Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive/ ארכיון הסרטים היהודיים ע"ש סטיבן שפילברג

The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive was founded in the late 1960s by Professor Moshe Davis and other historians of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The first Director was the late Dr. Geoffrey Wigoder and the Archive originally bore the name of its first donor, Iranian businessman Abraham F. Rad, who gave his support for a number of years. In 1987 a generous donation was received from Steven Spielberg and the Archive was named after the American filmmaker, whose continuing interest in our activities is a source of pride. At the Scopus Dinner held in Los Angeles in December 2000, the American Friends of the Hebrew University honored the late Jack Valenti, Former Chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America. At the dinner it was announced that the premises housing the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive would be named the Jack Valenti Pavilion. In 1973 the World Zionist Organization (WZO) designated the Archive as the official depository of its films. Today the Archive is jointly administered by the University's Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry and the Central Zionist Archives of the WZO and has the status of a Special Collection of the Jewish National and University Library. It is affiliated with the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) and the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA).

In 1996 the Archive moved to specially designed premises at the University's Faculty of Humanities.

The Archive engages in many types of activities. Among these are lectures, film research, preservation of films in danger of decay, distribution, and digitization and accessibility.

The Archive serves a wide audience: film producers and directors, researchers, educational purposes - students, lecturers at the university, schools, cultural centers, old age homes, and the general public interested in Zionism.

The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive holds approximately 16,000 titles on film, video and dvd, constituting one of the largest collections of Jewish documentary film footage in the world. The vaults contain material shot in Israel before and after the establishment of the State in 1948, motion picture records of many Jewish communities in the Diaspora and two special collections relating to the Holocaust.

early zionism and the state of Israel

As the official film archive of the World Zionist Organization and its subsidiaries, including the Jewish Agency, Keren Kayemeth Leisrael (Jewish National Fund) and Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund, later United Jewish Appeal), the Spielberg Archive is particularly strong in its coverage of Zionist activity before and after 1948. The Spielberg Archive's collection contains films documenting Jewish life in communities all over the world. Among the many regions and periods represented are: Poland before World War II, Europe, Morocco in the early 1960s, Ethiopia, China, North and South America, South Africa, Australia, the Soviet Union and the CIS.

Beth Hatefutsoth, Israel's Diaspora Museum, has deposited all its films, expanding the geographical and chronological range of the Archive's holdings. In addition to individual films dealing with aspects of the Holocaust (including rare color footage of Hitler and Mussolini at the Eastern Front, taken by Hitler's pilot), the Spielberg Archive houses two unique collections. Since the early 1970s, the original videotapes of the Adolf Eichmann Trial have been at the Archive, as a gift from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith. In 1996 these were transferred to the Beta digital format and the originals placed in permanent storage at the Israel State Archive, which funded the preservation effort. A set in the NTSC standard was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

The second collection is one from the Ghetto Fighters' House (Beit Lohamei Haghetaot), one of Israel's major Shoah research centers. Following a 1997 agreement between the two institutions, several hundred films are being permanently deposited at the Archive. Video copies have been made for continuing educational use at the Ghetto Fighters' House and the entire project is being funded through the generosity of Gerda Steinitz Frieberg of Toronto, Canada.

home movies

The Spielberg Archive has a growing collection of films made non-professionally in Eretz Israel and the Diaspora by private individuals. The value of such motion pictures is gaining increasing recognition worldwide. Many dozens of films in this category from the 1920s onward are held at the Archive and contain important documentation of both daily life and historic events.