Ben-Gurion, David, 1886-1973

The Annual and Mid-Winter National Conventions Records document the proceedings and outcomes of the conventions and conferences attended by Hadassah’s National Board as well as by convention delegates from the various regions of Hadassah. The conventions in particular are where local and regional leaders meet with each other and the National Board and learn about Hadassah’s various projects and committees. This record group also includes annual reports from 1926-2001.

This record group includes documents created and maintained by the Office of the President, the Office of the Executive Director and the Chair of the Division Coordinators/Directors Committee. Prominent is the Henrietta Szold series, containing correspondence by and to Szold as well as printed materials written by and about her. The files in this record group were created by a national president or executive director, or for their use, or maintained in their office during their years in office. Included are correspondence, minutes, memos, publications, reports and subject files on topics with which these individuals were involved.

Contains thirteen letters on a variety of subjects. Of interest are: a letter written to Walter Lippmann, referring to a talk with Felix Frankfurter regarding Brandeis' confirmation as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1916); and a letter to Abraham H. Sakier regarding Brandeis' wish not to have his name connected with any fund-raising project for a university in Palestine (1930).

The records document the Histadruth Ivrit's early history to the present, representing a significant portion of its work in spreading the Hebrew language in the United States in the second half of the twentieth-century. The records include substantial amount of material regarding the organization's history, administration, public events, publications, and reports. Some information of the early history of the Histadruth Ivrit could be found in the records kept by the writer Daniel Persky. Persky collected personal and professional records that include correspondence with friends, readers, and writers; a partial collection of the drafts of his own publications, and a collection of photographs and newspaper clippings. The functions and activities of the Histadruth Ivrit are documented through Board of Trustees and Board meetings agendas and minutes; various programs for events, conventions, conferences, and celebrations; documents related to fundraising; public relations, press releases and brochures; correspondence with different individuals, organizations, and foundations; Histadruth Ivrit's publications among them the newspaper Hadoar and Tov Lichtov; a large collection of photographs, and scrapbooks. The records of the Histadruth Ivrit represent the large majority of the organization's activities dating from the 1980s to the present. Records for the earlier years of activities are fragmented and incomplete. The records related to the life of Daniel Persky are also partial and copies of many of his publications are missing. This collection included brochures, correspondence, financial records, flyers, grant applications, invitations, lists, minutes, news clipping, orders, periodicals, photographs, press releases, reports, and scrapbooks.

Contains copies of correspondence, a dossier, memorandum, news articles, and press releases relating to Major General Klein's career in both World Wars; his service as Past National Commander of the Jewish War Veterans and Past President of the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A. Memorial in Washington, D.C.; and his involvement in establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and Western Germany in 1965. Major correspondents include David Ben-Gurion, Kurt Birrenbach, Abba Eban, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ludwig Erhard, Levi, Eshkol, Golda Meir, and Felix E. Shinnar.

Letters to and from several hundred Jewish personalities, mainly Jewish writers, political thinkers, community leaders and rabbinical figures. Correspondents include Jacob P. Adler, S. An-Ski, Shalom Asch, Mendel Beilis, David Bergelson, Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Nathan Birnbaum, Ber Borochow, Reuben Brainin, Adolphe Cremieux, Albert Einstein, Zechariah Frankel, Sigmund Freud, Maksim Gorkii, Rabbi Chaim Oyzer Grodzienski, Alexander Harkavy, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, Samuel David Luzzatto, Golda Meir, Mendele Moykher Sforim, Emanuel Ringelblum, Nahum Sokolow, Judah Steinberg, Henrietta Szold, Boris Thomashefsky, Leon Trotsky, Chaim Weizmann, Morris Winchevsky, Leopold Zunz.

Louis Lipsky (1876-1963) was a noted Zionist leader, journalist, and writer. The collection contains personal correspondence, memoranda, speeches, magazine and newspaper articles, manuscripts, drafts of books, and organizational materials concerning the Zionist movement, and various Jewish organizations.

The MACHAL, the acronym for “mitnadvei hutz laAretz” ("Volunteers from Abroad"), consisted of about 3500 men and women from over 40 countries from a variety of social and religious backgrounds who volunteered to fight for the establishment of Israel. This collection is unique in that it deals specifically with the experience of MACHAL and Aliyah Bet volunteers from Canada and the United States and others living in the United States. The collections consists of files on 500 volunteers, over 2000 original and reproduction photographs, numerous audio-visual material, books, manuscripts, and memoirs.

This collection documents the life and work of journalist Margo Wolff. It contains personal papers, correspondence (including a 1953 letter in the Addenda by writer Walter Meckauer to Wolff), articles, clippings, and diaries.

Correspondence with Izhak Ben-Zvi, David Ben-Gurion, Joseph Sprinzak, Rabbinate of Cairo. Report on the Jewish Community in Lebanon, 1956. Correspondence relating to Felix Kersten, personal physician of Himmler. Photostats of Polish underground press, 1940-1945. Manuscripts and notes of a projected book by Shoshkes, Jews in Russia Today. Memoirs by Irene Eskenazi about World War II experiences in Yugoslavia.

The papers of Philip Lax document his work with four major organizations: the American Jewish Historical Society, B'nai B'rith International, National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and Ellis Island Restoration Commission. The collection documents the years 1915 to 2008, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1970s and 1980s. The papers contain photographs, correspondence, speeches, publications, subject files, and organizational records, such as minutes, financials, memorandums, agendas, and reports.

The materials in this record group document the entirety of Hadassah’s history and work in Israel and the United States in photographs—prints, slides, glass lantern plates, and digital images.

This collection contains correspondence, memoranda, public statements, "press kits," press digests, reports, newsletters, pamphlets and program materials issued by a mainstream Zionist organization promoting the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, using political pressure, by legal means.

The Robison Family Fapers reflect various activities of Adolf C. and Ann Green Robison in civic organizations, Jewish communal life, Jewish national and international affairs, and individually in the arts. The collection contains information on the origins of the United Nations; and on aid to Israel before, during, and after the War of Independence. The materials include correspondence, memoranda, minutes, reports, financial documents, newspaper clippings, photographs, diaries, scrapbooks, musical scores, and play scripts.

The collection has been arranged according to the following broad subject areas: personal affairs; speeches, sermons, and articles, both manuscript and published; the Free Synagogue in New York City; the Jewish Institute of Religion; American Jewish affairs; relations between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities; New York City affairs; United States affairs; the press (both Jewish and non-Jewish); world affairs; the American Jewish Congress and World Jewish Congress; refugees; Zionism; Palestine and Israel; arts and letters; and individual corrspondence of a general nature.

The material in this record group was culled from Hadassah's Central Files in Israel in the early 1980s to document Hadassah's role in Zionist history. Originally formed from a Zionist women's study group, the first Hadassah chapter in New York had a strong relationship with the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA; then known as the Federation of American Zionists). The material in this record group documents Hadassah's relationship to the ZOA and to other Zionist organizations in the United States, Europe, and Palestine/Israel, particularly in the years leading up to Israeli statehood in 1948. Other subjects addressed in this record group include the founding of Hadassah; World War II, particularly relating to Jewish emigration and refugees; the founding of the United Nations and the debate over recognition of a Jewish state; the partition of Palestine; and Arab-Jewish relations. Included are articles, clippings, convention resolutions, correspondence, diary extracts, memorandums, minutes, press releases, printed ephemera, publications, reports, and speeches.