Jewish Studies

One Mail information:

If you created a “My Archive” or “My Account” using your indiana.edu email address, you must create a new account with your iu.edu email address before December 31, 2025. All accounts with indiana.edu email addresses will be deleted in January 2026.

Provides access to over 50 million digitized items from European archives, libraries, and museums.

HathiTrust makes the digitized collections of some of the nation’s great research libraries available for all. HathiTrust was initially conceived as a collaboration of the thirteen universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the University of California system, and the University of Virginia to establish a repository for those universities to archive and share their digitized collections. HathiTrust will quickly expand to include additional partners and to provide those partners with an easy means to archive their digital content.

IUCAT, Indiana University's online library catalog, provides comprehensive access to millions of items held by the IU Libraries statewide, including books, recordings, US government publications, periodicals, and other types of material. Users can access IUCAT from any Internet-connected computer or device, whether in the libraries, on campus, or off campus.

Includes collections sourced from The National WWII Museum, New Orleans. Covers American military and civilian participation in all major theaters of operations, including the army, navy and air force, marines, merchant marines, coast guard, women’s forces and medical personnel. 

Collection of searchable original reports and documents from the British Foreign Office records, class F.O. 371 in the National Archives. Includes detailed information indexed by year and section, from the occupied states of Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and the Vatican, and the "neutral" countries Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Items include newspaper articles but primarily intelligence reports, material such as political intelligence summaries, regular press surveys, estimates of the political situation, and reports on Economic and social conditions. There are also browsable indexes of persons, document types, senior officials, organizations, languages, and FO File numbers and a searchable chronology, all from the National Archives of the UK.

The Fortunoff Archive currently holds more than 4,400 testimonies, which are comprised of over 12,000 recorded hours of videotape. Testimonies were produced in cooperation with thirty-six affiliated projects across North America, South America, Europe, and Israel. Testimonies were recorded in whatever language the witness preferred, and range in length from 30 minutes to over 40 hours (recorded over several sessions).

Create Account & Request Testimony:

1. IU Bloomington users must register with their official iu.edu email. To create an account select Log In, and then Join Now. Users will then receive a confirmation email.
2. Login and then enter a search term. Click on a testimony in the search results and request access. Please note that records truncate last names of those who gave testimony to protect their privacy. If you are looking for a specific person’s testimony, either shorten their last name to the first initial (“Eva B.”) or contact the archive directly. You only need to request access to one testimony to obtain viewing access for the entire collection.
3. Once the approval email is received, users may view testimonies. A browser refresh may be necessary.

Onemail Instructions

Users who set up an individual account with their indiana.edu email will need to update their account to reflect their iu.edu email address before December 31, 2025. Please use the following instructions to update your account:

1. Log into your Fortunoff account.
2. Select profile from the dropdown menu in the upper right corner.
3. Update your email in the email field. 
4. Select Update.

Most of the writings date from the 1920s and 1930s and many are directly connected with Nazi groups. The works are principally anti-Semitic, but include writings on other groups as well, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Jesuits, and the Freemasons. Also included are history, pseudo-history, and fiction.

Documents include: correspondence; trial records and transcripts; investigatory material, such as interrogation reports and trial exhibits; clemency petitions and reviews; photographs of atrocities; newspaper clippings; and pamphlets. Many concentration (and later extermination) camps and sub-camps are represented in this collection, including Mauthausen, Dachau, Belsen-Bergen, Buchenwald, Treblinka, Sobibor, sub-camp Gros-Raming, sub-camp Gusen I, sub-camp Ebensee, and others.

The collection includes primary and secondary materials across multiple media formats and content types for each selected event, including Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Darfur, and more than thirty additional subjects.

Contains reports gathered every day between the early 1940s and 1996 by a U.S. government organization that became part of the CIA . These include translated and English-language radio and television broadcasts, newspapers, periodicals and government documents, as well as an analysis of the reports.

Files include original reports on orphans and Unaccompanied Children Under UNRRA Care, Voluntary Societies British Zone Monthly Reports, 1949-, Welfare Work Amongst Jewish Prison Inmates, DPs in Assembly Stations, 1950, Displaced persons and prisoners of war to and from Italy, Complaints about Russian refugees and displaced persons (DPs); allegations of mistreatment of Soviet nationals, and Repatriation and disposal of prisoners of war, surrendered personnel, displaced persons etc.

