Fraternal organizations

This collection contains the records of the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews, an organization founded in 1961, in New York City, by members of the Joseph Popper unit of B’nai B’rith, to foster and disseminate knowledge about the history and culture of Jews in the Czech and Slovak lands. Along with the Joseph Popper unit and, later, the Holocaust Survivors of Slovakia, the society sponsored an annual memorial service held in New York City to honor Czechoslovak Jews who perished in the Holocaust. A majority of the records are from the tenure of Rabbi Norman Patz as president (1994-2008). The materials primarily comprise correspondence, and items related to the annual memorial service, including texts of addresses, and yizkor memorial booklets. Also included are meeting minutes, letters to the membership, financial reports, writings, speeches, obituaries, clippings, photographs, and printed ephemera. The society's correspondence reflects its participation in cultural events related to Czech and Slovak Jewish history, as well as its relationship to the Jewish communities in the Czech Republic and, to a lesser extent, Slovakia; some correspondence with members contains genealogical information.

Collection contains financial reports and records (1913-18, 1922-28); accounts and records relating to individual members (1873-1925, 1936-40); correspondence (primarily 1917-1919), and miscellaneous documents relating to the Society's cemetery.

Contains 2 items: a minutes book from 1908 and a membership book.

This collection contains the minute books, financial records, and membership declaration books (1918-1931) for the lodge established in 1918 by a merger of two lodges, and similar records for the individual lodges prior to the merger: Washington Lodge (1903-1917) including the list of officers (1903-1915), and Manhattan Lodge (1871-1918) including a book of sick benefits and declaration books listing names of beneficiaries of individual members of the lodge in case of death (1871-1905). Also included are the minutes of Mt. Sinai Lodge No. 270 for the years 1882-1896 and a book of applications for initiation into the lodge, 1878-1903, with personal information about the applicants (See Box 13), as well as a declaration book of Washington Irving Lodge No. 312 listing the amount and names of beneficiaries of individual members of the lodge in case of death (See Box 13).

This collection contains materials collected by David Trotsky relating to the Jewish community of Belgium in the inter-war period. Materials include printed documents, posters, reports, meeting minutes, and newspaper clippings, mainly pertaining to the Jews of Brussels and Antwerp.

This collection contains the writings and correspondence of Eduard Strauss. Strauss was a chemist and philosopher who taught at the Freies Juedisches Lehrhaus in Frankfurt am Main and later immigrated to New York, where he helped establish a new Lehrhaus.

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.

The Freedom Benevolent Society was a mutual aid and fraternal organization founded by Jewish immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1882, on the Lower East Side of New York City. Originally known as the Erster Kaiser Franz Josef Kranken Unterstützungs–Verein, or the First Franz Joseph Sick and Benevolent Society, it was incorporated in 1883. Its main purpose was to provide its members with sick benefits, and relief in times of need, as well as fellowship and entertainment. Eventually it also functioned as a burial society, and maintained cemetery plots. The collection documents the society's activities over more than a century, from 1884 until its initiation of dissolution proceedings, in 1991. It includes membership applications from the early decades of the society's history (1884-1927), anniversary programs spanning fifty years (1932-1982), and a visitors' register for the 1500th meeting, in 1950, as well as account books, meeting notices, and two cemetery plans, one of which relates to the Franz Joseph Ladies Sick and Benevolent Society.

This collection contains materials, primarily correspondence and by laws, relating to chapters of the Jewish fraternal benevolent society B’nai B’rith that were founded in German-speaking central Europe beginning in the late 19th and early 20th century.

This collection contains correspondence that describe appeals for aid, a directory of lodges and membership, list of names, and convention proceedings.

Joseph A. Rosen was an agronomist and official of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. In the 1920s and 1930s he organized and coordinated relief activities for impoverished Jews in the Soviet Union. Joseph A. Rosen was a director of the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint) that tried to develop Jewish settlements and assisted with organization of Jewish factories, cooperatives, schools, and health care facilities. All these subjects are covered in this collection. These are the papers of Joseph A. Rosen in his official capacity as a Director of the Agro-Joint. The collection contains agreements between Agro-Joint and the Soviet government, reports, and field observations of the agronomists and officials of the relief organizations, particularly of the Agro-Joint, technical reports and documentation necessary for development and financial sustainability of the Jewish settlements. Maps and landscape plans are also part of this collection.

