Center for Jewish History
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 Location within New York City
Location within New York City
Location within New York City
Location within New York City
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| Established | 2000 |
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| Location | 15 West 16th Street Manhattan, New York U.S. 10011 |
| Coordinates | 40°44′17″N 73°59′38″W / 40.738047°N 73.993821°WCoordinates: 40°44′17″N 73°59′38″W / 40.738047°N 73.993821°W |
| Public transit access |
New York City Subway: 14th Street – Union Square 4 5 6 <6> L N Q R W trains New York City Bus: M1, M2, M3, M5, M14A, M14D |
| Website | cjh |
The Center for Jewish History is a partnership of five Jewish history, scholarship, and art organizations in New York City: American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute New York, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Together, housed in one location, the partners have separate governing bodies and finances, but collocate resources. The partners' collections make up the biggest repository of Jewish history in the United States. The Center for Jewish History serves as a centralized place of scholarly research, events, exhibitions, and performances. Located within the Center are the Lillian Goldman Reading Room, Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute and a Collection Management & Conservation Wing. The Center for Jewish History is also an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.
In 2000, the Center was opened after six years of construction and planning with a goal of creating synergy among the five member organizations, each offering a different approach to Jewish history, scholarship and art. This was one of the first attempts at uniting differing views on Jewish culture and resulted in the largest repository documenting the Jewish experience outside of Israel leading some to refer to it as the Jewish Library of Congress.
In the late 1980s, Bruce Slovin, who was the chairman of YIVO, originated the concept of unified center where the partners could share resources. The idea was triggered when he realized that the then home of YIVO, a mansion located at 86th and Fifth Avenue, was not able to meet the needs of its collections or visitors, resulting in an environment that has hazardous to the collection (it was not temperature-controlled) as well as made archival study difficult. The location on Museum Mile was not seen as an advantageous adjacency. Slovin saw YIVO and the partner organizations as being more academic-focused.
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