The Marc Chagall Materials Series is made up of records documenting Chagall and Ronch's friendship. The donor, Ronch's son, included a handful of books about the history of Jewish arts and identity in Russia to contextualize Chagall's work with Itzik Feffer, which led to his first meeting with Ronch.
The Landsmanshaften Book Series includes a signed copy of the book Di Yiddishe Landsmanshaften foon New York (The Jewish Landsmanshaften of New York), as well as papers relating to the creation of the Landsmanshaften book.
The Writings Series consists of Ronch's creative and journalistic writings. Books include books of prose and poetry, primarily written in Yiddish. Ronch's two serialized novels are preserved as compilations of newspaper clippings placed in composition books.
The Collected Publications Series is made up of three publications (or photocopies of publications) found in Ronch's papers: a 1902 issue of the periodical Di Yiddishe Familie, which includes an article by Sholem Asch, the 1982 Bulletin of the Reuben Brainin Children's Clinic in Tel Aviv, and photocopied pages of a Holocaust Memorial/Yizkor Book for Konin that includes likely relatives of Ronch under the surname Ronchkovski.
The Correspondence Series consists of a single postcard from Sol Liptzin, a scholar of Yiddish and German literature.
The Photographs Series includes photos of Ronch with his students at the Chicago shul where he taught, photos of Ronch giving lectures at Camp Kinderland and Camp Lakeland, and photos of Ronch with as-yet unidentified colleagues sometime in the 1930s.
The Clippings and Ephemera Series comprises newspaper clippings and ephemera relating to Ronch's activities or colleagues, as well as a obituaries for Ronch.
Isaac Elchanan Ronch was born in Konin, Poland in 1899. As a young man, he immigrated to the US, initially settling in Chicago. He began writing for the Morning Freiheit, a leftist Yiddish newspaper, as well as the English-language publication Jewish Currents. Though he had planned to pursue a career in medicine, a shortage of teachers in Chicago's Yiddish shules motivated him to teach at the Douglas Park Arbeter Ring's shul, instead.
Ronch later moved to New York, where he lived in the Bronx Cooperative Colony until 1963. He continued teaching and also gave lectures at Camp Kinderland and Camp Lakeland, retreats for children and adults to immerse themselves in Yiddish culture and education. In 1938, Ronch helped edit Di Yiddish Landsmanshaften foon New York, a survey and history of Jewish immigrant mutual aid societies in New York sponsored by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Writers' Project.
In 1943, Soviet Jewish writer Lt. Col. Itzik Feffer introduced Ronch to Belarussian-French artist Marc Chagall. The two men became good friends. Ronch frequently wrote about Chagall; in 1967, he published Di velt foon Marc Chagall (The World of Marc Chagall), a book documenting the two men's friendship and Chagall's life in New York. Following the death of Chagall's wife Bella, Ronch helped Chagall edit and posthumously publish her book, Brenendike Licht (Burning Lights).
Throughout his life, Ronch wrote and published Yiddish poems, novels, essays, and short stories. He was often inspired by nature, and advocated for the preservation of Yiddish language and culture within leftist immigrant spaces.
Ronch died in 1985 at the age of 86.