To coordinate research and intelligence sharing regarding SAFEHAVEN-related topics, the War Crimes Branch received SAFEHAVEN reports from various agencies of the U.S. government in addition to SAFEHAVEN-related military attach reports regarding the clandestine transfer of German assets outside Germany that could be used to rebuild the German war machine or the Nazi party after the war, as well as art looting and other acts that elicited the interest of Allied intelligence agencies during the war. Another aspect of the SAFEHAVEN project was the restoration of looted art treasures to their rightful owners.

Includes documentary evidence collected in several different programmes: the eyewitness accounts which were collected before, during and after the Second World War, from people fleeing the Nazi oppression, a large collection of photographs of pre-war Jewish life, the activities of the Nazis, and the ghettoes and camps, a collection of postcards of synagogues in Germany and eastern Europe, most since destroyed, a unique collection of Nazi propaganda publications including a large collection of 'educational' children's' books, and the card index of biographical details of prominent figures in Nazi Germany, many with portrait photographs. Pamphlets, bulletins and journals published by the Wiener Library to record and disseminate the research of the Institute are also included.

Includes materials on political affairs, Jewish people, refugee and relief activities, German-owned property in Rome, property rights, and the Vatican Bank. In addition, there are materials on Axis diplomats, war criminals, protocols and religious statements, and records of the peace efforts of the Vatican.

Beginning with the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1830s, the documents trace the events of the following 150 years, including the Middle East Conference of 1921, the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, the partition of Palestine, the 1956 Suez Crisis and post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Africa files cover the brutal civil war between Biafra and Nigeria in the late 1960s, the 1964 Rivonia trial of Nelson Mandela and seven leaders of the African National Congress, violent protest against the South African government coupled with police crackdowns on the resistance, the troubled relationship between the U.S. and the apartheid regime, and the first years of independence in Ghana and the Congo. The files on Egypt offer considerable detail on the Egyptian political structure which was dominated by Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s. Political issues are also covered in extensive detail in the files on Iran, Iraq, and Israel. Documents on Iran follow Ali Amin's tenure as prime minister and his succession by Asadollah Alam. In Israel, State Department personnel tracked developments in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), the political fortunes of important members of the Israeli government, and the fragile security situation faced by Israel.

Early records in the collection focus on events in Palestine, Britain’s policy toward Palestine, and how the situation in Palestine affected relations with other nations. The files also survey the contours of Arab politics in the wider Middle East. Additionally, they cover the political, philosophical, and personal fractures within and between both the Jewish and Arab communities from 1940-1948.

Module 1: Middle East, 1971-1974: The 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Oil Crisis
Explores the politics of the Middle East region in the run-up to the Arab-Israeli War and its effect on global industry, political relations and social stability, as well as providing in-depth coverage of separate conflicts in Cyprus, internal and external political relationships, and details about military exports.

Module 2, 1975-1978: The Lebanese Civil War and the Camp David Accords
The Foreign Office files in Module 2 tackle the aftermath of the Arab-Israel War, tracing the successes and failures of the prolonged peace talks led by Henry Kissinger, which conclude with the historic Camp David Accords in 1978. This module explores the economic and political impact this conflict had on the UK’s relationships with other Middle East nations, as well as continuing to track the progress of peace talks between Cyprus and Turkey. These files also contain reports on the devastating civil war in Lebanon and its impact on the region, as well as assessing the political climate in Iran in the run up to the revolution.

Module 3, 1979-1981: The Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War
Module 3 is dominated by conflicts in Iran, with extensive coverage of events surrounding the revolution, the hostage crisis at the United States Embassy, and the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War. These Foreign Office files also continue to examine the on-going peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel, with a particular focus on the Israeli Occupied Territories, and contain a number of personality profiles to accompany yearly country reviews.

Covers topical categories, including the Israeli-Arab conflict, human and civil rights, international relations, terrorism, and others. The collection includes many points of view and contemporary accounts from both inside and outside the region on events such as: the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, Operation Entebbe, the taking of American hostages in Iran, the Assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the Achille Lauro hijacking, and the Persian Gulf War. And on the origins and growth of organizations such as: the Arab League, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Fully searchable database of primary source documents from the British National Archives that chronicle the politics, wars, administration, and diplomacy surrounding the Palestine Mandate and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Topics covered include the background to the establishment of the State of Israel, Black September, the Border wars of the 1950s, the British capture of Jerusalem, the Cold War in the Middle East, the formation of the United Arab Republic, Jewish terror groups, and milestones in the Palestine-Zionist tension and their impact on British policy leading to the Partition of 1948.

Declassified Documents Reference Service provides searching and fulltext access to declassified U.S. government documents. Covering major international events from the Cold War to the Vietnam War and beyond, this single source enables users to locate key information underpinning studies in international relations, American studies, United States foreign and domestic policy studies, journalism and more.

