Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive

The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive is dedicated to the preservation and research of Jewish documentary films. The archive is jointly administered by the Abraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Central Zionist Archives of the World Zionist Organization (WZO).

The archive was established in the late 1960s by Professor Moshe Davis and other historians of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The archive was originally called the Avraham Rad Jewish Film Archive for a number of years. In 1973, the WZO designated the archive as the official depository for its films. Since 1988, the archive has been named after the Jewish-American filmmaker Steven Spielberg, whose foundation partially finances archive activities. In 1996, the archive moved to its present premises at the university's faculty of humanities on Mount Scopus.

The archive holds approximately 16,000 titles: about 4,500 films, over 9,000 videos on various formats and roughly 600 DVDs are cataloged. The collection deals with a variety of Jewish subjects: Jewish history, the establishment of the State of Israel, immigration, Jewish communities in the Diaspora and the relationships between them and Israelis. The films come from diverse sources: primarily the WZO and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem but also other public bodies, such as the Jewish National Fund and private sources that either donate or deposit their films – mainly documentary filmmakers and their families. In addition, the archive possesses a number of collections deposited by various kibbutzim. The Steven Spielberg Archive holds the copyright for the films produced by its founding institutions – i.e., the WZO and the Hebrew University – and is authorized to sell user rights to broadcasting and production companies and all other interested parties. The films are kept in temperature controlled vaults, facilitating their preservation, as much as possible, in optimal conditions. Movies can be watched on 16 mm and 35 mm viewing tables, and on video players in U-Matic, Betacam, VHS, DVCAM, Mini DV, Super VHS and Betamax.

...
Wikipedia