Its mission is to collect, restore, preserve, catalogue, and exhibit films with artistic and educational value relevant to the Jewish experience, and to disseminate these materials to the widest possible audience.
The Center’s collection includes ethnographic studies of past and present Jewish communities in China, Mexico, Morocco, Australia, Tunisia, Russia, Argentina, Bosnia, India, Romania, Greece, and Egypt, travelogues depicting Jewish life in Poland before World War II, U.S. government World War II newsreels, studies in Israeli history, Holocaust films exploring little-known sites of genocide like Transnistria and Babi Yar, anti-Jewish propaganda, and Yiddish-American feature films.
Individually and collectively, the films distributed by NCJF dispel stereotypes about Jews and educate audiences about the diversity and cultural richness of Jewish life.
NCJF’s most recent restorations include the Yiddish feature films The Cantor’s Son and The Living Orphan, the preservation of rare home movies documenting the way of life in several small communities of Eastern Europe, Jewish chicken farmers in New Jersey, and merchants in Massachusetts, and film of President Harry S. Truman addressing the issue of Middle East politics at an Israel Bonds dinner in 1956.
The Center’s rare film materials are made available to scholars, curators, journalists, teachers, authors, artists, filmmakers, and the general public, and have been exhibited and screened worldwide.