Jewish way of life

The collection contains records of the Jewish community of Adelebsen, Germany, spanning the years 1832 to 1917. During this period Adelebsen, a small town in the vicinity of Göttingen, was at first located in the kingdom of Hanover. When the latter was annexed by the kingdom of Prussia in 1866 it became known as the province of Hanover; and in 1871 it became part of the German Empire. A small amount of material pertains to the Jewish community in Barterode, some members of which eventually joined the Adelebsen community. Approximately half of the collection comprises financial records covering the period from 1838 to 1917 (with gaps), including annual statements; account books; lists of taxes, donations, synagogue fines, and synagogue seat fees collected from members; lists of families with school-age children; and accounts of the Adelebsen Jewish charitable association. The remainder of the records comprise administrative correspondence and documents, with correspondents including the government offices in Adelebsen, Uslar, and Hildesheim; the rabbis who headed regional districts of Jewish communities ('Landrabbiner'); and community members, including Sally Blumenfeld, the long-time teacher heading the Jewish school. Noteworthy documents include a handwritten copy of the Hanoverian synagogue regulations issued by Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler in 1832, with later amendments; minutes of two meetings with Adler, one in 1836 at which he initiated the project to build a new synagogue; a regulation of 1841 governing the community's tax assessment; minutes of oath-taking by community officers and assessors in the Adelebsen municipal court; election materials; and files related to matters such as employment of the Jewish teacher, petition for exemption from the municipal poor tax, preparations for matzah baking, and purchase of a garden plot to expand the Jewish cemetery.

The first folder contains photocopies of letters written to Alfred Neumeyer regarding his paper "Bemerkungen zu einer Abaenderung des Edikts vom 10. Juni 1813, die Verhaeltnisse der juedischen Glaubensgenossen im Koenigreiche Bayern betreffend" (Regierungsblatt 1813, Stueck 39, Seite 921). Referat erstattet im Auftrag der größeren und mittleren Israelitischen Kultusgemeinden Bayerns," Augsburg 1914. 33 pp.) (Cf. http://opac.cjh.org:8991/F?func=direct-doc-set&doc_number=000195490 &format=999)

Attached is the carbon copy of a letter from the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem (Max Nathan) to Alfred Neumeyer's son, Alexander Neumeyer from Shavei Zion (1966), who gave copies to the institute, but kept the originalThe second folder contains Alfred Neumeyer's memoirs titled "Erinnerungen". They were written in the Jewish agricultural settlement Avigdor (Argentina) between 1941 and 1944 (typescript, 268+2 pp.) after his emigration from Germany and cover the years 1867 to 1944.

Alfred Neumeyer describes: his childhood in Munich; primary and secondary education; military service; university studies in Berlin and Munich; marriage and domestic life; work as a judge in Munich; Jewish communal activities; establishment of "Verband Bayerischer Israelitischer Gemeinden"; fight against prohibition of ritual slaughter in Bavaria; activities for "Centralverein" and "Reichsvertretung"; forced retirement as judge in 1933; changes in Jewish communal work after 1933; emigration and life in Argentina. (Cf. http://opac.cjh.org:8991/F?func=direct-doc-set&doc_number=000200946 &format=999)

Consists of correspondence from the formative years of the American Academy for Jewish Research from 1930 to 1936, fellows files and correspondence, ledgers and notebooks of membership dues and fellowship grants, minutes of the various committee meetings, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, and photographs. Correspondents include Salo Baron, Isaac E. Barzilay, Robert Chazan, Louis Finkelstein, Louis Ginsberg, David Weiss-Halivni, Arthur Hyman, Saul Lieberman, Alexander Marx, Harry Orlinsky, and Harry Austrin Wolfson.

This collection contains detailed lists, compiled by Friedrich R. Wollmershaeuser, about archival material from various towns at the State Archives in Bamberg and Augsburg. Also included are copies of some of the original archival material.

The Germany (Vilna Archives) collection contains materials of diverse provenances pertaining to Jewish life in Germany and, to a much lesser extent, other German-speaking areas of central Europe (Austria, Bohemia, Moravia), from the 16th century until the beginning of the Second World War. It includes correspondence, financial records, official documents, business records, writings, minutes, reports, book catalogs, printed ephemera, occasional clippings, and a handful of photographs. A little more than 60% of the collection comprises personal and family papers, or individual items of correspondence (approximately 140 different name headings); and a little over 20%, portions of the records of the Jewish communities of Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Filehne (Wieleń), Raschkow (Raszków), and Rybnik. The remainder of the collection consists of various printed ephemera and scattered records related to Jewish communities, organizations, or firms, including publishers and booksellers. Also included are some 15 individual older items dating from the mid 16th to the early decades of the 19th century, including Schutzbriefe (residence permits), petitions, and attestations, as well as a mohel book (registry of circumcisions). Especially noteworthy among the personal papers are those of art dealer Josef Sandel, comparative law scholar Ernst Rabel, the Henschel brothers (artists), writer and social activist Lina Morgenstern, engineer Erich Kempinski, and writer and editor Julius Rodenberg. The several rabbis represented include Josef Jona Horovitz, of Hunsdorf (Huncovce) and Frankfurt am Main; Salomon Breuer and Isidor Friedmann, both of Frankfurt am Main; and Wolf Landau, of Dresden.

