The AAJLDA is a digital collection-in-progress, preserved and maintained by NYU’s Tamiment Library.
Jewish Currents: The AAJLDA has begun collecting the digital materials and interviewing the writers, staff members, and board members of Jewish Currents, a Jewish leftist magazine founded by Communists in the 1940s but reborn in 2018. We have not only begun collecting their magazines and capturing their website, but are collecting internal communications, multimedia, and newsletters, as well as ephemera related to their popular in-person and online events. We are also conducting oral history interviews with the major players involved in the 2018 “revival.”
Open Hillel: We are also collecting the documents of Open Hillel, a college student-led initiative that focused on fostering inclusive Jewish communities surrounding Israel-Palestine politics. The organization is now called Judaism on Our Own Terms. We have already begun collecting and processing Open Hillel’s digital objects and sources, and will begin oral histories with the movement’s key activists in spring 2024.
Future agenda: Jewish Currents and Open Hillel are just the beginning. The AAJLDA will utilize the model created through the process with Jewish Currents and Open Hillel as it expands to more movements and organizations.
While we are already deep in the collecting process, processing of materials and oral histories take time. Please check back here for information about how to access archived materials as they become available. In the meantime, feel free to explore what’s been processed so far:
American Jewish Left in the Digital Age Archived Websites
Related collections at Tamiment:
Oral History of the American Left. Radical Histories. Oral histories, 1970-1980.