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

[4] The Leo Baeck Institute New York is one of three independent research centers founded by a group of German-speaking Jewish émigrés at a conference in Jerusalem in 1955.

[5]: 142 Significant private donations secured in the first two decades of the Leo Baeck Institute's existence included the literary estates of German philosopher Constantin Brunner, Austro-Hungarian novelist and theatre critic Fritz Mauthner, German theologian and philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, and Austrian journalist and novelist Joseph Roth.

[7] Today, Leo Baeck Institute shares library infrastructure (storage, reading room, digital and conservation labs, and information systems) as well as programming and exhibition facilities with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Yeshiva University Museum, American Jewish Historical Society, and American Sephardi Federation.

In October 2012, Leo Baeck Institute New York announced that it had digitized nearly its entire archival holdings and a large portion of its art collections and rare books as part of the DigiBaeck[12] project.

In addition to the archival processes of acquiring, cataloguing, and preserving, Leo Baeck Institute New York promotes study by sponsoring several fellowships for scholars working the field of German-Jewish history, holding seminars, and creating exhibits.