Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive

The archive describes its collection as exceeding 18,000 titles in film, multiple video formats, and digital files, spanning from the Ottoman period to the present day.[2] A 2024 Jerusalem Post report placed the figure even higher, at more than 20,000 titles available on film and video.[5] The National Library of Israel characterizes the holdings as covering historical events alongside everyday life across the histories of Zionism and the State of Israel.[6]

The pre-state collection includes original films produced from 1911 to 1948, with material about new settlements and construction, home movies of historical events, footage related to the 1929 Arab Riots, and early appearances of figures such as Teddy Kollek and Shimon Peres.[7] Other examples include rare documentation of Polish Jews on the eve of the Second World War, a film showing the founding of the State of Israel, and footage of Jewish immigration to Israel.[2]

Notable Holocaust-related items include filmed testimony from the Eichmann trial, images of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini visiting troops on the Eastern Front in Ukraine in 1942, and footage of boxing competitions among Holocaust survivors in Munich in 1947.[8] The archive holds the complete set of Eichmann trial footage taped by Capital Cities Broadcasting Corporation in 1961 on two-inch videotape; the Anti-Defamation League received the tapes in 1965 and transferred them to the archive in 1972. With support from a Revson Foundation grant, duplicates were made for the archive, the Israel State Archives, and the Jewish Museum in New York.[9]

The archive describes an "assumed first newsreel" shot in Israel, concerning a natural disaster in Tiberias.[7] A 2003 report separately highlighted the first newsreel with a Hebrew soundtrack and what it called probably the first animated film produced in the country, both from Baruch Agadati's studio. It also noted two newsreels from the War of Independence and a late-1930s color film about Kibbutz Degania.[10]

The archive also holds surviving scenes from Ya'acov Ben-Dov's 1918 film Judea Liberated (Yehuda Ha'meshukhreret), which the National Library of Israel Blog describes as the first Hebrew motion picture.[11] The few surviving scenes had been incorporated into other Ben-Dov films and were tracked down by film researcher Ya'akov Gross. They include footage of General Allenby's entry into Jerusalem, the 1918 Zionist Commission visit, the Hebrew University cornerstone ceremony, and life in Jewish colonies including Rishon LeZion, Ness Ziona, and Gedera.[11]

The archive collaborated in digitizing rare color 16 mm footage filmed by cinematographer Jacques Soussana at Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai in the early 1970s. The films, donated by Soussana's widow to the National Library, include scenes of the monastery's manuscript collection and monastic life in the desert; the Jerusalem Cinematheque also assisted with digitization.[12]

Among other highlights, the archive holds The Land of Promise: The First Palestine Sound Picture (1935), a 57-minute black-and-white film produced for Keren Hayesod featuring pioneers, refugees from Europe, and scenes of agriculture, commerce, and industry contrasting cities with kibbutzim.[13]

The archive was founded in the late 1960s by Professor Moshe Davis and other historians at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[1] Its first director was Dr. Geoffrey Wigoder, and it initially bore the name of its first major donor, Iranian-Jewish businessman Abraham F. Rad, who supported it for several years.[1]

A 2024 report dates the archive's founding to 1972 under the Hebrew University's Institute of Contemporary Jewry, rather than the late 1960s date given by the archive's own history page.[5] The World Zionist Organization designated it the official depository for its films in 1973, establishing the joint administrative arrangement that continues today.[1] A 2019 report noted the archive marking fifty years since its establishment, although that source did not state a precise founding date.[14]

Steven Spielberg made a financial donation to the archive in 1987, and it was named in his honor in 1988.[3] His contribution was credited with helping save films that might otherwise have been lost, as older deteriorating works faced an uncertain fate when no commercial party was willing to transfer them to digital formats.[15] In 1996, the archive relocated to specially designed premises in the university's Faculty of Humanities, and it is now housed in the Jack Valenti Pavilion on the Hebrew University campus.[1][16]

The archive is affiliated with the International Federation of Film Archives and the Association of Moving Image Archivists.[1] Its catalog and holdings are also accessible through Archive Network Israel, a collaborative platform developed with the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage and the National Library of Israel, where the archive carries the reference code IL-SJFA.[6]

