives of women and children in the along the old Silk Road. View Collection
The John D. Schiff photographs collection
A collection of stunning portraits of 20th-century artists by the photographer John D. Schiff. View Collection
E. M. Lilien
The illustrator E.M. Lilien fused Zionist iconography with Art Nouveau style in his striking prints, which are featured in a number of illustrated art books in the LBI Library. View Collection
The Offenbacher Haggadah
The story of the 1927 Offenbacher Haggadah, custom-made for the bibliophile Siegfried Guggenheim. View Collection
Aufbau
LBI has digitized the entire series of Aufbau, the leading journal for German-speaking Jews worldwide, founded in 1934 by the German-Jewish Club in New York and published until 2004. 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. Below you can browse selected highlights of the collections.
- Our Online Catalog provides the descriptions of all our collections with links to digitized forms when already available.
- Please contact LBI's Dr. Robert Ira Lewy Reference Service for collection related questions.
- See also our Reproductions and Permissions policies and order form.
The LBI archives preserve over 2,000 memoirs, 25,000 photographs, hundred of audio interviews, and millions of pages of correspondence, genealogical materials, and business and civil records that touch upon virtually every aspect of the German-Jewish experience. 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. Below you can browse selected highlights of the collections.
- Search all archival collections through our Online Catalog which also provides links to already digitized collections.
- Browse digitized archival collections through our DigiBaeck Website .
- Access larger archival collections through their Finding Aids which feature scope, historical, and biographical notes.
- Monitor additions here: New Archival Collections.
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. Below you can browse selected highlights of the library collections.
- Search all library holdings through our Online Catalog which also provides links to already digitized collections
- Browse digitized library collections through our DigiBaeck website.
- Browse digitized periodicals at LBI's Periodicals at Internet Archives .
- Monitor new purchases here: New Library Acquisitions.
- Library Collection Development Policy
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. Below you can browse selected highlights of the art and objects collections.
- Search all art and objects through our Online Catalog which also provides links to already digitized collections.
- Browse digitized art works and objects through our DigiBaeck website.
- Browse a selection of digitized arts works and objects in the Edythe Griffinger Art Catalog.
- Monitor New Additions to the Art and Object Collection.