The institute is a repository of documentary materials relating to the Jewish historical presence in Poland.

It is also a centre for academic research, study and the dissemination of knowledge about the history and culture of Polish Jewry.

[1] The institute has published a series of documents from the Ringelblum Archive, as well as numerous wartime memoirs and diaries.

[3] In 2021, Monika Krawczyk, a lawyer and the managing director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in the years 2004–2019, was appointed the Director of the Jewish Historical Institute by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.

[4] In 2024, a group of Institute employees sent a letter to the new Minister of Culture and National Heritage, calling the director "authoritarian and incompetent".