the magazine of the center for jewish history · 2017-06-06 · center for jewish history published...
TRANSCRIPT
Inside…
Fall/Winter 2004/2005 | Volume 1, Issue 2
From the Executive Director 2
Chairman’s Report 3
I.B. Singer: An American-Jewish Journey 4
The Center and the Scholars 6
Lawyers Without Rights 7
Center Newswire 8–11
Brazil: The Hidden “Jewish” State 13
The Early Days of the HadassahMedical Organization 14
Development News 16
CENTER FOR JEWISH HISTORY
T H E M A G A Z I N E O F T H E C E N T E R F O R J E W I S H H I S T O R Y
I.B. SINGER
An American-Jewish JourneyI.B. SINGER
An American-Jewish JourneyI.B. SINGER
An American-Jewish JourneyI.B. SINGER
An American-Jewish JourneyI.B. SINGER
An American-Jewish Journey
see page 4
lished in 1817. I wondered, didmy grandfather read this book?
The Center for JewishHistory is rooted in the ques-tion. Our resources providescholars, students and the gen-eral public the opportunity tolook for answers, explore newunderstandings and finallyshare with the public theirobservations and conclusions.Our partner organizations pro-vide daily programming thattransports audiences to the farreaches of the Jewish world,both in time and in space. Inone week in October, I wentfrom Emilia-Romanga in Italy,to Teheran and Shiras in Iran,to Warsaw and Cracow inPoland! And now, in a new ini-tiative begun last month, theCenter is broadcasting itsunparalleled programming tocommunities across the coun-try through state-of-the-artvideo conferencing, enablingaudiences on college campuses,in Jewish community centers,and in synagogues and church-es to participate (at low cost)in programs that would other-wise be beyond their reach.
Enjoy this issue of TheJewish Experience and help usto maintain this jewel of theJewish people. Visit us whenyou visit New York and visit usonline at www.cjh.org.
treasure that is housed here atthe Center. The partner collec-tions are unparalleled, and arebeing preserved and protectedfor today’s scholars and forthose of the decades and cen-turies to come.
The Center’s commemo-ration of the 350th anniver-sary of American Jewry willnot be an exercise in self-con-gratulation. Rather, it will pro-vide a provocative encounterwith our past. Visitors willlikely find themselves askingas many questions as the exhi-bition committee sought toanswer as it planned the com-memoration. What is reallyimportant to examine and por-tray in this centuries-longstory? Who are the heroes ofthis story, and what makestheir lives heroic?
Last June I had the privi-lege of standing in my grandfa-ther’s footsteps in Kovno,Lithuania. As I walked the
ver the past year, therehas rarely been a day
when I have not met or spokenwith someone who has an excit-ing new idea for the Center for Jewish History. One wishesto collect autobiographies ofNorth American Jews,another their photo-graphs, yet anothertheir home movies; weshould hold a confer-ence on the Jewishrole in the Americantheatre; we shouldexhibit the contribu-tions of the SovietJewish soldiers to theRed Army during theSecond World War; weshould have programshighlighting American Jewishwriters, artists and musicians;or the Jewish role in medicine,law and business…and theideas never stop.
This coming May, 2005,the American Jewish HistoricalSociety will lead the Center’sefforts in celebrating the chal-lenges and achievements of350 years of the AmericanJewish experience. All of theCenter’s partner organizationsare committed to plumbingtheir collections for their mostinteresting and exciting hold-ings and sharing them withthe public. We hope that youwill plan to visit us betweenMay 15 and August 15, 2005 tosee for yourself the wealth and
streets of his childhood, I wondered what it took for ayoung rabbi to decide to leavehis family and birthplace in1903, and make his way withhis wife and two small childrento America. What could he haveknown that lent sufficientsecurity to his decision?
In Vilna the next day,the questions continued. Wasthe relationship with Americaa one-way street? Did Jewsleave Vilna and Kovno never toreturn physically or spiritually?If so, why was I so drawn?Why did I feel so attached?What was it about my grandfa-ther’s own education andupbringing that made his tran-sition to America so success-ful? Was there something inthe relationship between Jewsand Christians that preparedhim to willingly participate in the tolerant and mutuallyrespectful atmosphere ofAtlanta, Georgia, where hemade his home for 60 years? Ihad been taught that Americawas a completely new begin-ning for Eastern EuropeanJewry in the early years of the20th century… but was it?
When I returned to theCenter for Jewish History, Dr.Brad Sabin Hill, Dean of theYIVO library, took me into therare book room and showed mea one-of-a-kind volume, in Yiddish, describing America tothe Eastern European Jew, pub-
From the Executive Director
O
Peter A. Geffen
2
STA
NLE
Y B
ERG
MA
N
Left to right: Struggle for Soviet Jewry poster, 1964; Sabato Morais, 1823-1897; Letter to Benjamin Peixotto, 1839-1890, U.S. Council to Romania; Molly Picon
in “Circus Girl,” 1928. All images from the Timeline, courtesy of American Jewish Historical Society.
33
B OA R D O F D I R E C TO R SBruce Slovin, Chair
Joseph D. Becker, Vice ChairKenneth J. Bialkin, Vice ChairErica Jesselson, Vice Chair
Joseph Greenberger, SecretaryMichael A. Bamberger
Norman BelmonteGeorge Blumenthal
Eva B. CohnDavid Dangoor
Henry L. FeingoldMax Gitter
Michael JesselsonSidney Lapidus
Leon LevyTheodore N. MirvisNancy T. PolevoyRobert RifkindDavid Solomon
B OA R D O F OV E R S E E R SWilliam A. AckmanStanley I. BatkinJoseph D. Becker
Kenneth J. BialkinLeonard BlavatnikGeorge BlumenthalArturo Constantiner
Mark GoldmanJoan L. Jacobson
Ira H. JollesHarvey M. Krueger
Sidney LapidusLeon Levy
Ira A. LipmanTheodore N. MirvisJoseph H. ReichRobert S. Rifkind
Stephen RosenbergBernard SelzBruce SlovinMary Smart
Edward L. SteinbergJoseph S. SteinbergMichele Cohn Tocci
Roy Zuckerberg
Peter A. Geffen, Executive Director
STA F FIra Berkowitz,
Chief Financial Officer
Robert Friedman, Director, Geneology Institute
Tamara Moscowitz, Director of Public Relations
Diane Spielmann, Ph.D.Director, the Lillian Goldman
Reading Room
Bob Sink, Chief Archivist and Project Director
Lynne Winters, Director of Program Production
Natalia Indrimi, Program Curator
Stuart Chizzik, Associate Director of Development
PA R T N E R I N ST I T U T I O N SAmerican Jewish Historical Society
David Solomon, Interim Executive Director
American Sephardi FederationEsme Berg, Executive Director
Leo Baeck InstituteCarol Kahn Strauss, Executive Director
Yeshiva University MuseumSylvia A. Herskowitz, Director
YIVO Institute for Jewish ResearchCarl J. Rheins, Executive Director
AC A D E M I C A DV I S O RY CO U N C I L
Elisheva Carlebach, Co-ChairQueens College
Michael A. Meyer, Co-ChairHebrew Union College
Robert ChazanNew York University
Todd EndelmanUniversity of Michigan
Henry L. FeingoldBaruch College
David FishmanJewish Theological Seminary
Ernest FrerichsBrown University
Jane GerberGraduate Center of the City
University of New York
Deborah Dash MooreVassar College
Lawrence H. SchiffmanNew York University
Jeffrey ShandlerRutgers University
Paul ShapiroUnited States Holocaust
Memorial Museum
Chava WeisslerLehigh University
Beth S. WengerUniversity of Pennsylvania
Steven J. ZippersteinStanford University
Editor: Jay Michaelson
Managing Editor: Tamara Moscowitz
The Jewish Experience is madepossible, in part, with the generous support of the
Liman Foundation.
Design: Flyleaf
From theChairman
Published by Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011212-294-8301 fax: 212-294-8302
website: www.cjh.org
he Center for Jewish Historyis growing at an astonishing
pace. Last year alone, we hostednearly 4,500 scholars, writers,artists, and academics, while ourevents and exhibitions attractedover 45,000 visitors. More tangibly,we are proud to announce the com-pletion of six additional floors to properly house and preserve ourpriceless archival collections, thus achieving the aims of ourfounders: to become the central address for all those interested inJewish history and culture. And the best is yet to come.
Thanks to the enthusiasm of the Center’s committed staff,and the generosity of our donors, we have undertaken an array ofnew initiatives, including the high quality digitization of the Cen-ter’s collections of images on our website, www.cjh.org, andvideoconference-based attendance at the Center’s superb publicprograms, allowing audiences in every region of the United Statesto participate in these events. The generous assistance of city,state, and federal officials, as well as the many individuals andfoundations, has strengthened our resolve and has enabled us toestablish the Center for Jewish History as an essential part of NewYork’s wonderfully diverse cultural life. (See page 16 “Develop-ment News” for details.)
This issue of “The Jewish Experience” has a feature essayrelated to each of our five partners’ upcoming exhibits, which rep-resent a wonderful breadth of subject matters and time periods. Inaddition to two exhibits celebrating the Isaac Bashevis Singer cen-tenary, the coming months will see the openings of “LawyersWithout Rights,” (Leo Baeck Institute), “For the Health of Israel,”(Hadassah and AJHS) and, now on view, “Pernambuco, Brazil: Gateway to New York” (American Sephardi Federation and YeshivaUniversity Museum).
