The New York Jewish community could well be considered one of the greatest centers of Jewish living, intellectual and cultural achievement, and participation and contribution to our home country as any community in the entire 5,000 year history of our Jewish civilization. Incredibly, this local history has never systematically been put in place for Manhattan (in the past decade, local Jewish historical societies have been established for Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island).

This is a legacy project, and one that could not have been accomplished in the planned scope until now. The new technological age creates the possibility to use website and social media to integrate information, including pictures, neighborhoods, stories, oral and video histories, among so many other things. The outreach to the local, national and international community, Jewish and non-Jewish, is now self-evident.

Through the Manhattan Jewish Historical Initiative, the story of the Jewish community can be marketed to the world, serving as a means by which the life, institutions, and cultural activities of the New York Jewish community can be defined, and marketed for the purpose of giving due recognition to its great achievements, and its role in fostering the Jewish religion, Jewish cultural life and thinking, and Tikkun Olam, in its contribution to the greater multicultural community it has lived with in Manhattan, NYC, America, Israel and the world.