Beyond its moving-image holdings, the archive maintains a Documentation Center of print materials and still photographs relating to Jewish, Israeli, and Yiddish film.[17] The center was named in memory of Yiddish journalist David Matis (1906–1988), whose collection — assembled over more than four decades — comprised approximately 700 files and thousands of press clippings, stills, and other documents, received by the archive in 1988.[17]

Other collections in the Documentation Center include film scripts, correspondence, and reviews from director, screenwriter, and editor Michael Elkins; materials from the surviving portions of Norman Lourie's Palestine Films archive, which the archive notes may help fill a gap in film history from the late 1940s and early 1950s; and the papers and still photographs of Murray Rosenberg, bequeathed in April 2005.[17] The archive describes Rosenberg's 1911 film expedition to Palestine as producing the earliest Zionist film.[17] Additional holdings include approximately 50 reels of 16 mm film, most in color, bequeathed by Ellen Navon in 1971, along with Yosef Navon's papers deposited in 2005.[17]

With a grant from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, the archive scanned the Matis Documentation Collection in 2000 and uploaded it to an internal database, later migrating it to the web-based Artlid database.[17] The collection has since been transferred as part of the ALMA catalog; most of it is accessible only at the physical archive with staff assistance, though some collections are publicly viewable.[17]

The archive also received more than 300 films, 700 videos, and related documentation from Eric Goldman for preservation.[18]

The archive has maintained a comprehensive catalog since its founding.[19] In the 1980s, its manual card catalog was computerized using the Aleph system, and a retrospective cataloging project spanning ten years brought the legacy collection into digital records, after which new acquisitions were entered as they arrived.[19] The catalog program was updated to Primo in 2021 and is available online.[19]

Digitization has been a central activity for decades. In 2003, the archive's Virtual Cinema project had made more than 200 complete films available online for viewers with broadband connections. The project was funded by supporters of the Hebrew University in Los Angeles, and a technological upgrade that year doubled the image size and improved quality.[10] In 2005, Ynet reported that the archive was providing online access to rare Holocaust-related films and held more than 10,000 films overall.[8] The Virtual Cinema now offers more than 600 uploaded films, organized by subject — including life in the British Mandate before Israel's founding and Jewish communities around the world — with viewing free of charge and the selection updated regularly.[4]

Films not available through Virtual Cinema can be searched in the catalog and viewed at the physical archive by appointment; uses involving copying or copyright-related purposes may incur fees.[4] A 2024 Maariv report noted that the Spielberg Jewish Film Archive collection was among new collections uploaded to the Israeli Film Archive website during the preceding year.[20]

The archive serves filmmakers, researchers, students, university lecturers, schools, cultural centers, senior residences, and members of the public with an interest in Zionism and Jewish history. Its activities include film research, preservation of works at risk of decay, distribution, digitization, and public-access initiatives.[1]

Among the documentaries highlighted in its collection are The Road to Freedom (1946), about the formation of the Jewish Brigade; Tomorrow Is a Wonderful Day (1948), following a Holocaust-survivor boy integrating into life at the Ben Shemen youth village in Israel; and The Forgotten Children (1945), about war orphans arriving in Mandatory Palestine.[8] The archive also presents Line of Life with Golda Meir (1977), concerning the former prime minister's dreams and hopes for the development of her national homeland.[21] The 34-minute film Milk and Honey Experience (1971), directed by Yehuda Judd Ne'eman and depicting Americans during their 1970–1971 year at the Hebrew University, is likewise linked under the archive's name.[22]

Researchers have noted gaps in what the visual record captures. An interviewee discussing documentary footage held by the archive observed that only 25 percent of its materials contain women, attributing this partly to the limited indoor lighting of the 1920s and 1930s. Because women's work often took place indoors — in laundries and kindergartens, for example — surviving footage shows them working in the fields more than their actual daily lives would suggest.[23]

The archive is listed as a research resource by YIVO and the Lookstein Center.[24][25] An American Jewish Archives Journal article thanked the archive's staff and cited a film from its holdings.[22]

The archive's name appears in variant forms across different sources, including "Steven Spielberg Film Archives," "Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archives," and "Spielberg Archive." The available sources do not clarify whether these constitute formally distinct designations.[22][25]

The archive's own history page states that Steven Spielberg donated in 1987 and that the archive was renamed following his donation, while its dedicated Spielberg page specifies the naming year as 1988.[1][3] Both accounts agree on the donation year of 1987.