We were honored to be selected by Governor George E. Pata-ki to host, last September 9, the official state reception markingthe 350th Anniversary of Jewish settlers in America. There will bemany more celebrations of the 350th anniversary taking placeacross the land this coming year. But it is only fitting that theCenter for Jewish History, which brings together sources andmaterials from every Jewish ethnic community in recent history— Lodz to Los Angeles, Montevideo to Marrakech — will bemounting the grandest exhibition of them all: “From Haven toHome,” sponsored by the Congressionally appointed Commissionon the 350th Anniversary. The exhibit will integrate documents,photographs, and objects from the vast archival holdings of all thepartners, as well as items from the American Jewish HistoricalSociety on loan to the Library of Congress.
At such an exciting time, your support for the Center for Jewish History is vital. I hope that we will continue to be able tocount on you as we enrich the future of the Jewish community byperpetuating the knowledge of its proud past.
T
FRED
CH
AR
LES
Near right: I.B. and Alma
Singer in Manhattan, 1978
(Jack Smith). Far right:
Yiddish P.E.N. Club ID
card, 1935. Accredited in
1926, the Yiddish P.E.N.
Club, was the first branch of the organization dedicated to a
minority literature. Photos courtesy of The Harry Ransom
Humanities Research Center.
4
his fall, the Center for Jewish History celebratesthe centennial of one of the most famous Jewish
writers of all time, as it hosts multiple exhibits on the life andwork of Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Singer’s many colorful novels and stories eventually wonhim the Nobel Prize for literature. Yet had it not been for aunique relationship with the Jewish Daily Forward, Singer mightnever have become an American, let alone an American writerwho created many works now in our country’s literary canon.Singer’s curious relationship to the Forward (or, in its Yiddishpronunciation, the Forverts) is a fascinating tale, and it is onethat illustrates that even as Singer became world-famous, heremained a thoroughly Jewish writer to the end.
Singer landed on these shores in 1935, arriving with thehelp of his brother, Israel Joshua Singer, who was then on thestaff of the Forward. Six months after he arrived, the buddingwriter applied for an extension of his visa. He was denied. It wasonly when the paper’s editorial staff, led by Abraham Cahan,wrote to the Commissioner of Immigration on Singer’s behalfthat he was permitted to stay in the country where he wouldultimately flourish.
The letter which won Singer his visa — and, by extension,won America one of its most engaging writers — is on display aspart of “Becoming an American Writer: The Life and Work of Isaac Bashevis Singer,” an exhibit sponsored by the Yeshiva University Museum, which incorporates a cornucopia of Singerparaphernalia, ranging from family photographs and passportsto Singer’s Yiddish typewriter, with which he allegedly main-tained a kind of supernatural relationship. (“If this typewriterdoesn’t like a story, it refuses to work,” he once said.)
“The visitor to this exhibition will be pulled into Singer’s lifethrough photographs of scenes from his childhood, portraits ofhim posing with other Yiddish writers, and family pictures,” saidKatharina Feil, curator at the Yeshiva University Museum.
Singer’s journey into the pantheon of American writers
likely began in 1953, when the literary critic Irving Howe wasgiven a copy of his story “Gimpel the Fool,” which Howe per-suaded the novelist Saul Bellow to translate. Within a short time,editors from the country’s most prestigious publications, includ-ing The New Yorker and Harper’s, were knocking on Singer’s door.Eventually, in 1977, he won the Nobel Prize for literature.
Even then, as he stood on the podium in Norway, and untilhis death in 1991, Singer continued to contribute to the paperthat gave him his first audience.
In its heyday, the Forward, with a circulation of well over200,000, was the voice of the Jewish immigrant in America. Thepaper, which was then a daily, saw as its mission to help thesenewcomers adapt into American society while maintaining theirconnection to Jewish life and culture. As a member of its staff,Singer was purveyor of this process, yet he became a beneficiaryof it as well.
At the start of his career at the Forward, Singer, like manyaspiring writers, contributed an assortment of journalisticpieces, as the artifacts in this exhibition show — from humaninterest stories (“What Studies Have Uncovered About TalentedChildren”) and news pieces (“English Jews Fought As Heroes,Died as Martyrs In York Pogrom”) to social commentary andadvice columns (“Why Men and Women Divorce — No Rules Butthe Cases Are Interesting”). And he employed a coterie of pseu-donyms, including “Yitskhok Varshavski” and “D. Segal.”
These pieces assured Singer a regular readership, one thatwould mature with him throughout his career. Nearly his entireoeuvre was serialized in the Forward, including articles and storiesthat later made it into the pages of The New Yorker, Harper’s andPlayboy. The exhibit offers a fascinating window into Singer’s rela-tionship with the paper, including his scrapbook with clippings ofthe serialization of “Di Familye Mushkat,” which appearedbetween 1945 to 1948 in the Forward and was translated into Eng-
T
I.B. SINGERAn American-Jewish Journeyby Alana Newhouse
35
lish as “The Family Moskat” in1950, as well as a 1963 awardfrom the Jewish Book Councilfor “The Slave,” which ran inthe paper in 1961.
After the work appearedin the Forward, Singer worked
with a bevy of translators toshape his prose into English,and he termed these versions“second originals” because, ashe admitted, the revisions nec-essary to capture the subtletiesevoked in Yiddish could beextensive. To some in the Yid-dish cultural community, thenotion of evoking the world ofEastern European Jewry in alanguage other than Yiddish
was a betrayal, but many others,fearful that Yiddish was indeedexperiencing its twilight, con-cluded that translation was theonly way to ensure a future forthese stories.
To be sure, even in translation, Singer’s writingremained soaked in yiddishkeit.In the words of Sylvia Her-skowitz, Executive Director ofthe Yeshiva University Museum,“Like the demons in MauriceSendak’s Night Kitchen, themysticism and folklore that I.B.Singer inhaled in the fervid airof the shtetl permeated the sto-ries and characters he inventedin postwar America.”
Singer himself seems tohave had rather nuanced viewson the matter of language and culture. Though he activelyparticipated in the translationof his work, he maintainedthat Yiddish “contains vita-mins that other languagesdon’t have.” Crucially, through-out his long, successful career,Singer never abandoned theYiddish language or Jewishculture. The Forward was notonly Singer’s entry pass toAmerican culture; as theexhibit at the Center shows, itwas a continuous source ofnourishment for him — and hisreaders as well.
Alana Newhouse is Arts &Letters editor of the Forward.
Dust jacket of the first edition of
I.J. Singer’s The Brothers Ashkenazi,
translated by Maurice Samuel and
published by Knopf in 1936. Photo
courtesy of The Harry Ransom
Humanities Research Center.
YESHIVA UNIVERSITY MUSEUMBecoming An American Writer: The Life and Work of Isaac Bashevis Singer is a traveling exhibition, partof the Isaac Bashevis Singer Centen-nial directed by The Library ofAmerica. On view at the Center forJewish History from November 16,2004 to January 16, 2005, theexhibit explores the immigrant literary experience, and showcasesSinger’s life through early photo-graphs and book covers of some ofhis most celebrated works. Orga-
nized in conjunction with the Library ofAmerica’s publication of a three-volume edition ofSinger’s collected stories and a fully illustrated compan-ion An Album, the exhibit is made possible by a generousgrant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Singer in Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, 1966.
Stefan Congrat-Butlar. Photo courtesy of The Harry Ransom Humani-
ties Research Center.
YIVO GALLERYOpening November 15, 2004, The Family Singer will explore the livesand talent of the Singer family,including the patriarch, PinhasMenahem Singer, a noted rabbinicauthor; the brothers I.J. and I.B.Singer; as well as Singer’s sister,Esther. Photographs and personaldocuments will be on display.
Book jacket of Deborah by Esther Kreitman,
Photo courtesy YIVO Archives.
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER IN FILMPresented by Yeshiva University Museum and YIVO
• November 22, 7pm Isaac In America, 1986, dir. Amram NowakIntroduced by Allan L. Nadler, Drew University
• December 13, 7 pmThe Cafeteria, 1984, dir. Amram NowakIntroduced by Allan L. Nadler, Drew University
• January 10, 7 pmEnemies: A Love Story, 1989, dir. Paul MazurskyIntroduced by Jeremy Dauber, Columbia UniversityPresented by YIVO
Celebrating the I.B. Singer Centennial
Singer (rear center) with other Yiddish writers in Warsaw during the 1930s.
Left to right: K. Molodovsky, Y Kirman, Y. Opatoshu, A. Zeitlin, M. Ravitch.
Photo courtesy of The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.
6
lthough the Center for Jewish History hosts numerous pop-ular programs for Jewish and general audiences in New
York, its fundamental purpose is to serve the national and inter-national community of Jewish scholars, especially modern Jewishhistorians. We historians had long felt the need for a single insti-tution that brings together under one roof so many of the archivaland literary resources we require for our work. We also welcomedthe establishment of the Center because of its possibilities for conducting our research in anenvironment conducive to thescope of our scholarship. Here,veteran and, especially, youngerscholars are able to interact withtheir counterparts studying Amer-ican, German, East European orSephardic Jewish history. Theresults are a mutual fructificationand a synergy that inspire betterscholarship and a deepening ofAmerican Jewish culture.
To explore these possibili-ties, and to establish a frameworkfor furthering them, the AcademicAdvisory Council of the Center wasestablished. Today it consists offifteen members who serve on thefaculty and staffs of leading aca-demic and research institutions,among them Stanford University,the University of Pennsylvania,the University of Michigan, NewYork University, the Jewish Theo-logical Seminary, and the UnitedStates Holocaust Memorial Muse-um. We are a diverse group —seasoned scholars and younger his-torians, men and women from various sections of the country whowork in one or another of the fields represented by the Center.
The Council’s principal function is to provide an academicperspective: to advise, propose, and evaluate. Because we knowthe needs of Jewish scholars, we are in a position to suggest tothe Center how to create the best environment for its ReadingRoom, make the most effective use of its resources, and createprograms that will win the approval and support of the scholar-ly community. Together with the Association for Jewish Studies,whose national office has recently been established at the Cen-ter, we provide an essential link to the large and growingcommunity of Jewish scholars.
