Jews -- Education -- History

This collection contains a number of Alfred Büchler's school papers from educational institutions in Vienna and Shanghai, as well as his German passport and a travel calendar from his emigration out of Austria.

This collection contains the records of the Union of Jewish Student Associations in Germany (Yiddish: Farband fun di Yidishe Studentn Fareynen in Daytshland; German: Verband Jüdischer Studentenvereine in Deutschland), an umbrella organization of associations of East European Jewish students who were pursuing their education in cities throughout Germany in the 1920s. Along with the Union's records are the records of two of its affiliate associations, the Jewish Student Association in Berlin and the Jewish Student Association in Jena. The student associations and the umbrella organization that they founded aimed to further Jewish cultural life among members; to provide material assistance to members in need; and to advocate for the interests of members vis-à-vis state and academic authorities. Included are administrative records such as bylaws, minutes, and announcements; materials documenting membership meetings of the Berlin association and conferences of the umbrella organization; petitions and correspondence from members concerning financial aid; materials documenting libraries maintained by the students, and other activities; and general correspondence. Among the correspondents are Jewish charitable and social-welfare organizations that contributed to the support of East European Jewish students through the student associations, including the Yidishe Velt-Hilfs-Konferents (Conférence Universelle Juive de Secours, Paris), the Verband der Russischen Juden, the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, and the Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Deutschen Juden, as well as the Jewish Community of Berlin, and Jewish communities in other cities in Germany. The collection also includes a relatively small amount of materials of mixed provenance documenting the activities of other associations and umbrella organizations of East European Jewish students, both in Eastern Europe and the West, the greatest portion related to interwar Poland, especially Vilna.

The Society for Handicraft and Agricultural Work among the Jews of Russia, known by its Russian acronym, "ORT," was founded in St. Petersburg, in the Russian Empire, in 1880. Its aim was the promotion and development of skilled trades and agriculture among Jews, especially through support of vocational and agricultural training. At first operating only as a provisional committee, it received legal recognition in Russia in 1906, and subsequently established local divisions in various cities within Russia and, after the First World War, in Poland, Lithuania, and other countries. An ORT committee was formed in Vilna in February 1919; the ORT Society in Vilna helped found an international umbrella organization, the World ORT Union, in 1921, with headquarters in Berlin (until 1933) and, later, Paris. The collection comprises records of the ORT Society in Vilna that, despite their fragmentary nature, broadly reflect the society's activities from its beginnings until its dissolution by the authorities in Soviet-occupied Lithuania, in 1940. The collection contains administrative records, such as bylaws, minutes, reports, membership records, and financial records; outgoing and incoming correspondence, with correspondents including the ORT Central Committee in Poland, Warsaw (founded 1923); records pertaining to the administration of the society's vocational programs, including its Crafts School, which trained Jewish youth as artisans in the fields of carpentry and locksmithing, and various professional advancement courses for adults, in fields such as electrical installation and tailoring (cutting); records concerning activities related to agriculture in the period 1920 to 1923, apparently reflecting the work of an ORT regional committee based in Vilna (loan applications and questionnaires about Jewish families working on farms, in most cases pertaining to localities in the western part of present-day Belarus); and a few items documenting a credit cooperative society founded by the Vilna ORT Society. Also included is a small amount of ephemera, and two small groupings of ORT-related records with no apparent relationship to the society in Vilna: correspondence of the Arbeterheym (Workers' Home), Riga, Latvia, in 1923, including letters from the Jewish People's Relief Committee, New York, which became affiliated with the American ORT; and correspondence addressed to J. Capitanchik, London, in 1924, from the ORT Society in London, in part concerning his effort to organize an ORT committee in the city's East End.

The Jewish Vocational (Technical) School of ORT in Vilna, known as the Technicum, opened in Vilna (Wilno, Poland; today, Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1921 and remained in existence until 1940. It trained Jewish young people in the fields of mechanics and electrical engineering over a three-year course of study. The Technicum was subsidized by the ORT Central Committee (Warsaw), the Vilna Jewish Community Council, and the Vilna municipality. The school was equipped with laboratories and workshops, as well as a technical library, and published a series of its own Yiddish-language textbooks for use by students. The collection comprises administrative records, including budgets and general reports, school statistics, financial records, correspondence, and files pertaining to students and teachers, as well as materials documenting the curriculum, course scheduling, and examinations. Also included are letters and supporting documents from applicants for teaching positions; student papers; materials related to a graduates' association and a parents' committee; and copies of several of the textbooks published by the school.

This collection contains the most significant internal records of the Sofia M. Gurevitch gymnasium’s early years, including the official documents giving permission for the founding and expansion of the school. There are also pedagogical materials, including student work and lesson plans, dating primarily from the later period of the school’s existence. These materials illustrate a Jewish school’s relationship with the Russian government before World War I, and the transformation of its pedagogy, as it shifted focus to become a Yiddish-language secular school in the 1930s.

This collection contains personal papers and correspondence which document the personal and professional lives of Sigmund and Toni Feist from the 1880s through their emigration to Denmark in 1939.