The bequest from the Adler-Salomon family has enabled the JMB to lay the foundations for the digital cataloging of its collections. Thanks to this legacy and the funding partnership with Siemens AG, as well as donations from the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung and Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, the digitization of around 370 of the approximately 1,800 family estates archived at the JMB is now underway, providing insights into more than 250 years of life experience of often widely ramified Jewish families from Germany to the present day.

The Jewish Museum Berlin would also like to be the central point of contact for Jewish life in Germany in the digital space. This digitization project, which is initially scheduled to run for two years, is expected to produce around 500,000 digitized items by 2026. The digitization of the family collections will also continue after 2026.

The family collections bear witness to Jewish life as well as life in society as a whole, but also to marginalization, persecution, exile and new beginnings. The thematic focus is on bourgeois life in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic, the First World War, synagogues, business and economic history, Jewish sport, Jewish student associations, schools and other Jewish institutions, hachshara camps to prepare for emigration, emigration, life in exile, persecution during the Nazi era as well as the post-war period with the rebuilding and restarting of communities, life in the camps for displaced persons, the return of individuals from exile and the life of Jews in both parts of Germany and after 1989 in the reunified country. They are therefore not only an important source for research into Jewish history and culture in Germany, but with their personal stories they also offer points of reference for the JMB's educational work, for example in guided tours, workshops or school visits.