Toward that end, we have initiated programs that raise theCenter’s profile among our colleagues and in the Jewish world.For example, shortly after the Center opened, the Council organ-ized a major academic conference entitled “Centers of Modern
Jewish Studies,” which drew both university professors and ageneral audience. It highlighted the vistas for integrated studyof various aspects of the modern Jewish experience that the Cen-ter laid open before us.
The most remarkable success of the Council lies in its fel-lowship and seminar program. Each year a few outstandinggraduate students are selected to receive fellowships that enablethem to pursue their doctoral research at the Center. They utilizeits rich resources, often in more than one of the Center partners’collections. Fellows’ responsibilities include the delivery of aresearch paper at seminars open to all members of the Centercommunity and conducted by a senior scholar. By attending theseminars and by presenting their own research to the critical eyesof others, the fellows develop a capacity for creative criticism andlearn to make effective oral presentations. As they encountereach other informally during their stay at the Center, the
fellows are able to discuss research techniques and gain a broaderunderstanding of fields adjacent totheir own. Thus the Center serves asan important venue for the trainingof future Jewish historians who will preserve and transmit a livingheritage.
At the regularly held meet-ings of the Council, and throughour committees, the Councilexplores new opportunities forenhancing the work of the Center.We are currently engaged in plan-ning the Center’s commemorationof the 350th anniversary of Jew-ish settlement in America. We arediscussing a scholar-in-residenceprogram, which would enablejunior and senior historians tospend a semester or a year at theCenter in order to consult withstaff and advise the graduatefellows while pursuing their ownresearch. We are exploring theuse of video conferences, and aneffective use of prizes toencourage research and publi-
cation. We are also seeking to learn from other, longerestablished institutions, such as Washington’s Holocaust Muse-um, about how we can become a bridge connecting archivaltreasures, scholars, and the public.
The Center, with its rich and diverse collections ofresources, is an unparalleled venture in the history of Jewishscholarship. The Academic Council is devoted to transformingthese resources from historical documents and museum artifactsinto writings and presentations that will combine scholarship onthe highest level with relevance to the creative development ofAmerican Jewish culture.
Michael A. Meyer (Hebrew Union College) and Elisheva Carlebach (Queens College) are co-chairs of the Center’s AcademicAdvisory Council
A
The Lillian Goldman Reading Room
MIC
HA
EL L
UPP
INO
The Center and the Scholarsby Michael A. Meyer and Elisheva Carlebach
continued on page 12
37
Lawyers Without RightsJews and the Rule of Law Under the Third Reichby Carol Kahn Strauss
On April 7, 1933, shortly after assuming power, Adolf Hitlerordered all non-Aryan attorneys to be relieved of their civil serv-ice positions, including university professorships and adminis-trative positions throughout the legal system. The effect wasdevastating: at the time of the proclamation, there were almost20,000 lawyers in Germany, and about half of them were Jewish.
The numbers, and the accomplishments, are staggering. InBerlin alone, there were 3,400 lawyers, of whom approxi-mately 2,000 were Jewish. Jews who had been trainedas jurists worked as teachers, judges, notaries,administrators, and trial advocates. They wereexperts in commercial law, contracts law, laborlaw, penal law, family law and civil procedure.They developed theories of sociology and thelaw, pioneered modern concepts of women’srights, and expanded the definitions of free speech. All of these were subsequentlydenounced as “Jewish perversions” by the Nazis.
How had Jews become so numerous in theGerman legal profession?
One possible reason is ideological: throughout Jewish history, the rule of law was of central importance. TraditionalJudaism is a religion of law, whose important precepts, codes andguidelines are found in the Bible, the Talmud, and rabbinic deci-sions. In the traditional Jewish view, law is holy and a necessarypart of religious life.
A second reason was practical. Secular law — the legal sys-tems of the nations in which Jews lived — also mattered to Jews,especially during the 19th century when, with the onset ofemancipation, the state regulated almost all of their activities.Jews were enmeshed in legal systems whether they were reli-gious or not.
Finally, there is an economic reason, stemming from eman-cipation itself. By the 1850s, Jews throughout most of CentralEurope were able to participate in the judicial professions, even asthey were still barred from most academic pursuits. It was virtual-ly impossible for a Jew at that time to become a professor ofliterature — but he could be a doctor of laws. The result of allthese causes was a legal profession that was disproportionatelyinhabited and maintained by Jews — a fact not lost on the Nazis.
The effects of the 1933 ruling were seismic. German judges,like their British and American counterparts, receive the sameeducation whether headed for private practice or governmentwork. After graduation, however, German judges work their wayup through the judicial system, much like any other civil servant, rather than being chosen after experience in the privatesector. Consequently, one year after the law was passed, there
were 10,000 immediate vacancies in the judicial system,and twice that number of openings throughout
the legal profession, all waiting to be filled bynon-Jews.
Perhaps surprisingly, most of the disbarred Jewish lawyers did not immediate-ly leave Germany. They thought the shockwas temporary, and feared the difficulty ofrelearning the law in another country —
particularly America, whose legal system isderived from English common law, in contrast
to Germany’s foundations in Roman law. Lan-guage also presented a problem; Greek and Latin
were more familiar to many German jurists than English.As a result, most Jewish lawyers stayed and worked in
whatever capacity they could. As one Dr. Ludwig Bendix wroteto his clients, “I had to give up my activities as lawyer andnotary, however, having practiced and studied German law mywhole life, I feel so closely linked with German law that even ifit were only for this innermost idealistic reason, I have to con-tinue my activities within the new framework that remainsunder current legislation.”
Dr. Bendix became a “legal advisor” or rechtsberater, oftenthe last resort of many Jewish lawyers. Such activities led to aspecial statute to curtail even this attempt to survive: the “Law
Lawyers
Without
Rights
Exhibition
December 5, 2004 –
February 28, 2005
Convention of Lawyers in Duesseldorf, 1949, (Bild Berichte; Berben-Binder,
Dusseldorf). Photo courtesy of Leo Baeck Institute.
8
Celebrating 350Years of Jewish Life
in America
Nineteen teens from the New York
metropolitan area worked side by
side with scholars, curators, and
professional genealogists to
research their family’s history using
the Center’s vast archival collection
and library. (E) Participants view a
cloth wimpel, used as a ritual object
in German Jewish communities, in a
workshop with Yeshiva University
Museum curator Gabriel Goldstein;
(F) Samberg students on their way
to Ellis Island, July 15, 2004;
(G) Dylan Suher wearing a
traditional robe at the Bukharian
Jewish Community Center,
July 28, 2004.
The Jews & Justice series is an
exploration of contemporary and
legal traditions of the Jewish people
and their relevance to current thinking and practice. Preceding each
panel discussion, The David Berg Foundation hosted a reception for
speakers and friends. Clockwise from above: (H) Suzanne Last Stone,
Professor of Law at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
(left), co-curator of the Jews & Justice series, with Michele Tocci, a
member of the Center’s Board of Overseers and President of The David
Berg Foundation, underwriters of the program; (I) Left to right:
Professors Elaine Pagels (Princeton University), Abdulaziz Sachedina
(University of Virginia) and David Berger (Brooklyn College and the
Graduate Center at the City University of New York), panelists for
“Tolerance: The Perspectives of Religious Traditions,” June 22, 2004;
(J) Russell G. Pearce (left), Professor of Law, Fordham University Law
School and co-curator of the Jews & Justice series with Peter A. Geffen,
Executive Director of the Center and Edward Rothstein, New York Times
reporter and moderator of the "The Passion" panel February 26, 2004
Governor George E. Pataki
hosts a reception to
celebrate the start of the
350 Anniversary of Jewish
Settlers in North America
with 200 friends and
colleagues at the Center
on September 9, 2004.
(A) Sidney Lapidus,
President of the American
Jewish Historical Society;
State Assemblyman Ryan Scott Karben; Governor
George E. Pataki; and Center Chairman Bruce Slovin;
(B) Sidney Lapidus accepts the State’s Proclamation from Governor George E. Pataki; (C) Peter
A. Geffen, Executive Director of the Center with Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Executive Vice President
of the New York Board of Rabbis.
Jews & Justice
Samberg Family History Program
A
E
F
G
H
I
J
“This program reallygot me interested in Judaism andgenealogy. It was agreat way to spendthree weeks.”
Senator Arlen SpecterVisitsDignitaries and political officials often visit the Center to view the
magnificent collections of the partner organizations. Chairman Bruce
Slovin escorted Senator Specter and his wife, Joan on October 4, 2004.
(D) Left to right: Bruce Slovin, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (PA), Joan
Specter, and Yeshiva University Museum Director Sylvia Herskowitz.
October 4, 2004.
C
SIM
ON
A A
RU
SIM
ON
A A
RU
SIM
ON
A A
RU
B
Center Newswire Events
MEL
AN
IE E
INZI
G
MEL
AN
IE E
INZI
G
MEL
AN
IE E
INZI
G
MEL
AN
IE E
INZI
G
SHIR
A K
OH
N
SHIR
A K
OH
N
MEL
AN
IE E
INZI
G
D
9
A reception for over 200 guests was
held on April 1 for the opening of
Luminous Manuscript, a large-scale
work by Diane Samuels installed in
the Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg
Great Hall at the Center. The
reception also honored Michele Oka Doner, who created the Center's first
public art commission, Biblical Species. Clockwise from far left: (K) Guests
explore Luminous Manuscript, a mosaic tablet twenty-two feet high and
twenty feet in width, made of engraved crystal clear Starphire glass, individually hand-mounted over
Jerusalem stone tiles. (L) Please touch the art: Elizabeth Kingsley explores Luminous Manuscript.
