The Leo Baeck Medal has been awarded since 1978 to those who have helped preserve the spirit of German-speaking Jewry in culture, academia, politics, and philanthropy.

With the expectation that this would not last more than a decade, institute members concentrated entirely on research projects and filling in the history of German-speaking Jewry from the Enlightenment to the Nazi seizure of power.

It is named in honor of its international president, Leo Baeck, the senior Rabbi of Berlin in Germany's Weimar Republic, and the last leader of the Jewish community under the Nazis.

It also awards the Leo Baeck Medal annually which is the highest recognition the institute bestows upon those who have helped preserve the spirit of German-speaking Jewry in culture, academia, politics, and philanthropy.

[21] Through publications, scholarly seminars, academic and cultural events, and an archive, the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem has been the leading venue for German-Jewish historiography and documentation in Israel.

It aims to facilitate academic exchange, and to use the German and Central European Jewish experience from the 17th to the 21st centuries to help understand contemporary socio-political debates concerning immigration, minorities, integration, and civil rights, in particular in the UK.

The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book Essay Prize is awarded annually to an early-career researcher writing on the history or culture of German-speaking Jewry.

A Leo Baeck Fellowship Programme (in collaboration with the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) was created in 2005 to support doctoral candidates in German-Jewish studies.

In 2012, Leo Baeck Institute New York announced that it had digitized the majority of its archival holdings, as well as large segments of its art and library collections.