Series II consists of subject and programming files relating to a variety of organizations, individuals, events, locations, and topics. The general files reflect the range of the JLC's areas of interest and advocacy and how the organization's goals and values have changed from the 1940s through the 2000s, though the records primarily begin in the 1960s. Genres of documents included in this series primarily include correspondence and memoranda; news clippings and scrapbooks; reports; notes; legal and government documents; and poster, flyers, pamphlets, newsletters, and other forms of circulars or printed ephemera. The series demonstrates the extent of the JLC's collaboration with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO), the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (earlier known as the National Community Relations Advisory Council and renamed the Jewish Council for Public Affairs in 1997), and other organizations in the Jewish community, labor movement, and other fields.
Many materials are the records of specific JLC programs and activities. The JLC's wartime child "adoption" program is well-represented, particularly in the form of card files on the children who were recipients of the program and the groups or individuals who sponsored them. Records on some of the children adoptees in the card files can also be found in Part II of the JLC collection. Subject files on Middle Eastern countries were likely compiled as research for the JLC's annual report, "Critique of Trade Union Rights in Countries Affiliated with League of Arab States." The records of the JLC's Labor for a Secure Israel program (LFSI) include files on pro-Israel activity within specific states, as well as more general programming planning and subject files. Materials related to the JLC's study tours in Europe and its New York Legislative Committee's conferences in Albany are also included.
Additionally, the series contains materials produced for the Office of the United States Trade Representative's (USTR) investigation of Israel due to allegations of the government's mistreatment of Palestinian workers. The JLC made a presentation before the USTR defending Israel and urging the General Services Subcommittee of the USTR to reject the petition to remove Israel from the Generalized System of Preferences program. Pre- and post-hearing briefs, correspondence, and research files document the JLC's preparation for their presentation and the USTR hearing itself, as well as support for Israel within the AFL-CIO and other labor organizations.
More generally, the JLC's subject files reflect the JLC's involvement or interest in various domestic and international issues. The most heavily documented issues include anti-Semitism; civil rights; Soviet Jewry; alternative energy sources; relations between different races and ethnicities, particularly between the Jewish population and African Americans; trade unionism in Israel; education about and commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto; Holocaust education and the creation of the U.S. Holocaust Museum; religion in schools; and the eradication of sweatshops and industrial homework.
The series also includes a number of scrapbooks and clippings files (some compiled from the English-language press and some from the Yiddish-language press). The clippings document JLC activities across the country, as well as labor movement news and news of individuals connected to the JLC (including obituaries, anniversaries, and other news items).Provided by a clipping service, the clippings are taken from a wide range of local newspapers. The Yiddish clippings are mostly from the Jewish Daily Forward, but there are also examples from the Communist Party's Morgen Freiheit and several mainstream Yiddish papers. One scrapbook is devoted to a single subject, the JLC's opposition to George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party.
Chronological files, mailings, materials labeled as the "original" drafts by the JLC, and materials that were mimeographed for distribution, both internally and externally, extensively document the JLC's activities within the given years. "Originals," mailings, materials in the mimeograph books, and chronological files may be duplicated within the subject or programming files in this series.