(M) A meditative moment shared by Board of Overseers Chairman Bruce Slovin (right) with colleague and
benefactor, Joseph S. Steinberg; (N) Biblical Species, terrazzo floor by artist Michele Oka Doner;
(O) Detail from Luminous Manuscript;
(P) Sculptor
Michele Oka
Doner;
(Q) Michele Oka
Doner (left),
Bruce Slovin,
Diane Samuels,
Joseph S.
and Diane H.
Steinberg.
See Development News for further information on page 16.
L M
K
PQ
W
Luminous Manuscriptand Biblical Species
N
O
SIM
ON
A A
RU
SIM
ON
A A
RU
SIM
ON
A A
RU
SIM
ON
A A
RU
SIM
ON
A A
RU
SIM
ON
A A
RU
Diaspora: Homelands in Exile at the United Nations
JOSH
UA
KES
SLER
S
TU
MATH
ILD
E D
AM
ELE
MATH
ILD
E D
AM
ELE
On June 21, the Center for Jewish History and the Department of Information
at the United Nations hosted a reception for an exhibition of selected works
of French photographer Frédéric Brenner. The photographs were on view
in conjunction with the United Nations' historic seminar, “Confronting Anti-
Semitism: Education for Tolerance and Understanding.” Below left: (R) Frédéric
Brenner (left) and admirer. Clockwise from near right: (S) Chaikhana, Teahouse
(Frédéric Brenner), 1990. Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC;
(T) Raymond Sommeryns (left), Director
of Outreach Division of the Department of
Information at the United Nations; and
Frédéric Brenner; (U) Dr. Ruth Westheimer
and Bruce Slovin; (V) Peter Geffen
introducing Frédéric Brenner; (W) Guests
browse through the catalogue Diaspora:
Homelands in Exile, a collection of
Brenner’s photographs of Jewish lives in
different parts of the world, taken over a
25-year period. R
MATH
ILD
E D
AM
ELE
MATH
ILD
E D
AM
ELE
ESK
INE
DEB
E
10
Exhibitions
Center Newswire Recent Programs
Performance
H
I
K
B
Clockwise from far left:
(A) Intriguing Women •
Martha Kaestner on a
bicycle. The pioneering
achievements of
Jewish women in
modern times covered
a wide field from social
welfare, to the arts, to
medicine and physics. A tribute to their creativity, brilliance, and
ingenuity was shown through personal correspondence, books,
unpublished manuscripts, and rare documents. (Leo Baeck Institute);
(B) Pioneers, Superstars and Journeymen in Major League Baseball,
1871-2004 • Through December 30, 2004. (American Jewish
Historical Society) (C) Archie Rand: Iconoclast • Day One, “Seven
Days of Creation” (1966) was one of the
works on display by Archie Rand, an artist
whose body of work draws on sources
ranging from pop art to Biblical subjects.
(Yeshiva University Museum) (D) Covers &
Sheets: Early 20th Century Yiddish Sheet
Music • These rare materials from the
YIVO Collection represented popular
Yiddish songs from the turn of the
century, when Jewish migration to
America reached its peak. (YIVO)
(E) Jewish Costumes in the Ottman
Empire – The Sephardim & The Turks;
Living Together for 500 years •
March 31 – May 15, 2004. (American
Sephardi Federation) (F) The Other
Modigliani – A Life of Peace and
Democracy • An exhibition on loan from
the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome,
The Other Modigliani examined the life
and work of Guiseppe Emanuele (Mené)
Modigliani, one of Italy's earliest socialists
and union leaders, who was elected to Parliament. Shown here:
Mené leaving the United States after a triumphant lecture tour,
as he listens to members of Local 89, Ladies Garment Workers
Union singing “Bread & Roses” from the pier. (Centro Culturale
Primo Levi) (G) Mené and his wife Vera.
C
A
E
F
G
Clockwise from top: (H) Between Two Worlds: The
Dybbuk, one of the most popular plays in Jewish
theater, was performed in an award-winning adaptation
for adult puppet theater, produced by Tears of Joy
Theater and Mark Levenson, February 19-21, 2004
(Yeshiva University Museum) (I & J) A staged reading
of The Last Days of Mankind, written between 1915 and
1922 by the great satirist Karl Kraus, the work explores
various aspects to the nature of war and the media’s
response. A work considered by many to be a
precursor to contemporary thinking on global conflict.
Left to right: Actors Robert Zuckerman and Emanuele
Secci, April 28 (co-presented by the Leo Baeck
Institute, the Centro Cultrale Primo Levi, KIT-Kairos
Italy Theater, and the Jewish Heritage Project.)
(K) The Jews of Iran, an evening of viewing the
pictorial history, “Esther’s Children,” with a slide
presentation by Houman Sashar and a concert
performance by Tania Eshaghoff (pictured here).
(American Sephardi Federation)
ARCH
IVIO
CEN
TRA
LE D
ELLO
STA
TO
ARCHIVIO CENTRALE DELLO STATO
SIM
ON
A A
RU
SIM
ON
A A
RU JSIM
ON
A A
RU
SIM
ON
A A
RU
LEO
BA
ECK
IN
STIT
UTE
AM
ERIC
AN
JEW
ISH
HIS
TOR
ICA
L SO
CIET
Y
AM
ERIC
AN
SEP
HA
RD
I FE
DER
ATI
ON
PHOTO: HENRI SILBERMAN
YES
HIV
A U
NIV
ERSI
TY M
USE
UM
YIV
O A
RCH
IVES
MEL
AN
IE E
INZI
G
SIM
ON
A A
RU
311
Symposium: Jerusalem ofthe North: Yiddish Montreal(N) Yiddish Montreal, Children from Yiddish-language
Peretz schools, Montreal, Canada (1930s). (YIVO)
Great Nights inthe Great Hall Summer film andconcert series attractsnearly 1,000 visitorsClockwise from top left: (O) Legendary
drummer Chico Hamilton; (P) Humorist Flash
Rosenberg; (Q) Special premiere of Rosenstrasse, film image courtesy of Samuel
Goldwyn Films; (R) Bill Crow, bassist and jazz historian; (S) The Loft on 28th Street,
a look at W. Eugene Smith’s archival photography, accompanied by a performance
with jazz historian Bill Crow
(T) Clarinetist Ken Peplowski
performed with John
“Bucky” Pizzarelli.
L
M
N
O
P
R
T
R
FilmsExpression and Exploration:
Paths of Jewish ArtistsMonday Night Film Series
(L) Pearl Lang in The Possessed, 1978;
(M) Berlin’s Jewish Museum: A Personal Tour with
Daniel Libeskind, 2000;
Q
BEN
ASE
N
MEL
AN
IE E
INZI
G
SIM
ON
A A
RU
LEO
BA
ECK
IN
STIT
UTE
YIV
O A
RCH
IVES
BEN
ESE
N
Lectures
S
12
Against the Abuse of LegalAdvice,” passed in late 1935.By Kristallnacht, November 9,1938, 173 so-called Jewish“legal consultants” remained.By 1945, only four of themwere still alive.
Ironically, just as thepurge of Jewish lawyersstripped the German legal profession of half of its practi-tioners, the legal complexitiesof Hitler’s reign were many. Forexample, Nazi racial policieswere extraordinarily complex,as arbitrary and ridiculous asthey were fierce. The Nurem-berg Laws of 1935 officiallydesignated a Jew as anyonewho was “more than 50 per-cent” Jewish — a seeminglysimple definition, but actuallyextremely complex. Medically,of course, Jews are not a race(a cultural concept which isnot scientific in any case). Andwith converts into and out ofJudaism, these “stiff-necked”people were exceedingly diffi-cult to identify. Converts toChristianity remained Jewsunder the Nazis, while the so-called mischlinge who had oneor more Jewish parents orgrandparents, were subsequent-ly categorized as half-Jews orquarter-Jews. The vague con-cept of “Jewish identity”included religion, heredity,nationality, and intent. Confu-sion ensued.
The German courtsupheld and interpreted theNuremberg Laws in ways thatwere inevitably detrimental toJews. For example, one case inMarch 1933 regarded a film pro-duction company, UFA, whichhad signed a contract with aJewish director (Eric Charell)for film rights to his novel. Fivedays after paying Charell thefirst installment, UFA withdrewthe contract, citing a clausethat declared the agreement
null and void in the case of thedirector’s “death, illness or asimilar reason.” The SupremeCourt agreed that, indeed, a“similar reason” had been pro-vided, since the new racialpolicies altered Charell’s legalstatus to the extent that theyprevented him from carryingout his duties.
The Charell case was aclear articulation of the civildeath of Jews, which tookplace long before their physi-cal annihilation, and served asa precedent for a variety ofdecisions by lower courts. Illegal termination of leases,employment contracts, pensionbenefits and many other formsof discrimination against Jewsin civil suits all became ration-alized under Nazi jurisprudence.No effort was spared to construeevery law as restrictively as pos-sible, to the detriment of Jews.
In reality, the Germanlegal system had been under-going a perversion of justiceeven before Hitler becameChancellor. There was a famousdecision by Germany’s SupremeCourt in 1925 that essentiallyruled that the interests of thestate stood above the law. Byimplication, this meant thateven the most heinous crimeswere not punishable if theywere committed in the interestof the state, while, conversely,legal actions were punishableif they ran counter to thoseinterests. Thomas Mann com-mented that such legaldoctrines “ought to be left tofascist dictators,” and indeedthey were.
What is shocking is howlong Hitler’s special judgesremained in power, long afterthe Third Reich was finished. In1959, the so-called Committeefor German Unity presented areport to Chancellor Adenauerfilled with documentary evi-dence showing that more than800 of Hitler’s special courtjudges and military judges stilloccupied positions of responsi-
bility in the West German judi-cial system, even though it hadbeen proven that they committed terrible crimesunder the Nazis. In 1958, theWest German Federal Prosecutoradmitted that the “mass oftoday’s judges and public prose-cutors were already active …between 1933 and 1945 … Therule of law perished but theysurvived.”
