Mission Statement
Founded in 1976, the Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven proudly continues our mission of collecting, publishing, and preserving primary source materials that serve as the central repository for documents, research, and education to chronicle the history of Greater New Haven’s Jewish community. We survey, collect, organize, describe, preserve, and make available archival material documenting the history of the Jewish community in the New Haven area, including business records and personal documents.
Our History
The Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven began humbly in the attic and basement of Harvey N. Ladin’s Central Avenue home. After years of collecting pictures and memorabilia about Jewish Life in New Haven, Harvey Ladin helped to organize and found the Jewish Historical Society in 1976. He became its first president.
Since its origin, the society has been collecting and cataloguing the greater New Haven Jewish community’s eventful past, publicizing its history, and preserving its heritage for future generations. Grants from the New Haven Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities helped the JHS grow, hire an archivist, and move into the Jewish Home for the Aged. By 1997, the society’s holdings had grown so much that it needed a new space. It became part of the Ethnic Heritage Center at Southern Connecticut State University
The collection contains synagogue, cemetery, and organizational records, photographs, original documents, genealogies, diaries, newspaper articles, scrapbooks, noteworthy events, as well as an object collection of artifacts. There is an extensive library of 1500 volumes. The society has over 400 audio/video tapes which preserve the society’s programs, meetings, events, and interviews, and more than 300 oral histories about Jewish New Haven. It continues to add to its archive, oral histories, and object collection.