Correspondence of Karl Adler with individuals, including Theodor Baeuerle, Martin Buber, Alexander Dillmann, Theodor Heuss, Paul Hindemith, Otto Hirsch, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, Paul Rieger, and Hans Walz; correspondence with family members, including letters written as a soldier during World War I and the November Revolution.

Various documents pertaining to day-to-day issues of the Jewish community in Lipperode, such as member lists; repair jobs and other issues at the cemetery and in the synagogue; and more. Also included are private business contracts of Jewish citizens in Lipperode and neighboring communities, such as Paderborn; Lippstadt; Welda (Warburg); and Rheda.

The Marianne Breslauer collection documents the life and work of Marianne Breslauer (née Schaeffer), as well as of many members of the Schaeffer and Breslauer family, such as her husband Henry Breslauer, her father Hans Schaeffer, her mother Eva Schaeffer, and her father-in-law, Georg Breslauer. Although the bulk of the material reflects the abundant amount of personal correspondence among the family members, in particular among Marianne and Henry Breslauer to her parents, the collection also includes biographical information on a variety of family members in form of clippings, booklets, manuscripts, and photos.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Wąbrzeźno, known in German as Briesen. The records date from 1871 to 1921, concentrated in the era when the town of Briesen was part of the province of West Prussia, in the German Empire; only a handful of items date from the years 1920-1921, when the town was part of Poland. The collection comprises administrative and financial records kept by the Briesen Jewish Community Council, except for one volume of records kept by the Jüdischer Lese-Verein (Jewish Reading Society) of Briesen, in the years 1901 to 1908. Approximately 40% of the collection comprises financial records, 1882-1921, including official budgets and tax lists; 20% concerns the community's religious institutions; and another 20% comprises records related to community employees, especially rabbis and cantors. The remainder of the collection includes correspondence, communal meeting minutes and decisions, circulars announcing meetings, and a variety of administrative records. Included are records pertaining to communal council elections; synagogue seat rentals; burials and the care of graves; the construction and maintenance of the mikveh (ritual bath house); the expansion of the cemetery; synagogue rules and the renovation of the synagogue; charitable activities, often in cooperation with regional and national Jewish organizations; and the religious school and Jewish elementary school.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Krotoszyn, known in German as Krotoschin. The records span the years 1828 to 1919, when the town was part of the Posen (Poznań) region of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Empire; in 1919, it became part of newly independent Poland. The records are mainly those of the Jewish communal administration, or council, of Krotoschin, along with some records kept by communal voluntary associations, or, in one instance, the teacher of the Jewish elementary school. The collection consists predominantly of correspondence and minutes, with inclusion in some periods of documents such as tax lists and lists of eligible voters; records concerning charitable aid to community members and donations to external causes; and other types of documents, including insurance policies, mortgage records, debt repayment plan, and drawings/plans of property. Highlights include records related to property damage in a town fire of 1827; documentation of income and expenses for the year 1835; records of communal elections, 1834-1872; correspondence concerning marriages, 1838-1841, and requests for death certificates, 1834-1858; a small amount of material pertaining to the religious school, circa 1880s-1902; correspondence with regimental commanders of the German army regarding Jewish soldiers from the Krotoschin area, 1891-1910; applications for the position of rabbi, 1895, and cantor/shochet, 1904-1910; and continuous proceedings of the communal council in the period 1905 to 1913.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Ostrów Wielkopolski, today in west-central Poland, in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. The region was annexed by Prussia in 1793, in the Second Partition of Poland; in German the town was known as Ostrowo. The records date mainly from 1834 to 1919, with a few materials from as early as 1822. During this period the town was part of the Posen (Poznań) region of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Empire; in 1919, it was incorporated into the Second Republic of Poland. The community numbered nearly 2,000 members in the late 19th century and declined steadily thereafter due to migration of members to larger German cities or overseas; only a small Jewish community remained during the interwar period. The records are mainly those of the Jewish communal administration, or council; a small amount of material pertains to several community voluntary organizations. Included are financial records such as budgets, balance sheets, and tax lists; communal minutes and decisions throughout the period; correspondence with the government, and, to a lesser extent, with Jewish organizations and other Jewish communities; records pertaining to community members' naturalizations, marriages, births, and synagogue seat contracts; petitions from individual community members, especially pertaining to charitable aid in the mid to late 19th century; records pertaining to communal educational and religious institutions; records on the hiring and employment of community rabbis,cantors, and other personnel, including application materials from candidates not hired; property records and mortgages; documentation of construction and renovation of communal buildings; records related to court cases, bequests, and estate and guardianship matters; and ephemera such as meeting notices and announcement fliers, as well as scattered clippings.

Collection documents the activities and missions of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (UOJCA), primarily during the presidencies of William Weiss (1933-1942), Samuel Nirenstein (1942-1948), Moses Feuerstein (1954-1965), and Rabbi Pinchas Stolper’s tenure as Executive Vice President (1976-1994).

Founded in 1898, the UOJCA, also known as the Orthodox Union, serves as the leader, organizer, and voice of affiliated Orthodox Jewish congregations in North America. Divisions of the UOJCA reflected most prominently in the collection include the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, the Women’s Branch, the Kashruth Division, the Department of Synagogue Services, the Israel Center, as well as regional branches.

Subjects addressed in the collection include Sabbath and high holiday observance, dietary laws, Baal Teshuva, slaughterhouse legislation, funeral standards, education, and synagogue management and outreach. Materials include correspondence, minutes, clippings, speeches, UOJCA publications, financial documents, and a few photographs.