The German Jewishlawyers were not so lucky, ofcourse. Of those who survivedthe Holocaust, fewer than 10percent actually resumed thepractice of law. A high per-centage took their own lives.
Not too long ago, the BarAssociation of the FederalRepublic of Germany recog-nized the terrible injusticedone to their Jewish col-leagues and mounted anexhibit entitled Lawyers with-out Rights that opened in theGerman Bundestag. The exhib-it, which will open at the LeoBaeck Institute on December5, 2004, very simply states thenames and accomplishments ofmany Jewish lawyers, togetherwith their fates after 1933.The biographical portraits giveviewers deep insight into thehistorical, social, and politicalconsequences of the expulsion
of this vital and vibrant pro-fessional class. As the materialfrom the exhibit and the LeoBaeck Institute archives clear-ly shows, all of them lost theirprofession, most of them losttheir country, and a largenumber lost their lives. Thatwe remember them today isdue in large part to the far-sighted founders of theInstitute — including Rabbi LeoBaeck, Martin Buber, RobertWeltsch, and Hannah Arendt— who understood the impor-tance of a cultural repositoryto catalogue authentic materi-al that would become part ofthe permanent record. Many of the papers, unpublishedbooks, memoirs, legal corre-spondence of these oncehonorable jurists are preservedat the Leo Baeck Institute.
Viewed in the light ofwhat we now know, a phraseengraved in the HolocaustMemorial of the AppellateCourt in New York City is par-ticularly apt: “Indifference toJustice,” it says, “is the Gate to Hell.”
Carol Kahn Strauss is the Executive Director of the Leo Baeck Institute.
Lawyers WithoutRightscontinued from page 7
Convention of Lawyers in Duesseldorf, 1949, (Bild Berichte; Berben-Binder,
Dusseldorf). Photo courtesy of Leo Baeck Institute.
13Brazil: The Hidden “Jewish” Stateby Monique Balbuena
The coupling of the terms “Jew” and “Latino”often elicits surprise, especially in the US,where Jews are often identified as Ashkenazi,Yiddish-speaking, and Eastern European. How-ever, Jewish communities in Latin Americaformed an essential part of their countries’ cul-tural fabric, and, as evidenced by the Center forJewish History’s current exhibition on Recife,Brazil and early settlement in New York (seesidebar), have had an enormous influence onAmerican Jewry as well.
As we rediscover the stories of JewishLatin American communities, we often mirrorthe process of contemporary Jewish Latinoauthors and writers themselves. In the words ofProfessor Edward H. Friedman, “a commonmotif of Latin American narrative is the rewrit-ing of history, that is, the emendatory encodingof the Jewish subject into history.”
Brazil, colonized by the Portugese, is aunique case in point. In the 16th century, thePortuguese were heavily identified as “gente da
nação” (“people of the nation”), a euphemismfor Jews. Erasmo, for example, wrote in 1530that the Portuguese were “a race of Jews.” In1674, Gaspar de Freitas Abreu complained that,“Only us, the Portuguese, among all thenations, are stigmatized as Jews or Marranos,and it’s a shame.” Portuguese diplomat DomLuís da Cunha wrote in 1736 that “‘Portuguese’was synonymous with ‘Jew’ in foreign coun-tries.” Indeed, although in 1496 Jews wereforcefully baptized with holy water at the docksin Lisbon, the number of mixed marriagesbetween Old Christians and New Christians —the baptized Jews — was so high by the 16thcentury that, scholar C.R. Boxer estimates,between one third and one half of the popula-tion in Portugal had some Jewish blood.
The Portuguese were leaders of 16th cen-tury maritime expeditions, and in their pre-cap-italist, expansionist and mercantilist endeavors.The colonial beginnings of Brazil are marked bythe presence of New Christians and Crypto-Jews,who had a constant presence in the new territo-ry as merchants, sugar plantation owners, slave-owners and traders, educators, writers and evenpriests. In his essay on the Sephardic experiencein colonial Latin America, titled “These of theHebrew Nation” (included in Martin A. Cohenand Abraham J. Peck’s anthology, Sephardim inthe Americas), Allan Metz writes that “the Jew-ish history of colonial Latin America … is essen-tially that of … New Christians who werejudaizers. ... Well represented in commercial,professional, and political activities, the NewChristian presence greatly enhanced LatinAmerica’s development.” Brazilian AmbassadorRubens Ricupero assesses the interweaving ofJewish and Brazilian histories: “The origin ofthe country and the fate of the Sephardic Jewsin the 15th and 16th centuries are inseparablethreads of the same fabric.”
This intimate association betweenSephardic Jews and the beginnings of whatwould become the country of Brazil has hadimportant effects on Brazilian customs, sayingsand folk traditions. Not only were Crypto-Jewsamong the first writers of the colony, therebyleaving their mark in national literature, butthe Brazilian Jewish environment also bore itsimprint on Jewish literature. Recife, the capitalof Pernambuco, where openly Jewish life flour-ished again under Dutch rule, has the oldestsynagogue and mikveh of the Americas. Thefirst Hebrew poem in the Americas was writtenthere by Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, and there toowere printed the first American Jewish books,in 1636. Recife also saw the initial Latin Amer-ican contribution to Responsa literature, andfrom there departed the twenty three Jews who
Photo: Still from the film “The Rock and the Star”
(Katia Mesel, 2004), showing a group of Brazilian
Jewish women embroidering designs based on paint-
ings by Franz Post, Echout, Rembrandt and others. Part
of the exhibit Pernambuco, Brazil; Gateway to New York.
continued on page 18
Pernambuco,Brazil: The Gate-way to New York
350 years ago, twenty-
three Sephardic Jews
from Recife, Brazil were
forced to flee their
adopted homeland and
found themselves on the
shores of New York, then
named New Amsterdam.
Despite opposition
from Governor Peter
Stuyvesant, this small
Jewish community was
finally allowed entry into
the city and took root in
an American society far
away from the reach of
the Inquisition.
Two partner institutions
of the Center for Jewish
History, the Yeshiva
University Museum and
the American Sephardi
Federation, are co-
sponsoring a special
exhibition, Pernambuco,
Brazil: Gateway to New
York, on view through
December 31, 2004. The
exhibition depicts the
historical and cultural life
of Portuguese Jews from
their first settlement in
the early 1500s in Recife,
Brazil until the historic
exodus in 1654 of
twenty-three members of
the community who land-
ed at New Amsterdam.
Organized by Dr. Tania
Kaufman, Director of the
Jewish Historical Archive
of Pernambuco in Recife,
the exhibition illustrates
the day-to-day lives of
Sephardic Jews in Recife.
For more information,
visit the Center for
Jewish History online
at www.cjh.org.
For the Health of Israel — Hadassah’s Medical Work 1912–1967, opens January 18, 2005. Presented by Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America Inc. in conjunction with theAmerican Jewish Historical Society. The exhibition has been underwritten with a generous grantfrom the Smart Family Foundation.
Left: The camp at which Florence Nathanson worked as a Hadas-
sah nurse in 1950. Right: Nurses and patients in front of the
government hospital for adults constructed by the Jewish
Agency. Photos by Florence Kaplan Nathanson, courtesy of
Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America.
The Early Days of theHadassah Medical
Organizationby Susan Woodland
opened a medical cen-ter on Mount Scopus,adjacent to the cam-pus of the HebrewUniversity. As quicklyas Hadassah set upmedical institutions,these institutions wereas quickly transferred tothe municipalities inwhich they stood.
Upon Israeli state-hood in 1948, tremendousnew medical needsstrained the resources ofthe new government. Some
leaders proposed that Hadassahconcentrate on the care of thisflood of immigrants — poor, ill,and uneducated. But Hadas-sah, focused on raising moneyand planning for a new med-ical center at Ein Karem,declined to take on the majorresponsibility for this over-whelming task, preferring alimited role in supplying med-ical care in a few key transitcamps.
One of these was at RoshHa‘Ayin, where the JewishAgency built a transit camp forYemenite immigrants. There,Hadassah set up a children’shospital and staffed it for twoyears, until the governmenthealth service was prepared totake over. The children suf-fered from malnutrition, acute
intestinal infection and malar-ia, among other illnesses.Desperate for additional nurs-ing staff beyond that whichwas being trained in Hadas-sah’s nursing school inJerusalem, Hadassah placedads in Jewish newspapers inthe United States, looking forAmerican nurses willing tospend at least six monthsworking in the immigrantcamp at Rosh Ha‘Ayin.
Florence Kaplan (laterNathanson) saw one of theseads when a friend pointed itout on a hospital bulletinboard. A Brooklyn native whohad attended nursing school atthe Jewish Hospital of Brook-lyn (now known as theInterfaith Medical Center),Nathanson became one of thesix American nurses hired andsent by Hadassah in 1950 towork for nine months at thecamp. (Mrs. Nathanson has gen-erously lent her photographalbum, which documents herexperiences in Israel in 1950,as part of the Hadassah Med-ical Organization exhibit.) “Ididn’t know about Hadassah atall,” she recounts. “But I likedthe idea of doing work in thenew Jewish homeland. I wasnot from a Zionist family, butthe work sounded appealing,and real.”
14
he history of the Hadassah Med-
ical Organization is the subject of anupcoming exhibit developed under the auspices of the AmericanJewish Historical Society. The exhibit tells the stories of some ofthe men and women who built the Hadassah Medical Organiza-tion and how, in turn, the infrastructure of the medical systemof the modern State of Israel was formed. Public health clinics,well baby care, school lunches, playgrounds, immigrant medicalservices, hospitals — all were developed by Hadassah, and whenthe local or state government was able to finance and adminis-ter them, they were gradually transferred and Hadassah movedon to its next challenge.
