The United States Southwest, encompassing West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California, reflects the heritage of diverse groups of peoples. From native-born inhabitants to those who chose to settle in this region, each group has contributed to Southwestern culture and society. United States Southwestern history has traditionally focused on the contributions of Native Americans, and people whose ancestral roots are in Mexico and Europe. Until recently, little has been written documenting the pioneer Jewish experience. Visitors to this website learn that Jewish pioneers not only built Jewish communities, but that they also made significant contributions to the development of the U. S. Southwest. The Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives website presents several educational exhibits. Pioneers shares the pioneer Jewish experience in West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona through images from photos held in regional archives and museums, electronic texts of books, articles and newspaper accounts, and biographical information of selected pioneers. The Synagogues of the Southwest section reinforces that pioneer Jews placed a priority on maintaining their beliefs, values, and traditions amid the hazards of the nation's frontier. Crypto-Jews focuses on the Crypto-Jewish experience in the U. S. Southwest and is one of the most highly visited sections of the website. The Oral Histories secton features interviews with Tucson's New American community. Its members were invited to participate in recording information about their lives and experiences in the former Soviet Union and now in Tucson. By including their stories, we find similarities between the pioneers of the 19th century and those of the late 20th. The Oral Histories section also includes the story of a 20th (and now 21st) century family whose family odyssey is traced from Europe to the eastern U. S. and now to the Southwest. Finally, the Finding Aids section provides web access to the finding aids held in the UA Library's Special Collections that detail the Southwest Jewish Archives print holdings. The Southwest Jewish Archives website presents several educational exhibits. Pioneers shares the pioneer Jewish experience in West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona through images from photos held in regional archives and museums, electronic texts of books, articles and newspaper accounts, and biographical information of selected pioneers. Synagogues of the Southwest reinforces that pioneer Jews placed a priority on maintaining their beliefs, values, and traditions amid the hazards of the nation's frontier. Crypto-Jews tells the Crypto-Jewish experience in the U. S. Southwest and is one of the most highly visited sections of the website. Oral Historie s features interviews with Tucson 's "New American" community whose members were invited to participate in recording information about their lives and experiences in the former Soviet Union . By including their stories, we find similarities between the pioneers of the 19th century and those of the late 20th. The Oral Histories section also includes the story of a 20th (and now 21st) century family whose odyssey is traced from Europe to the eastern U. S. and to the Southwest. Finally, Finding Aids provides information on the entire collection, held in the UA Library's Special Collections. References to the sources used in descriptive sections, a suggested readings list, copyright and permissions information, and a page with links to selected Web sites to visit are also available. Consult the Finding Aids for guides to where materials are housed within Special Collections. Visit the What's New? page to learn about the newest items that have been added. A few years ago we began looking at more contemporary stories. If you like historical photographs, view a slideshow of forty images from the Archive's collections. For questions on access to the Southwest Jewish Archives collections, contact the UA Library's Special Collections department. You will find information on research services for individual researchers, class use of collections, mail, e-mail, and telephone requests, photocopy service, photograph reproduction service, and contact information. For speedy results, provide the URL to the page on which you found your information. For example: findingaids/sja005.htm Please: do not submit genealogical requests through the comments link on this Web site. Instead, you may consult the Genealogy section provided on the selected Web sites page. About the Southwest Jewish Archives Web site. Please send us your comments and questions.