Contains the memoirs and scrapbooks of Bluestone, concerning his numerous communal activities, especially those in the Zionist movement. A description of the collection was published by Hyman B. Grinstein in Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 35 (1939), and a detailed inventory was prepared by Harry Bluestone (n.d.).

This collection contains manuscript guidebooks in German and English for the ceremonial procedures, and a description of the duties of the officials of the order. Also included are published copies of the by-laws of the Jonathan Lodge (1871) and the reports of the Convention of District Grand Lodge No. 1 (1904).

This collection contains printed materials including reports in German and English, a program for the year 1902, and a membership directory for the year 1922.

Correspondence with literary figures, organizations, including Yiddish school organizations, cultural groups and mutual aid societies. Includes letters from Baruch Vladeck to Arkin. Family correspondence, 1905-1941, from Lunna, Grodno, Kiev, Konotop, Bialystok, Warsaw.

The Noah Benevolent Society (1849-1980), named after Judge Mordechai M. Noah, provided mutual relief for members, their wives and orphans, and helped with internment costs and burial plots at Cypress Hills and other New York cemeteries. The Society also provided relief for Jews in Morocco and Jerusalem and donated funds to several Jewish charitable institutions as well as the Association for the Advancement of Blind Children. The Society disbanded in 1980 due to dwindling membership. The records of the Noah Benevolent Society contain membership minutes and books, donation and financial records, constitutions and by-laws, newsletters, memorabilia, and photographs.

This collection consists of microfilm, and bound photocopies of incorporation papers for all Jewish or Jewish-related organizations incorporated in New York City, 1848-1920. The types of organizations included are fraternal societies, political clubs, professional associations, synagogues, landsmanshaften, benevolent organizations, and social clubs. The entire collection has been indexed by name of the organization and, in some cases, by the European town from which the incorporators came, or by general type of organizations.

Collection contains the surviving briefs (cases and points) of the City Court (until 1883, the Marine Court) of the City of New York, a statutory court of inferior civil jurisdiction within the County of New York and with limited maritime jurisdiction. The briefs were randomly selected from archives which were subsequently destroyed and represent primarily 1872-1881, 1884-1901, and 1904-1907, with some examples 1860-1871 and 1882. A sampling suggests that Jews were involved in 20-30 percent of these cases.

The collection is divided into 5 series: I) Personal Papers and General Correspondence (folders 1-5); II) Journalistic Articles (6-51b); III) Jewish Folklore (52-99); IV) Various Materials (100-105); V) Photographs (106-117).The collection includes Yiddish folkore materials, including notebooks of songs, folk plays, folktales, folk humor, anecdotes, proverbs. Clippings of Litwin's articles relating to various topics, including: Russia, 1917-1930; Palestine and Zionism; towns and cities in Europe; landsmanshaftn; Poale Zion activities, 1915-1928; Jewish occupations; colonization and farming; Jewish holidays; Yiddish theater; education. Poems by Litwin. Photographs of personalities, towns in Europe. Correspondence with Abraham Cahan, Saul Ginsburg, Abraham Liessin, Baal Makhshoves (Isidor Eliashev), Shmuel Niger, Zalman Reisen, Sholem Aleichem, Israel Zinberg. Family correspondence.

The collection consists of cancelled city bonds issued to various individuals and groups in varying amounts and for varying terms. Of the total number, 25 bonds were issued to Jewish organizations, 12 to individuals positively identified as Jews, and the rest to individuals or organizations not identifiable as Jewish. The former are: Samuel Marx Etting, Elizabeth A. Gratz, Abraham Hart, Hannah Levy Florance and Washington Z. Florance for Abraham Minis and Maria Minis, E.A. Moses, Nathan Nathans, and Philip Nathans; Elim Lodge No. 36, Har Moriah Lodge No. 10, Har Nevoh Lodge No. 12, Har Sinai Lodge No. 8, and Isaac Leeser Lodge No. 109, I.O.B.B.; Ezra Lodge No. 7, United Order True Sisters of Israel; Jewish Foster Home Society; Jewish Hospital Association of Philadelphia; and the United Hebrew Beneficient Society, Philadelphia.

The Poland (Vilna Archives) Collection is comprised of documents that were amassed at the YIVO in Vilna (Vilnius), mainly as a result of collecting work by the volunteer YIVO “zamlers” (collectors). The bulk of the collection relates to Jewish communities in over 260 cities and towns in interwar Poland (1919-1939). Documents of earlier years are also included.

This collection is comprised of an address by the Grand Master and a report from the Grand Secretary for the Thirtieth convention. Also included is a directory of lodges.