Hadassah first became involved with healthcare in Pales-tine in 1913, when founder Henrietta Szold secured a donationfrom Nathan and Lina Straus to cover the cost of sending twopublic health nurses to Jerusalem for a year. The nurses visitedfamilies and schools and set up a basic public health clinic witha focus on mothers and children. By the end of World War I,Hadassah was ready to lead a complete medical unit of about 44health professionals in Palestine. The doctors, nurses, dentistsand sanitarians spread throughout the Jewish settlements there,setting up hospitals, clinics, and public health stations.
In the 1920s and 1930s Hadassah was financing a nursingschool, clinics and health stations, playgrounds, school lunchesand well baby care, and hospitals. By 1939 it had financed and
T
®
The Lillian Goldman Reading Roomver 4,000 visits are made to the exquisite and accommodating Reading Roomannually — scholars, academics, writers, as well as the general public make
use of the extraordinary resources available, representing nearly fifty countries inparts of the world as far reaching as South Africa, Singapore, Estonia, Argentina andIsrael. Hours: Monday–Thursday, 9:30 am–5:15 pm. Friday, by appointment only. For information on the Center’s Graduate Seminars for academic audiences, you cancontact Diane Spielmann, Director at [email protected].
15
One Woman’s StoryWe traveled by boat, on the S.S. LaGuardia,an old decrepit ship left over from WorldWar II, for a long time. I think it was twoweeks, but it seemed much, much longer…
We arrived during a snowstorm inJerusalem. We had to stay there for a week because of the flood-ing. Water was pumped in from Tel Aviv and use was restricted.When the roads were navigable, we traveled to Rosh Ha‘Ayin,which was a flooded, muddy mess. Our white nurses’ shoes wereuseless in this mud. The Israeli nurses who we were replacing atRosh Ha‘Ayin laughed at our uniforms which were so impracticalin the mud and dirt and mess of the camp; they were wearingboots and slacks.
A government hospital was caring for the Yemenite adults,but it had been determined that special care was needed for thechildren. We were given the responsibility to care for the chil-dren. The parents lodged in tents which were very small andnarrow, with uncertain hygiene; the children were removed fromtheir parents’ tents to lodge with the nurses in Quonset huts.
Communication was difficult. The parents spoke Arabic,the Israeli nurses spoke Hebrew, and we spoke English. . . . Westudied Hebrew conversation and technical Hebrew. One of theAmerican nurses, Bea Perlmutter, learned Hebrew very quickly,and became our head nurse. She was responsible for writing upthe nurses’ notes.
The children were in bad shape. Some were blinded by tra-choma; some suffered from tuberculosis; almost all haddysentery. One little girl, Bracha, had tubercular meningitis.
There was often shooting around the periphery of thecamp, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. In 1950
Rosh Ha‘Ayin was just temporary housing on very barrenland. There were snakes and rats. Once winter was over, theflooding stopped and it became very dry and hot. The Ham-sin – the dry winds – would blow the top layer of sand, whichgot into everything including the babies’ noses and mouths.We used wet sheets and cheesecloth to cover the beds. Wewere warned not to drink too much water which could causewater intoxication.
Soap and water were rationed. It was difficult even forthe nurses to maintain acceptable hygiene standards. The foodwas plain but nutritious. We had sour cream, cheese and eggsfor breakfast. There was one cook. The only meat we had allweek was the Friday night chicken.
The Israeli nurses returned to the cities where they wereneeded once we were settled. Doctors came on rounds but did notlive at Rosh Ha‘Ayin. We divided up the shifts among the 6 nurs-es, to cover the responsibilities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Weworked day shifts one week, and night shifts the next.
On infrequent days off we went to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv andBeersheva where we saw the new hospital Hadassah was sup-porting there. I came down with malaria and went to HadassahHospital in Jerusalem. I was there during the IndependenceDay parade.
Eddie Cantor had helped raise money to finance sendingthese Yemenite refugees to Israel by plane. They were skepticalabout leaving by plane, as they were coming from a very prim-itive lifestyle. But there is a line in the Talmud that says, “Theywould be delivered on the wings of eagles”, and taking the Tal-mud at face value, these true believers flew from the middleages into the 20th century.
Mrs. Nathanson stayed on for nine months (her account of herexperiences is excerpted above), but ultimately returned toIsrael years later, and found it greatly changed. Whatimpressed her the most? “Rosh Ha‘Ayin had become a realtown with paved streets.”
Susan Woodland is the Hadassah archivist. The HadassahArchives, on deposit with AJHS since the opening of the Centerfor Jewish History in 2000, document the history of the med-ical work sponsored by the American women who have ledHadassah since its inception in New York in 1912.
O
FRED
CH
AR
LES
Photo at left: Florence Kaplan Nathanson,
courtesy of Ms. Nathanson
16
Luminous Manuscript
Development News
A detail of Luminous Manuscript, by Diane
Samuels (above left); Joseph S. Steinberg,
Benefactor and Arnold Lehman, Director of
The Brooklyn Museum (above right)
SIM
ON
A A
RU
JOSH
UA
KES
SLER
The Center for Jewish History thanks the many individuals, foundations, and government agencies whose generosi-ty is essential to the growth of its dynamic programs. (A list of donors of $10,000 or more appears on pages 18–19.)Here are some of the new programs, grants, and developments at the Center and its five partners that are takingplace due to the generosity of institutional and individual supporters.
On April 1, the Center dedicated Luminous Manuscript, an out-standing work of large-scale art, commissioned and generouslyunderwritten by Joseph S. Steinberg, a member of the Center’sBoard of Overseers, and his wife, Diane. On permanent display inthe Center for Jewish History’s Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg GreatHall, Luminous Manuscript is the creation of conceptual artistDiane Samuels and serves as an artistic gateway to the breadthand depth of the partners’ extensive archival collections and itsunique cultural programs. Containing 80,500 pieces of glass,112,640 alphabetical characters from 57 writing systems, and170 documents taken from the partners’ archives, Luminous Manuscript serves as a magnificent representation of the multi-faceted aspects of the Center and will stimulate thought andreflection for years to come. Visitors to the Center are encour-aged to touch the sculpture, take advantage of the informative,interactive kiosks, and pick up a copy of the catalogue, whichwas underwritten by John W. Jordan in honor of Mr. Steinberg.
The Center ExpandsIn June 2004, the New York City Council approved an additional $1 million grant (support from the New York City Council now totals$3.5 million), to be applied to the expansion of six new archival floors for the Center. This is the latest milestone in the buildingcampaign, with a goal of $6 million, begun in the fall of 2003 under the leadership of Center Chairman Bruce Slovin. Additionally,through the determined efforts of the Center’s long-time friend and supporter, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, theCenter was also awarded a grant of $600,000 (support from the Borough President totals $1 million). Bruce Slovin and the Center’sBoard of Overseers deeply appreciate the efforts of Borough President Fields, as well as the continued support and enthusiasm ofNew York City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and New York City Council Members Eva Moskowitz, Christine Quinn, and David Weprin.
Far left: Manhattan Borough President C. Virgina
Fields; Left to right: Center Chairman Bruce Slovin
with Council Speaker Gifford Miller and Council
Members Eva Moskowitz, David Weprin, and Christine
Quinn. The Center held a breakfast for members of the
City Council on October 20, 2004;
New Members Join Board of OverseersThe Board of Overseers, established in December 2002, is chargedwith advising and assisting the Board of Directors in the devel-opment and fulfillment of the Center’s mission. It now comprisestwenty-seven distinguished individuals with expertise in busi-ness, finance, law, medicine, philanthropy and scholarship.
The Center is proud to welcome three new members to itsBoard of Overseers each of whom brings unique qualities andexperience that will further the mission of the institution.
William A. Ackman who is a Managing Member of the Gen-eral Partner of Pershing Square, L.P., received his undergraduatedegree from Harvard College, and an MBA from the Harvard Busi-ness School. He was previously Chairman of The JerusalemFoundation, and is involved with the Human Rights Watch andthe Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, among many otherphilanthropic endeavors.
A trustee of the 92nd Street Y since 1968, Joan Jacobsonserved as Chairman and President of the Board at which time sheplayed a key role in restoring the Y’s classical music programs, inaddition to developing new initiatives. A writer of fiction, Mrs.Jacobson is on the Board of Governors of the Poetry Society ofAmerica and the Board of the Hudson Review, a literary journal.She is a graduate of Smith College.
Ira Jolles serves as Senior Counsel in the Energy, Utilityand Infrastructure Group at Thelen Reid & Priest, LLP. He is adirector of the Regional Plan Association, LRB, Ltd. (publisher ofthe London Review of Books), The Rashi Association, and theCahnman Foundation. Mr. Jolles received his J.D. from HarvardLaw School and A.B. from Columbia College.
We look forward to the lasting and significant contribu-tions from our three newest members.
Posters restored by the Cahnman
Preservation Laboratory, YIVO
archives. Left: The opening of Rabbi
Dr. Silber, a drama in three acts by
Shalom Asch, presented on
August 4, 1931 in the Dramatic
Theater. City unknown. Below:
Appeal to Jewish Women: With the
upcoming local elections in Pinsk,
we urge the women to vote on the
list of Jewish women. Date unknown.
(The appeal is repeated on the
poster many times.)
