PHILADELPHIA — For most of his life, whenever Peter H. Schweitzer browsed flea markets and antique shops, he would pause lovingly over stuff others ignored.

They were tchotchkes — Yiddish for bric-a-brac — nothing more.

But to Schweitzer they were tiny milestones of Jewish American history, symbols of transformation from immigrants to citizens, players in U.S. society.

And irresistible.

Thursday night, Schweitzer, a 52-year-old New York social worker and rabbi, formally handed over his collection — 10,000 items accumulated over a quarter of a century of hunting — to its new home: the National Museum of American Jewish History on Independence Mall.

Gwen Goodman, executive director of the museum in Philadelphia, called the Schweitzer collection a rarity and said "these objects that connect people and places while reflecting Jewish experiences in America will enable us to best tell our story."

To call Schweitzer's gift large is an understatement. Museum spokesman Jay E. Nachman estimated that Schweitzer has doubled the number of items in the collection.

To be sure, there are many artifacts of Jewish religion and ritual, such as a finely woven ark curtain, tallis bags used to hold Jewish prayer shawls, and an illuminated "ketubah," or parchment marriage certificate.

But mostly it is the stuff of daily life of a community in transition: a Yiddish typewriter; posters advertising early Yiddish variety acts and boxers; school yearbooks and photos; containers for specialty consumer goods sold in early Jewish neighborhoods; neon clocks from delis advertising kosher sausage, souvenirs from Jewish resorts in New York's Catskill Mountains.

Alone, many items look like flea-market fodder. Which is why Schweitzer insists the collection be viewed as a whole.

"The Jewish experience is more than religion," said Schweitzer. "It is also secular and cultural. I think (it) embraces language, it speaks of food and politics and places. ... It's all part of a larger fabric."

Schweitzer said polls show half of American Jews say they are secular or nonobservant. He said that's why he believes a museum focusing on the history of daily U.S. Jewish life can be a unifying force for secular, Orthodox, Conservative or Reform Jews.

"For many Jewish families," Schweitzer said, "the weekly pilgrimage to the deli may have been as sacred as the one to the synagogue."

Schweitzer is a rabbi for the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism in New York and works as a clinical social worker for the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services.

He said he decided to donate the collection partly out of necessity — marriage five years ago brought a spouse, a stepdaughter and then a son into his Upper West Side apartment — and partly out of a concern for the collection's future.

Schweitzer said he decided to donate his collection to the Philadelphia museum after discussions with scholars with whom he had worked on books and exhibits.

The collection will arrive at the museum in mid-November, and officials hope to stage a preliminary public exhibit before construction begins.

Schweitzer said he is looking forward to it: "After all, I've never seen it all in one place."