LibGuides: Jewish Studies Resources: Primary Sources

Online Primary Sources via MSU Libraries

Jewish Life in America, c. 1654-1954 This link opens in a new window
manuscript collections, rare books & pamphlets from the American Jewish Historical Society
Twentieth Century Religious Thought: Volume III, Judaism This link opens in a new window
Includes 100,000 pages of important works and primary sources that document the evolution of Judaism from the 1890s-2010s. This collection contains a curated selection of unpublished primary sources, coupled with key in-copyright or difficult-to-find texts and authors.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Includes American Jewish newspapers (American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger from New York, American Israelite from Cincinnati, Jewish Advocate from Boston, Jewish Exponent from Philadelphia), the Jerusalem Post, the New York Times and many other major US newspapers. Also includes Ethnic Newswatch.
Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection This link opens in a new window
includes Jewish Journal (New Brunswick, NJ) 1956-1971 and Jewish Chronicle (Newark, NJ) 1921-1943
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories This link opens in a new window
USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive This link opens in a new window
Search and view more than 50,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors, rescuers, and liberators. Need MSUnet ID & password to access from off-campus. First time users must register to create a personal login. Non-MSU affiliates can come into the library to use the database.
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies This link opens in a new window
To access the Archive, it is necessary to create a personal account. Please see http://fortunoff.library.yale.edu/archive/search/ for details on this process.

The Fortunoff Archive currently holds more than 4,400 testimonies, which are comprised of over 12,000 recorded hours of videotape.

Open Access

Sefaria
Extensive digital library of Jewish texts, translations, commentaries, and reference works..
Duane Mezga Holocaust Sites Photographs
Digitized slides of concentration camps and other historic sites, taken by MSU Landscape Architecture Professor Duane Mezga in 1992.
Joint Distribution Committee Archive
institutional records of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee since its founding in 1914
JTA Jewish News Archive
Articles from the JTA news agency from 1923-
AHEYM: The Archive of Historical and Ethnographic Yiddish Memories
Explores Jewish life in Eastern Europe during and after World War II. The archive consists of nearly 400 interviews, conducted primarily in Yiddish, and mostly in small towns throughout Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. The videos are captioned with English translations.
The Yiddish Book Center's Wexner Oral History Project
Over 700 interviews, 1 to 2 hours in length. The interviews are focused life histories, covering family background, involvement with Yiddish language and culture, Jewish identity, and the transmission of culture and values across generations and communities. In English or Yiddish (with English subtitles).

In MSU Special Collections

Sylvia B. Kruger Haggadah Collection
Passover haggadot published in the US and Israel from the 1920s-2000s. Available in the MSU Libraries Special Collections.
Irwin T. & Shirley Holtzman Israeli Literature Archive
Irwin T. Holtzman's files relating to his Israeli literature collection, primarily from the decades between 1970 and 2010. Items located in MSU Libraries Special Collections.
Radicalism Collection
Includes the Arsenal Collection of far-right and antisemitic materials, as well as American Communist, labor, and other left and alternative movements.
Lev Raphael Papers
Personal and professional papers of the American Jewish writer Lev Raphael, known for writing about the gay Jewish experience and experience as a child of Holocaust survivors. The bulk of the material dates from 1983-2011.
From the Hebrew Press
Translations of Israeli newspaper articles by human rights activist Israel Shahak, published monthly in "From the Hebrew Press" through the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. 1991-1993.

MSU Libraries

Research Guides

Jewish Studies Resources: Primary Sources

New Resource

Online Primary Sources via MSU Libraries

Open Access

In MSU Special Collections