Digitized Jewish Week Archive Makes Decades of New York History Freely Available
The National Library of Israel has added nearly five decades of The New York Jewish Week to its public collection, alongside a planned discussion and an email series exploring the city’s Jewish past.
By Amir Navarro ·
Nearly five decades of The New York Jewish Week are now freely available online through the National Library of Israel, giving the public new access to reporting on the city’s Jewish community. The digitized newspaper joins the library’s Historical Jewish Press collection, which preserves Jewish publications from around the world.
The archive documents major developments alongside the everyday concerns, personalities and cultural changes that shaped Jewish life in New York. Its subjects include a bagel famine, a record-breaking Orthodox Jewish gathering at Madison Square Garden and the discovery of Jewish treasures in the basement of a deteriorating synagogue. Such episodes provide ways to examine the community’s experiences and changing identity.
The newspaper, previously published under the name The Jewish Week, is part of a preservation initiative that began more than 20 years ago. The Historical Jewish Press project has gathered newspapers in 30 languages, including publications dating to the late 17th century. Brandeis University historian Jonathan Sarna has described The New York Jewish Week as “the most important American Jewish newspaper of its time.”
To mark the archive’s availability, the library and the newspaper will hold a free discussion on Tuesday, November 17, at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan. Scheduled for 7:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m., the event, titled “The Pages of Our Past: Digitizing New York’s Jewish Stories,” will explore what the collection reveals about the past and its relevance to the present. Streaming will also be available.
Panelists will include Gary Rosenblatt, whose tenure as the newspaper’s editor and publisher covered more than half of its half-century history. Current New York Jewish Week journalists will also participate, along with Eyal Miller, who manages the library’s Historical Jewish Press project.
The two organizations are also collaborating on an email series called “9 Moments That Made Jewish New York What It Is Today.” Its nine installments examine unusual and overlooked episodes, ranging from the arrival of 23 Jewish refugees from Recife, Brazil, in New Amsterdam in 1654 to a modern controversy over whether New York’s tap water was kosher.
The series uses those events to explore how Jewish New Yorkers responded to change, established institutions and shaped their place in the city. The initiatives come as the community faces rising antisemitism and deep internal divisions. The New York Jewish Week belongs to 70 Faces Media, which also publishes the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
