Jewish NYC: Organizations and Synagogues

This section includes select resources on synagogues and Jewish community organizations in New York City. Synagogues and Jewish community organizations, long a feature of Jewish life, evolved and flourished in new ways in New York City. Jewish New Yorkers formed charitable organizations to provide religiously, culturally, and linguistically specific services for immigrants and to avoid discrimination and Christian proselytizing. They established new synagogues and new denominations of Judaism, founded seminaries and Jewish universities, and created new secular organizations for culture and politics. Some even attempted to create a unified Jewish administrative body for the city, an ultimately unsuccessful effort which nonetheless yielded a wealth of data, published in the 1918 Jewish Communal Register.

The Library's collection is rich in primary and secondary sources by and about these organizations, especially those based in New York City.

We invite you to explore the resources featured on this page as well as those in the Education section of this guide. Please note that these represent just a fraction of the Library's holdings. 

We also encourage you to explore the research suggestions below.

Suggested Subject Headings:

• Jews -- New York (State) -- New York -- Charities
• Synagogues -- New York (State) -- Manhattan 
• Orthodox Judaism -- New York (State) -- New York
• Judaism -- New York (State) -- New York

Keywords:

Fraternal organizations   Societies   Charities   Landsmanshaftn   Synagogues  Orphanages   Judaism

Other searching suggestions:

• Search the catalog by the name of a synagogue or Jewish communal organization.
• Browse the catalog by the call number/standard number *PYP, which was historically used for Jewish charities.
• Find publications and information by/about about New York landsmanshaftn (hometown associations).
• Search digital sources, including the Jewish Communal Register and the American Jewish Year Book, for information on synagogues and Jewish communal organizations.
• Are you looking for the unpublished, institutional records of a landsmanshaft, synagogue, or other Jewish organization? Please utilize the Synagogue and Organizational Records section below.