17
Above: Stage Design by Hugo Steiner-Prag (1880 -1945) for Leppin’s The
Grandson of the Golem. (Leo Baeck Institute)
Cahnman Preservation LaboratoryThe Center recently received a generous grant of $250,000 from The Cahnman Foundation to support the Preservation Laboratory, whichhas been renamed to reflect the generous gift of this magnanimous donor. Serving as the central hub for safeguarding the irreplace-able documents and artifacts of Jewish history, the Werner J. and Gisella Levi Cahnman Preservation Lab assures the longevity ofmemoirs, communal documents, photographs, objects, and films which would otherwise be in peril from the damaging effects of time.
Clockwise from above:
Rare excerpts from El Lyssitsky’s
illustrated Chad Gadiah.
Warsaw 1923. (YIVO Archives)
18
FOUNDERSS. DANIEL ABRAHAM, DR. EDWARD L.
STEINBERG—HEALTHY FOODS OF
AMERICA, LLCANONYMOUS
ANTIQUA FOUNDATION
EMILY AND LEN BLAVATNIK
ESTATE OF SOPHIE BOOKHALTER, M.D.BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN—
C. VIRGINIA FIELDS, MANHATTAN BOROUGH PRESIDENT
LEO AND JULIA FORCHHEIMER FOUNDATION
LILLIAN GOLDMAN CHARITABLE TRUST
KATHERINE AND CLIFFORD H. GOLDSMITH
THE JESSELSON FAMILY
THE KRESGE FOUNDATION
RONALD S. LAUDER
BARBARA AND IRA A. LIPMAN AND SONS
NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL—GIFFORD MILLER, SPEAKER
NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF
CULTURAL AFFAIRS
NEW YORK STATE—GOVERNOR GEORGE E. PATAKI
NEW YORK STATE—ASSEMBLY SPEAKER SHELDON SILVER
NEW YORK STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT,LIBRARY AID PROGRAM
RONALD O. PERELMAN
BETTY AND WALTER L. POPPER
RELIANCE GROUP HOLDINGS, INC.INGEBORG AND IRA LEON RENNERT—
THE KEREN RUTH FOUNDATION
ANN AND MARCUS ROSENBERG
THE SLOVIN FAMILY
THE SMART FAMILY FOUNDATION
JOSEPH S. AND DIANE H. STEINBERG
THE WINNICK FAMILY FOUNDATION
SPONSORSSTANLEY I. BATKIN
JOAN AND JOSEPH F. CULLMAN 3RD
DIANE AND MARK GOLDMAN
HORACE W. GOLDSMITH FOUNDATION
THE GOTTESMAN FUND
GRUSS-LIPPER FOUNDATION
THE SAMBERG FAMILY FOUNDATION
THE SKIRBALL FOUNDATION
TISCH FOUNDATION
THEODORE AND RENEE WEILER FOUNDATION
PATRONSWILLIAM AND KAREN ACKMAN
ANONYMOUS
JUDY AND RONALD BARON
JAYNE AND HARVEY BEKER
ROBERT M. BEREN FOUNDATION
THE DAVID BERG FOUNDATION
BIALKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION—ANN AND KENNETH J. BIALKIN
GEORGE AND MARION BLUMENTHAL
ABRAHAM AND RACHEL BORNSTEIN
LILI AND JON BOSSE
LOTTE AND LUDWIG BRAVMANN
THE ELI AND EDYTHE L. BROAD FOUNDATION
THE CAHNMAN FOUNDATION
CONFERENCE ON JEWISH MATERIAL CLAIMS
AGAINST GERMANY—RABBI ISRAEL
MILLER FUND FOR SHOAH RESEARCH,DOCUMENTATION AND EDUCATION
THE CONSTANTINER FAMILY
MR. AND MRS. J. MORTON DAVIS
DONALDSON, LUFKIN & JENRETTE
MICHAEL AND KIRK DOUGLAS
THE DAVID GEFFEN FOUNDATION
GEORGICA ADVISORS LLCWILLIAM B. GINSBERG
NATHAN AND LOUISE GOLDSMITH FOUNDATION
JACK B. GRUBMAN
FANYA GOTTESFELD HELLER
SUSAN AND ROGER HERTOG
INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES
JOAN L. JACOBSON
MR. AND MRS. PAUL KAGAN
LEAH AND MICHAEL KARFUNKEL
SIMA AND NATHAN KATZ AND FAMILY
BARCLAY KNAPP
MR. AND MRS. HENRY R. KRAVIS
CONSTANCE AND HARVEY KRUEGER
SIDNEY AND RUTH LAPIDUS
MR. AND MRS. THOMAS H. LEE
LEON LEVY
GEORGE L. LINDEMANN
THE MARCUS FOUNDATION
MARK FAMILY FOUNDATION
CRAIG AND SUSAN MCCAW FOUNDATION
LEO AND BETTY MELAMED
EDWARD AND SANDRA MEYER FOUNDATION
DEL AND BEATRICE P. MINTZ FAMILY
CHARITABLE FOUNDATION
RUTH AND THEODORE N. MIRVIS
NEW YORK STATE—SENATOR ROY M. GOODMAN
NUSACH VILNE, INC.SUSAN AND ALAN PATRICOF
ANNE AND MARTY PERETZ
CAROL F. AND JOSEPH H. REICH
JUDITH AND BURTON P. RESNICK
THE MARC RICH FOUNDATION
RIGHTEOUS PERSONS FOUNDATION—STEVEN SPIELBERG
STEPHEN ROSENBERG—GREYSTONE & CO.LOUISE AND GABRIEL ROSENFELD,
HARRIET AND STEVEN PASSERMAN
DR. AND MRS. LINDSAY A. ROSENWALD
THE MORRIS AND ALMA SCHAPIRO FUND
S. H. AND HELEN R. SCHEUER FAMILY
FOUNDATION
FREDERIC M. SEEGAL
THE SELZ FOUNDATION
THE SHELDON H. SOLOW FOUNDATION
DAVID AND CINDY STONE—FREEDMAN & STONE LAW FIRM
ROBYNN N. AND ROBERT M. SUSSMAN
HELENE AND MORRIS TALANSKY
WACHTELL, LIPTON, ROSEN & KATZ
DR. SAMUEL D. WAKSAL
FRANCES AND LAURENCE A. WEINSTEIN
GENEVIEVE AND JUSTIN WYNER
BARBARA AND ROY J. ZUCKERBERG
BUILDERSJOSEPH ALEXANDER FOUNDATION
DWAYNE O. ANDREAS—ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND FOUNDATION
ANONYMOUS
BEATE AND JOSEPH D. BECKER
ANTHONY S. BELINKOFF
HALINA AND SAMSON BITENSKY
ANA AND IVAN BOESKY
CITIBANK
ROSALIND DEVON
VALERIE AND CHARLES DIKER
ERNST & YOUNG LLPMR. AND MRS. BARRY FEIRSTEIN
RICHARD AND RHODA GOLDMAN FUND
ARNOLD AND ARLENE GOLDSTEIN
JOHN W. JORDAN
THE SIDNEY KIMMEL FOUNDATION
GERALD AND MONA LEVINE
THE LIMAN FOUNDATION
MERRILL LYNCH & CO., INC.LOIS AND RICHARD MILLER
ARLEEN AND ROBERT S. RIFKIND
MRS. FREDERICK P. ROSE
MAY AND SAMUEL RUDIN FAMILY
FOUNDATION, INC.SAVE AMERICA’S TREASURES
I. B. SPITZ
SHARON AND FRED STEIN
JUDY AND MICHAEL STEINHARDT
JANE AND STUART WEITZMAN
DAPHNA AND RICHARD ZIMAN
GUARDIANSMR. AND MRS. SAMUEL AARONS
MR. AND MRS. MERV ADELSON
ARTHUR S. AINSBERG
MARJORIE AND NORMAN E. ALEXANDER
ANONYMOUS
MARCIA AND EUGENE APPLEBAUM
BANK OF AMERICA
SANFORD L. BATKIN
BEAR, STEARNS & CO., INC.VIVIAN AND NORMAN BELMONTE
JACK AND MARILYN BELZ
would found the first Jewishcommunity in the Americancolonies, in New Amsterdam.
The imbricated historiesand identities of Jews, Por-tugese, and Brazilians still res-onate today in the work ofcontemporary writers andartists. Moacyr Scliar, forexample, is a Brazilian Ashke-nazi writer who in 2003 waselected to the Brazilian Acade-my of Letters. His novel, TheStrange Nation of RafaelMendes, recounts Brazilian his-tory through the lives of suc-cessive generations of Jewsand Crypto-Jews, leading up toa contemporary Brazilian man,ignorant of his Jewish ances-try. The Mendes’ genealogicalline traces the itinerary of aJewish family and, ultimately,its role in the colonization ofBrazil, its political independ-ence from Portugal, and itstransformation into a nation-state. Scliar’s fictional, mythol-ogized narrative of origins isnot dissimilar from the projectof those historians and scholarsof history involved with thecultural archeology of LatinAmerican Jewry: an inscrip-tion of the Jewish subject intothe tale of the national tribe.
Monique Balbuena is theAssistant Professor of Litera-ture at the Clark Honors College at the University ofOregon and was a 2003–04Starr Fellow at Harvard University.
Brazil…continued from page 13
Sharing Our CommitmentThe Center for Jewish History announces with gratitude anddeep appreciation the following donors of $10,000 or morewhose gifts will help further its mission to preserve the Jewishpast, protect the present, and secure the future. This roster rep-resents individuals, foundations, corporations, and governmentagencies that have generously contribution to our efforts.
