Leo Baeck Institute works to preserve and promote the history and culture of German-speaking Jews.
Getting Schooled
Judging a book by its cover
The Golem of Brooklyn: A Novel
Help LBI keep the past present with a financial donation or by contributing historical materials.
Highlights in German-Jewish education in LBI's Library and Archives 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
New Library Acquisitions View Collection
The Schweitzer Fürstenheim Family - a Tale of Generations and Separations View Collection
On this website you will find a selection of paintings, drawings, prints, and artifacts that were recently donated to the Leo Baeck Institute's Art & Object Collection 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 Leo Baeck Institute is continually collecting new archival materials related to the history of German-speaking Jews.
On this website you will find a selection of paintings, drawings, prints, and artifacts that were recently donated to the Leo Baeck Institute's Art & Object Collection
The LBI Library collects publications related to the history and culture of German-speaking Jews as outlined in its Collection Development Policy . A rotating selection of recent highlights from among …
LBI's collection of newspapers and magazines includes 1,600 titles ranging from Enlightenment-era pamphlets to congregation bulletins to papers published by German-Jewish exiles in the 20th century.
Aufbau was the leading journal for German-speaking Jews worldwide, founded in 1934 by the German-Jewish Club in New York and published until 2004.
The LBI's rare book collection consists of ca. 3,000 volumes primarily in the field of German Judaica, dating from the earliest period of printing in the 15th century through the Third Reich.
A collection of more than 300 books, book covers, and individual graphic designs shows the scope and development of the eclectic and innovative design talent of George Salter.
A collection focused on the famous Renaissance controversy between the Christian Hebraist Johannes Reuchlin and the anti-Jewish agitator Johannes Pfefferkorn.
E.M. Lilien was an internationally renowned Jewish Austrian artist, known for his Art Noveau style.
The LBI Library has in its collection hundreds of Jewish calendars published from as early as 1754 to the 21st century.
The LBI Archives contain over 25,000 photographs ranging from family snapshots to the estates of professional photographers to albums assembled by Jewish communal institutions.
The Austrian Heritage Collection documents the history of Austrian-Jewish émigrés who fled to the US during the Nazi years through oral history interviews and collection of archival materials.
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.
These highlights of LBI collections related to various Jewish holidays show both the constancy of tradition and the changing observance of holidays in different communities at different times.
A brief history of the Upper Silesian Jewish community and a comprehensive guide to LBI's Upper Silesian collections.
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.
Highlights from the John D. Schiff Photograph Collection.
A curated selection of additional documents and links related to the Kindertransport to complement LBI and Yeshiva University Museum's exhibition.
The LBI works with other libraries and consortia to integrate our collections into their search portals so that they are discoverable in context with other similar materials.
Lene Schneider-Kainer lived an illustrious and adventurous life. Born in late 19th century Vienna, she traveled widely, all the way to China and photographed what she saw.
A culinary journey into LBI's rich collections of cookbooks & handwritten recipes of German-Jewish Leckerbissen.
Alice Urbach was a single working mother of two whose cookbook So kocht man in Wien! was a bestseller until it was stolen during the Holocaust.
In addition to books and archival collections devoted to music and musicians, LBI has a small collection of recorded music.
Please find books, portraits, photographs and archival materials by or about Nobel laureates from the LBI Library, its Archives and its Art and Objects Collection. True to the Leo Baeck …
During the last few years, the library of the Leo Baeck Institute received several book donations as a result of restitution projects in German libraries.
The LBI Library has a substantial collection of German exile literature, written and published by anti-Nazi dissidents, many of Jewish origin.
Norbert Troller, a Czech Jewish architect, provides an eye witness account to the infamous Theresienstadt ghetto through his art.
The life, work, and art of Ruth Jacobsen, an artist and Hidden Child.
The Kern-Martin Family Collection documents the related Kern-Martin, Kern, and Temple families, with a focus on family members who left Vienna to establish new lives in England and the United States.
Mainly a composer of synagogue music, Arno Nadel's rich artistic life as a conductor, poet, painter, and playwright in early 20th century Germany was tragically cut short during the Holocaust.
Famous for his surreal illustrations of supernatural books, Hugo Steiner-Prag worked tirelessly as an artist and educator throughout wartime Europe and New York.
Lesser Ury is renowned as one of the leading modern artists in early 20th century Germany. His life and work is particularly associated with the city of Berlin.
Max Liebermann redefined the modern art culture of Germany with his Impressionistic style of painting and print-making at the turn of the twentieth century.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim's portraits of German nobility and his genre scenes of Jewish family life and customs made him the "first Jewish painter of the modern era."
A chronological tour of the Haggadot in the LBI Library's rare book collection.
The lives of German- and Austrian-Jewish poets are preserved in the letters, notes and photographs of the Leo Baeck Institute's collection.
Marianne Rein was a promising young poet when, in 1941, she was deported to the Riga concentration camp. The Jacob Picard Collection at LBI has the largest body of her literary legacy.
The German-Jewish poet Mascha Kaléko lived in exile for over a decade in the Greenwich Village, where she felt at home in its bohemian culture.
Gertrud Kolmar's powerful poetic voice drew the reader inward into the poet's internal being. Kolmar continued to write, even as the world fell apart around her during the Holocaust.
Hermann Struck was a talented and well connected German-Jewish artist whose main discipline was lithographs and etchings, of both scenery and portraiture.
An introduction to the life and work of Ruth Rogers-Altmann, a famous Austrian sportswear designer and artist.
From primers to alphabet books, browse the history of German-Jewish childhoods through children's books in LBI's Library collection and other documents in its rich archival collections.
As the threat of National Socialism grew, Zionism had an increasing roll in German- and Austrian-Jewish children's literature, spurring a revival in Hebrew-language children's books.
Exploring the beginnings of German-Jewish children's literature with the first textbooks published for German-Jewish children.
In the latter half of the 19th century, German-Jewish children's books were increasingly written in German, often with a emphasis on "Bildung."
Highlights in German-Jewish education in LBI's Library and Archives.
The Salomons and Fox families were interrelated Jewish families from Austria and Germany who immigrated to the United States. The families include artists, performers, social workers, and merchants.
The papers of the economist Edna E. Ehrlich (1919-2015) contain documents of her personal life, her professional development and her philanthropic interests. Early in her studies at Brooklyn College in …
This article aims to introduce the realities and contributions of Jewish women in Germany which – like all women in history – have often been overlooked.
Bertha Pappenheim during her time in Vienna. F 3239B. Bertha Pappenheim was a German-Jewish feminist and social worker who played an important role in the strive for the emancipation of …
The Jüdischer Frauenbund (JFB; League of Jewish Women) was founded in 1904 by Bertha Pappenheim and Sidonie Werner. The JFB aimed to unite the emancipatory and social efforts of different …
The life and writing career of Austrian-born children's book author Doris Orgel (1929-2021), author of more than 50 children's and young adults' books.
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.
The story of Rabbi Walter Plaut's (1919–1964) participation in the Interfaith Freedom Ride in 1961, told based on the Walter Plaut Scrapbook in the collection of the LBI Archives.
On October 20, 1934, Ulrich Schweitzer came to the Torah for his bar mitzvah reading. The text happened to be the portion “Lech, Lecha” (Go, leave; Genesis 12:1), the instructions …
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.
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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