Center for Jewish History

The Center for Jewish History in New York City is now on Flickr via The Commons! They are home to five major institutions of scholarship, history, and art: The American Sephardi Federation, the American Jewish Historical Society, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Yeshiva University Museum and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Their collections constitute one of the most important resources for the documentation and exploration of the Jewish experience. Their Flickr photostream contains rich gems in sets on Jewish Rites and Customs, Everyday Life, Ceremonial Objects and Synagogues.

Andrea Buchner, Director of the Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory at the CJH, provides insight into their Flickr photostream:

While the main goal was always to increase the accessibility of our collections, we were particularly intrigued by the fact that Flickr allowed us to solicit user feedback. We selected images featuring people and circumstances of which we knew little in the hope that users would leave comments and notes that would shed more light on these images. We had some wonderful results with the great-granddaughter of a person in an image contacting us and another person telling us what happened to orphans depicted in some images.