Turkey

The Records of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites (1859-1878) documents the life cycle of the Board of Delegates, a Jewish civil rights organization located in New York City. The Board served in a two-fold function: acting as a central organization for American Jews and working on behalf of Jews abroad. To the latter end, the Delegates collaborated with the Committee of Deputies of British Jews and the French Alliance Israélite Universelle to provide for the relief and aid, civil, and religious rights of Jews throughout the Americas, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, particularly Romania, Ottoman Palestine including Jerusalem, and Morocco.

In the U.S., the Delegates were partially responsible for the appointment of the first Jewish Military Chaplain and surveyed member synagogues concerning the history and size of their congregation, the first organization to systematically record this type of information in the States. The Delegates merged with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) in 1878 and dissolved in 1925. Correspondents include Adolph Crémieux, Sir Moses Montefiore, Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, Isaacs S. Myer, the Rev. Dr. Arnold Fischel, and Maj. General Benjamin Butler. Documents include correspondence, minutes, committee reports, memorials, announcements, surveys, some printed material including clippings, and a 1932 Rabbinical thesis on the Delegates by Allan Tarshish.

The Franz and Grete Hillinger Collection holds the papers of Franz and Grete Hillinger and of other Hillinger family members. The collection focuses on former family property in Brieselang, Germany, with some information on the family history and specific family members' details. Documentation includes personal, legal, financial, and official correspondence, identification papers, curricula vitae, articles on family history, and wills.

The collection documents the life of Saul Candiotti's maternal and paternal grandparents from their immigration from Turkey to the U.S., their marriages, and a glimpse into their lives during WWII and membership in the Keter Zion Angora Society.

This collection contains the research of University of Miami professor of photobiology and medical researcher Elli Kohen. Professor Kohen was a prolific writer in a variety of topics ranging from photobiology to the history of cats to the study of Ladino and Sephardic Jewry. The bulk of this collection contains his notes and drafts of essays and book chapters on the history of Sephardic and Turkish Jews.

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 the personal papers of Evelyn Klapholtz. The bulk of this collection consists of genealogical information and material related to her family. There is additional material related to the sephardic community in New York City.

This collection documents the events surrounding Sepharad ’92, an event and an international Jewish committee to commemorate the five-hundredth anniversary of the Jewish expulsion from Spain as part of the Spanish Inquisition. The committee, headquartered in New York City, developed programs that sought to educate the public through a variety of approaches about the expulsion and the relocation of Spain’s Jewish population throughout the world. Such programs included educational curriculum, exhibitions, interfaith gatherings, concerts, and conferences.

Sephardic House was established in 1978 as a correction to the often-overlooked contributions of the Sephardic community to American-Jewish culture. The Records of Sephardic House documents the administrative, programming, and publishing activities of Sephardic House since its founding. Such documents include financial records, meeting minutes, correspondence, artist portfolios, press releases, photographs, slides, and much more.

The Joel A. Zack papers consist of research notes, correspondence, oversized architectural site drawings, slides, and photographs of various synagogues, mellahs, and Jewish cemeteries in various areas of Morocco and Turkey.

The collection documents the work and correspondence of Joy Zacharia Appelbaum and reflects various aspects of her life, personal research and writings in the field of Sephardic Jewish culture and society, mainly as they made their way here in the United States. Collection consists in large part of a large array of newspaper and magazine articles describing Sephardic life in various areas of the world, and especially in the United States. An extensive portion of the collection examines the various customs and traditions found among the Sephardim, including customs for the Jewish Holidays (and especially Passover). The collection also includes a significant quantity of information about the American Sephardi Federation, focusing a great deal on its conventions and activities in the late 1980s to early 1990s. There is also a sizable amount of information about the Sephardic communities in the Ottoman regions of Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans, with a considerable amount of material that focuses on the Quincentennial celebrations held to commemorate the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

This is a compilation of items collected by Morris Tarragano, mainly in photocopy format. These items relate to the history of Sephardic Jewry, mainly the Jews of Turkey and Spain, as well as some genealogical papers.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Victor D. Sanua, including published and unpublished articles, materials used in researching these articles, correspondence, and documentation of the various organizations with which Professor Sanua was involved. These materials reflect his work as a psychologist and his active involvement with the history of Jews from Egypt. In addition, there are various materials relating to various Sephardic communities, Israel and the Middle East and cultural factors in mental illness, particularly among Arabs and Jews.

This collection contains the papers of Susanne (Susi) Friedmann-Kirsch (1926-), documenting her family’s history in Austria, Eastern Europe, and Israel, from the mid 1800s to the 2000s. The collection mostly holds vital documents and genealogical materials, including family trees, photographs, correspondence, family narratives, diaries, and other writings.