Image:
Portrait of Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus, ca. 1970
credit: Yousuf Karsh

"We propose to collect the records of this great Jewish center...we seek to understand how American Jews lived, how they worked, how they established their own cultural and religious community, how they interacted with this novel environment, creating a new Jewish life and at the same time helping to give birth to a new American world."

Jacob Rader Marcus
1896-1995

The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives is committed to preserving a documentary heritage of the religious, organizational, economic, cultural, personal, social and family life of American Jewry.

The Archives was founded by the late Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus in 1947 in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. It was created at a time when the Jews of America, now the largest and best educated Jewish community in history, faced the awesome responsibility of preserving the continuity of Jewish life and learning. For over a half century, the American Jewish Archives has been preserving American Jewish history and imparting it to the next generation.

The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, located on the Cincinnati Campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, houses over ten million pages of documentation. It contains nearly 8,000 linear feet of archives, manuscripts, nearprint materials, photographs, audio and video tapes, microfilm, and genealogical materials.

A copy of the Marcus Center's collection policy is available on this website. The Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives is open to all researchers. The reading room hours are 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday thru Friday.

The following boards and advisory councils support the work of The Marcus Center:

Contact The Marcus Center staff


Copyright © 1990-2005: The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. Top