Ketubahs

The collection consists of materials relating to Jewish religious life in Europe from the 1830s to the 1930s. Topics include: marriages, births, divorces, deaths, bar mitzvahs, holidays, the Sabbath, daily customs, ritual slaughter (shehitah), ritual baths, mezuzahs, prayers, rabbis. Items include: marriage contracts, divorce deeds, wedding invitations, birth announcements, bar mitzvah speeches, New Year's cards, correspondence, photographs.

The collection is composed of personal documents of Erich Ahrens and various manuscripts and translations.

This collection documents Ernst Lissner and Ruth Lissner née Stern (1924-1998), in particular Ruth's time in England after leaving Germany via Kindertransport. It includes correspondence and documents.

Contains the personal papers, including correspondence and documents, of Elijah Etting, his sons, Solomon and Reuben, and his three grandchildren, Samuel Etting, Kitty (Etting) Cohen, and Elijah Gratz Etting (frequently referred to as Gratz Etting).

The collection documents the lives of the Fellman and Taranto families of Long Beach, New York, and Washington, D.C., particularly Rosalind Fellman; her father, Sidney Fellman, who was a dentist and the longtime president of the Yom Tov Hebrew Congregation; her mother, Suzanne Taranto Fellman; her grandparents, Harry and Pauline Fellman and Isaac and Alegra Taranto; and her uncles, Milton Fellman and Maurice Taranto. There is also information about the Yom Tov Hebrew Congregation, with which the Taranto family in particular was closely involved.

Originally from England, the Franks family were colonial merchants who settled in New York City in the 1700s. This collection documents parts of their life through correspondence, legal documents, and financial records. The correspondence is primarily written by Abigail Franks in New York to her son, Naphtali, in England. Also included in the collection are the notes and correspondence of Dr. Leo Hershkowitz, who co-edited a book on the letters of the family entitled the Lee Max Friedman Collection of American Jewish Colonial Correspondence: Letters of the Franks Family (1733-1748), written with Isadore S. Meyer in 1968.

This collection contains material about Fred (1911-1997) and Fanny (1914-2001) Sternberg. It includes a brief biographical note by their daughter, Sandra Sternberg; vital, education, and professional documents from Fred and Fanny Sternberg; and the ketubot (Jewish marriage certificates) of Fred and Fanny Sternberg and of Fanny's parents Simon Ullmann and Malche Ullmann née Krämer.

This Collection consists of the papers of the following members of the Gomez family of New York: Lewis Moses (1654/60-1740); Jacob (d. 1722); Daniel (1695-1780); Mordecai (1688-1750); Moses; Aaron Lopez (d. 1860); and Aaron and Hetty Gomez. It also contains also a photograph of the Gomez family coat of arms.

This collection contains the work of Sephardic scholar and poet David Fintz Altabé. The bulk of this collection consists of lectures and several poems, in addition to a newspaper clipping.

This collection contains original manuscripts of Haym Salomon, one of the main financiers of the American Revolutionary War, including his marriage contract, financial records, personal and business correspondence, and items related to his own estate, as well as the estates of his family and business associates. The collection also contains a family record kept by Salomon's son, bilingual Hebrew-English family bibles and prayer books, and items of Haym Salomon's wife, Rachel, as well as other family members.

Includes the marriage license of Mr. Isaac Heiligman and Gussie Pollock executed in Indian Territory, and the Ketubah for the wedding in Hebrew.

Marriage certificate, in English, of Herman Benedict and Babette Heidenheim, signed by Dr. Samuel Adler, rabbi of Temple Emanu-El of New York.

Contains certified copies of various documents presented to the court and pertaining to the estate of Isaac de la Motta of Charleston, South Carolina. Included is a copy of a deed of sale for slaves owned by Sarah Canter de la Motta and witnessed by John Canter, and a copy of the ketubah, in Hebrew and also in translation, of Isaac de la Motta and Sarah Canter, signed by Levi Sheftall, Abraham De Lyon, Isaac Franks, Raphael Da Costa Amesquita, and Isaac de la Motta, with accompanying affadavits. It is unclear for what purpose these documents were prepared.

Jacques Judah Lyons, hazzan, rabbi and community leader, was born in Surinam and emigrated to Philadelphia in the early 1800s. Minister of the New York Congregation Shearith Israel for 38 years, he gathered extensive materials on early Jewish history in the United States, Canada and the West Indies. His papers include manuscripts, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, notebooks, photographs, and a Sansom ship's log book. Contains material relating to Jews in North and South America generally and more specifically to Congregation Shearith Israel and the Jews in New York, the Touro Synagogue and cemetery and the Jews in Newport, Rhode Island, Philadelphia and the West Indies. Also contains material relating to Jews in the wars of the United States, correspondence of the Jews with George Washington and items relating to Haym Salomon. Collection consists of manuscript material and five notebooks and three scrapbooks of Lyons. Contains material not listed in calendar consisting of sermons by Lyons, a manuscript prayer book used in Surinam and a guide for religious ceremonies at Congregation Shearith Israel, as well as letters written during the Civil War period and correspondence relating to the personal life and career of Lyons.