During the 1920s, The Washington Post estimated the Klan’s membership as high as 9,000,000 and in the Midwest, a particular strong point of Klan support, one in three white protestant males in the state of Indiana were dues-paying members of the Klan.  The collection is currently available only to funding institutions, but will eventually be made open access.

The files cover Asian immigration, especially Japanese and Chinese migration, to California, Hawaii, and other states; Mexican immigration to the U.S. from 1906-1930; and European immigration. There are also extensive files on the INS's regulation of prostitution and white slavery and on suppression of radical aliens.

Contains reports gathered every day between the early 1940s and 1996 by a U.S. government organization that became part of the CIA . These include translated and English-language radio and television broadcasts, newspapers, periodicals and government documents, as well as an analysis of the reports.

Includes access to the entirety of six major organisational collections and twenty-four collections of personal papers from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York. Themes covered include: business, industry and enterprise; civil rights and liberties; culture, literature and the arts; early Jewish experience; everyday life: personal and family narratives; immigration and settlement; politics and the law; reflections on the Jewish experience; religion, tradition and community; war, conflict and persecution; and Welfare, health and education.

Provides access to primary source material recounting the varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration, from government-led population drives during the early nineteenth century through to mass steamship travel. Includes Colonial Office files on immigration, diaries and travel journals, ship logs and plans, printed literature, objects, watercolors, oral histories, as well as secondary research aids.

Module 1: Migration to New Worlds: The Century of Immigration
This module concentrates on the period 1800 to 1924 and covers all aspects of the migration experience, from motives and departures to arrival and permanent settlement. To supplement this, the collection includes early material such as the first emigration ‘round robin’ from 1621 and letters from late eighteenth-century merchants and travelers in the United States. Some later material is also available, including ocean liner and immigration depot photographs from the mid-twentieth century.

Module 2: Migration to New Worlds: The Modern Era
This module begins with the activities of the New Zealand Company during the 1840s and presents thousands of unique original sources focusing on the growth of colonization companies during the nineteenth century, the activities of immigration and welfare societies, and the plight of refugees and displaced persons throughout the twentieth century as migrants fled their homelands to escape global conflict.

Personal narratives including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories dating from around 1840 through the present, focusing heavily on the period from 1920 to 1980, with much of the material being previously unpublished. Also includes indexed and searchable Ellis Island Oral History interviews, and some image and audio files.

Covers Responsa Literature - rabbinic case-law rulings which represent the historical-sociological milieu of real-life situations; the Bible, the Talmud and their principal commentaries; works about Jewish law and customs; codes of Jewish law, such as Maimonides' Mishneh Torah and the Shulchan Aruch with its principal commentaries; midrashim, Zohar, etc. Also includes the Entsiklopedyah Talmudit.

Topics include: the Bible and its Commentaries, Tannaitic literature including Mishnah, Tosefta, Midrash Halakhah and Aggadah as well as their Commentaries,Talmudic literature from both Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds and their Commentaries, as well as Geonic works, Halakhah and Customs from the Rishonim and Acharonim, as well as Responsa Literature, Jewish Philosophy from medieval times to the modern period, Kabbalah and Hasidism including liturgical writings, sermons. Also includes modern scholarship in Jewish history, Hebrew linguistics, Jewish psychology, family studies, information science, etc., in addition to Torah compilations, memorial volumes, and prayer books.

Please note: IU Bloomington users can print 20 pages at a time, per day, from every book listed in Otzar HaChochma. The 20 pages are shared between all IUB users, so if one user prints 20 pages from a certain book, another user will only be able to print single pages from that same book that day.

This database, which previously was available only through the purchase of a CD, consists of an extraordinary collection of virtually all original documents of the Babylonian Talmud. Such documents include all full surviving manuscripts of Oriental, Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Yemenite provenance; hundreds of complete manuscripts and first printed editions of the Babylonian Talmud; and more than a thousand fragments from the Cairo and European archives. Many of these documents are available both as texts and digital images. -- OCLC

Also includes many regional and dialectal variants are included alongside standard literary Yiddish forms.

The texts were printed in Hebrew letters in West, Central and East Europe. The dates range from the middle of the 16th century to the beginning of the 20th century. The collection contains the whole spectrum of Yiddish texts, including a large number of women's bibles (Tse'na Re'ena), liturgy, medical guide books, science and education, works on religious customs (Minhagim), legends, historical chronicles and translations of well known tales like "A Thousand and one Nights".