19
REBECCA AND LAURENCE GRAFSTEIN
EUGENE AND EMILY GRANT
FAMILY FOUNDATION
CLIFF GREENBERG
LORELEI AND BENJAMIN HAMMERMAN
JAMES HARMON
ELLEN AND DAVID S. HIRSCH
ADA AND JIM HORWICH
HSBC BANK USAPAUL T. JONES IIGERSHON KEKST
KLEINHANDLER CORPORATION
KNIGHT TRADING GROUP, INC.JANET AND JOHN KORNREICH
KPMG LLPHILARY BALLON AND ORIN KRAMER
LAQUILA CONSTRUCTION
THE FAMILY OF LOLLY AND JULIAN LAVITT
LEHMAN BROTHERS
EILEEN AND PETER M. LEHRER
DENNIS LEIBOWITZ
ABBY AND MITCH LEIGH FOUNDATION
LIBERTY MARBLE, INC.KENNETH AND EVELYN LIPPER FOUNDATION
CAROL AND EARLE I. MACK
MACKENZIE PARTNERS, INC.BERNARD L. AND RUTH MADOFF FOUNDATION
SALLY AND ABE MAGID
JOSEPH MALEH
LAUREL AND JOEL MARCUS
MR. AND MRS. PETER W. MAY
THE MAYROCK FOUNDATION
DRS. ERNEST AND ERIKA MICHAEL
ABBY AND HOWARD MILSTEIN
MORGAN STANLEY & CO.AGAHAJAN NASSIMI AND FAMILY
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
THE FAMILY OF EUGENE AND MURIEL
AND MAYER D. NELSON
THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY
BERNARD AND TOBY NUSSBAUM
PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND, WHARTON & GARRISON
DORIS L. AND MARTIN D. PAYSON
ARTHUR AND MARILYN PENN
CHARITABLE TRUST
MR. AND MRS. NORMAN H. PESSIN
PHILIP MORRIS COMPANIES INC.DAVID AND CINDY PINTER
ROSA AND DAVID POLEN
NANCY AND MARTIN POLEVOY
YVONNE AND LESLIE POLLACK
FAMILY FOUNDATION
GERI AND LESTER POLLACK
FANNY PORTNOY
PUMPKIN TRUST—CAROL F. REICH
BESSY L. PUPKO
R & J CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION
ANNA AND MARTIN J. RABINOWITZ
JAMES AND SUSAN RATNER
PHILANTHROPIC FUND
ANITA AND YALE ROE
THE FAMILY OF EDWARD AND
DORIS ROSENTHAL
JACK AND ELIZABETH ROSENTHAL
SHAREN NANCY ROZEN
THE HARVEY AND PHYLLIS SANDLER
FOUNDATION
CAROL AND LAWRENCE SAPER
ALLYNE AND FRED SCHWARTZ
IRENE AND BERNARD SCHWARTZ
JOSEPH E. SEAGRAM & SONS, INC.ALFRED AND HANINA SHASHA
ELLEN AND ROBERT SHASHA
SIMPSON THACHER & BARTLETT
SKADDEN, ARPS, SLATE, MEAGHER
& FLOM LLCALAN B. SLIFKA FOUNDATION
SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
JERRY I. SPEYER/KATHERINE G. FARLEY
THE SAM SPIEGEL FOUNDATION
MEI AND RONALD STANTON
ANITA AND STUART SUBOTNICK
LYNN AND SY SYMS
LYNNE AND MICKEY TARNOPOL
THOMAS WEISEL PARTNERS
ALICE M. AND THOMAS J. TISCH
TRIARC COMPANIES—NELSON PELTZ
AND PETER MAY
SIMA AND RUBIN WAGNER
WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES
PETER A. WEINBERG
ERNST AND PUTTI WIMPFHEIMER—ERNA STIEBEL MEMORIAL FUND
DALE AND RAFAEL ZAKLAD
HOPE AND SIMON ZIFF
THE ZISES FAMILY
LIST COMPLETE AS OF AUGUST 24, 2004
THE BENDHEIM FOUNDATION
TRACEY AND BRUCE BERKOWITZ
MEYER BERMAN FOUNDATION
BEYER BLINDER BELLE
THE BLOOMFIELD FAMILY
BOGATIN FAMILY FOUNDATION
RALPH H. BOOTH IIBOVIS LEND LEASE LMB, INC.CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK
DASSA AND BRILL—MARLENE BRILL
ETHEL BRODSKY
CALIFORNIA FEDERAL BANK
PATRICIA AND JAMES CAYNE
CENTER SHEET METAL, INC.—VICTOR GANY
CHASE MANHATTAN CORPORATION
CAREN AND ARTURO CONSTANTINER
CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON
THE NATHAN CUMMINGS FOUNDATION
ELLA CWIK-LIDSKY
IDE AND DAVID DANGOOR
ESTHER AND ROBERT DAVIDOFF
ANTHONY DEFELICE—WILLIS
THE PHILIP DEVON FAMILY FOUNDATION
BERNICE AND DONALD DRAPKIN
E. M. WARBURG, PINCUS & CO., LLCHENRY, KAMRAN AND FREDERICK ELGHANAYAN
MARTIN I. ELIAS
GAIL AND ALFRED ENGELBERG
CLAIRE AND JOSEPH H. FLOM
FOREST ELECTRIC CORPORATION
DAVID GERBER AND CAROLYN KORSMEYER
ROBERT T. AND LINDA W. GOAD
GOLDMAN, SACHS & CO.
COVER: Top to bottom: I.B. Singer. On back of photograph: “Isaac in 1935;” Cover of Oyfn Hayrev-Front Keyn Nayes (1930), Singer’s Yiddish translation of
Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1929); Nobel Lecture (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1978); Dust jacket of the 1950 Knopf edition of The
Family Moskat; I.B. Singer with book. Bernard Gottgryd. Photos courtesy of The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
Center for Jewish History
CENTER HOURS*
Monday–Thursday 9am–5:30pm
Friday 9am–2pm
Sunday 11am–5pm
*For evening programs contact: 917-606-8200
PARTNERS
American Jewish Historical Society(AJHS)www.ajhs.org 212-294-6160
American Sephardi Federation (ASF)www.asfonline.org 212-294-8350
Leo Baeck Institute (LBI)www.lbi.org 212-744-6400
Yeshiva University Museum (YUM)www.yumuseum.org 212-294-8330
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research(YIVO)www.yivoinstitute.org 212-246-6080
LILLIAN GOLDMAN READING ROOM
Monday–Thursday 9:30am–5:15pm
Friday By appointment only
CONSTANTINER DATE PALM CAFÉ
Monday–Thursday 9am–4:30pm
Sunday 11am–4:30pm
FANYA GOTTESFELD HELLER BOOKSTORE
Monday–Thursday 11am–6pm
Sunday 11am–5pm
(Also open on select evenings; call in advance.)
GENERAL TELEPHONE NUMBERS
Box Office 917-606-8200
Reading Room 917-606-8217
Genealogy Institute 212-294-8324
General Information 212-294-8301
Group Tours 917-606-8226
AFFILIATES
American Society for Jewish Music212-294-8328
Association for Jewish Studies917-606-8249
Austrian Heritage 212-294-8409
Centro Culturale Primo Levi917-606-8202
Gomez Mill House 212-294-8329
Jewish Genealogical Society of New York212-294-8326
Yemenite Jewish Federation of America 212-294-8327
(all facilities closed Saturdays)
Nonprofit Org.US Postage
PAIDNew York, NY
Permit #04568
Center for Jewish History15 West 16th StreetNew York, NY 10011
Upcoming HighlightsVisit www.cjh.org for complete schedule. Events begin at 7pm unlessotherwise noted.
FILM/EXPRESSION & EXPLORATION
The Paradoxes of Survival November 29Three Films of Judy Chicago: The Dinner Party, The Holocaust Project, Resolutions: A Switch in TimeDiscussion with Judy Chicago and Gail Levin December 6Man Ray, Prophet of the Avant-Garde, dir. Mel Stuart December 20
LECTURES & DISCUSSIONS
From Vietnam to Washington: An Orthodox Surgeon’s Odyssey(AJHS and YUM) 6pm, November 301654: A Pivotal Year for American Jewry(YUM and ASF) December 7Journey Through the Minefields: From Vietnam to Washington, an Orthodox Surgeon’s Odyssey(AJHS and YUM) 6pm, November 30The International Court of Justice and Israel’s Fence: Just Politics or Justice? Part of the Jews & Justice series (AJHS) December 9The Face of Eastern European Jewry 4pm, December 14(YIVO and LBI)
CONCERTSJewish Humor from Oy to Vey: A Chanukah Concert(The American Society for Jewish Music) 3pm, December 12Chanukah Gelt: Storytelling and Concert 2pm, December 26
Videoconferencing of events available at low-cost.Contact [email protected] for information.
The Constantiner Date Palm CaféLight fare, offered at moderate prices
in an intimate, quiet setting
All products and food are glatt kosher and produced under the supervision of Foremost
Caterers. For group reservations and to inquire about catering servic-es, kindly call 917-606-8210. Hours: Monday–Thursday, 9am–4:30pmand Sunday, 11am–4:30pm
GRAND RE-OPENING!
Fanya Gottesfeld Heller BookstoreNew items for sale
Visit the Center’s newly renovated bookstore with rich offerings of scholarly and contemporary books, jewelry and objects on Jewish history, culture, and language. Telephone: 917-606-8220. Hours: Monday–Thursday, 11am–6pm; Sunday, 11am–5 pm. Openselect evenings, please call in advance.
Become a Friend of the CenterSupport the Center for Jewish History with a gift of $36 or more,and you will become a Friend of the Center and be eligible for thefollowing benefits:
• Take advantage of a 10% discount at the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller bookstore.
• Enjoy a 10% discount in the Constantiner Date Palm Café.
• Receive a 15% discount on the price of your ticket for Center sponsored events, films, concerts, and lectures.
For further information call the Development Office, 917-606-8281, or e-mail [email protected]. Please show your support and become aFriend of the Center.
CENTER FOR JEWISH HISTORY
www.cjh.org