Collection includes photographs of Rabbi Hirsh Levin and his wife; and the ketubah of Ida (their granddaughter) and David I. Sakolski, written by Rabbi Levin ca. 1872.

This collection includes the records of several Levy family members, including personal documents, death records and estate inventories.

Contains correspondence of Glaser relating to various Zionist activities including correspondence in Yiddish from the 6th Zionist Congress, a delegate card (photocopy) for the Congress in Basel, share certificate and dividend coupons of the Jewish Colonial Trust and a letter from the Alliance Israelite Universelle concerning the purchase of land in Palestine for the B'nai Zion Achuza in Hartford.

The collection contains correspondence, business documents, marriage contracts, and other manuscript material from members of the Nathan family.

This is a collection of the records of Rabbi Salamon Faber, Chair of the Queens Bet Din or Rabbinic Court, concerning the gittin (plural of get, Jewish religious divorces) that the Queens Bet Din granted between 1947 and 1992. These records include Rabbi’s Faber’s personal notes about the gittin, correspondence with the husband and wife and with any other concerned parties, copies of civil and religious marriage and divorce documents, divorce contracts signed by the husband, and copies of conversion certificates.

Collection contains the following items relating to the Reis family of North Carolina and Philadelphia: 1) the small-pox vaccination certificate of Fanny Friedmann, grandmother of donor (1831); 2) exit visa from Germany for Joseph Friedmann and three children (1854); 3) two Masonic certificates from a North Carolina lodge, of Max Reis, father of donor (1873); 4) naturalization certificate of Max Reis (1874); and 5) marriage certificate of Max Reis and Louise Dreyfoos, from Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, Philadelphia, signed by Samuel Hirsch (1880).

The children and descendants of Isaac Mendes and Rachel Levy Seixas included individuals who had a great impact on communal affairs and colonial Jewish life in New York, Philadelphia, Newport, and Richmond. Though this collection does not preserve the total volume of papers produced by every family member, the documents contained herein demonstrate the importance of the family in both Jewish and secular life in late 17th and early 18th century North America.

The collection is valuable to researchers studying the Seixas family; civic, mercantile, and religious contributions of Jews in the colonial era; Jewish communities in New York, Philadelphia, Newport, and Richmond; the importance of religion to Colonial Jews; Jewish participation in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and World War I; Jewish converts to Christianity; Jews as masons; and Congregation Shearith Israel of New York.

Prominent individuals in this collection include: Ephraim Hart, Grace Seixas Judah, Mrs. Jesse Judah, Israel Baer Kursheedt, Sarah Seixas Kursheedt, Hayman Levy, Nicholas Low, Isaac Moses, Naphtali Taylor Phillips, Benjamin Mendes Seixas, David G. Seixas, Gershom Mendes Seixas, Isaac Benjamin Seixas, Isaac M. Seixas, Jacob B. Seixas, Joshua Seixas, and Moses Mendes Seixas.

The collection includes: account records, books, circumcision instructions and register, correspondence, drawings, estate papers, a eulogy, family trees, legal documents, petitions, photographs, prayer books, a sermon, and shipping records.

This collection is arranged into four series: Series I: Family Papers; Series II: Moses Seixas (1744-1809); Series III: Gershom Mendes Seixas (1746-1816) and descendants; and Series IV: Benjamin Mendes Seixas (1748-1817) and descendants.

This volume, which belonged to Shmuel Robles de Medina, hazzan of Congregation Neve Shalom, contains the following: a Hebrew poem with the first letters forming the acrostic, "Shmuel Robles de Medina"; formulas for ketubot, divorce, power of attorney, certification of ritual slaughter, removal of a required levirate marriage (halizah) in Portuguese and Hebrew; specifications for a mikveh with the mention that land for the mikveh was purchased by Rabbi Olivera. Of interest is a document for halizah which was received from Amsterdam. The document includes the names of the parties involved as well as the names of the witnesses, including David Cohen d'Azevedo (d. 1792). The last few pages contain copies of documents which have been copied out in Dutch.

This collection consists of materials gathered by Simon Dubnow, an influential political thinker, educator, writer, activist, and preeminent historian of Russian Jewry. The materials reflect central subjects of his historical research, such as communal organization, persecutions, and Hasidism, as well as pressing issues of his time, most significantly pogroms and the question of Jewish emancipation. Much of the material comprises information meticulously copied and sent to Dubnow by individuals throughout the Russian Empire for the purpose of aiding his research. The collection demonstrates Dubnow's importance in helping to establish the idea of Jewish ethnographic history.