Reform Judaism

Collection consists of 7 items relating to Silver's efforts to further the Zionist cause during the 1940s and 1950s. It contains a 1940 letter from Silver as Chairman of the United Palestine Appeal to the Joint Distribution Committee with respect to a proposed joint fundraising campaign. Also included are 3 pamphlets relating to the controversy of 1944-45 regarding what the wartime approach of the Zionist's cause to the American government should be and over which Silver resigned as co-chairman of the American Zionist Emergency Council due to his advocacy of a more aggressive approach than was being taken. A 1955 Zionist Organization of America bulletin, dedicated to the 300th anniversary of Jews in North America, which contains an essay by Silver entitled "Zionism in American Jewry" is also included. Also contains documents regarding two tribute dinners held in Silver's honor, one in 1947 on his departure to Palestine, and one in 1954 sponsored by the Brookline-Brighton-Newton Zionist District in Massachusetts.

The collection contains original autographs as well as photocopied correspondence by Rabbi Abraham Geiger. Also included are a family tree of the Geiger family and a photograph.

This collection contains diverse materials documenting Jewish life in Bavaria. Included are instructions issued by Staats Ministerium Munich for Jewish teachers (1828); copy of petition to Bavarian government against Augsburg Reform Jewish synod (1871); article about publication of Die jüdischen Friedhöfe in kriegshaber, Buttenwiesen und Binswangen by Louis Lamm (1912); typewritten list of Jews in Bayreuth with Schutzbriefe (letters of protection) listed by community and by date between 1709-1736 (circa 1920); notice (Bekanntmachung) of extra taxes levied on Jews (1936); handwritten history of Jews in Bavaria by Adolf Eckstein (circa 1912), which includes article excerpt about Munich Jewish communities in relation to government ministries, also circa 1912.

The collection consists of various materials covering aspects of the Berlin Jewish community’s history from the 1880s to the 1990s, concentrating on documents from the community’s sole official congregation, “Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin”.

This Collection consists primarily of English, German, Hebrew, and French language correspondence concerning Reform Judaism, Zionism; the founding of the American Jewish Historical Society; the Jewish Publication Society; B'nai B'rith; the legal position of Jews in England and the United States with particular reference to the Naturalization Acts; the religious and social life and the history of Jews in Russia and Poland; Bible readings in public schools; the study of Jesus in Jewish Sabbath Schools; anti-slavery issues in the Fremont Campaign in 1856; and other correspondence pertaining to his numerous activities.

This collection describes the work of Reform rabbis in towns throughout Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

The Congregation Tifereth Israel, commonly known as “the Temple” was the first Reform Jewish congregation in Cleveland, and was established in 1850. It quickly became one of the most prominent Reform congregations in the country, and has a large membership to this day. The collection includes newsletters and programs, a book that tells the history of the congregation’s first 100 years, and other material related to the student Zionist group Ayukah.

The Elk-Zernik Family Collection provides documentation on the lives of several family members, especially Rabbi Max (Meir) Elk, dentist Benjamin Elk, Helmut Zernik and Charlotte Elk Zernik. The collection also holds the written compositions of several family members, including the sermons and articles of Max Elk and the autobiographical writing of Charlotte Elk Zernik. Other material includes a photo album and family photographs, a scrapbook, official papers and certificates, letters, some correspondence and clippings.

Papers of Hans Epstein (1905-1960), educator and historian. The collection consists of documents relating to Epstein's teaching activities during Nazi rule in Germany, and in New York during and after the Second World War; correspondence from before the emigration with individuals and organizations (including with Martin Buber, and Adolf Leschnitzer of the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden); personal and business correspondence relating to immigration in 1938 and Epstein's work in New York; posters and postcards.

This collection contains a few letters and a number of Galliner's writings, some in manuscript format but most taken from German and German-Jewish newspapers during the Third Reich.

This collection comprises materials related to Hugo Fuchs, rabbi of Chemnitz from 1907-1939. Included here are are a small amount of his correspondence and some of his published writings. In addition, this collection holds visual material on Jewish places and themes and some items pertaining to the Goeritz family.

Folder 1 contains Ignaz Ziegler's autobiographical text "Der Roman meines Lebens" (typescript with handwritten notes, additions, and corrections, 24+2 pp.).

Collection consists of legal documents, certificates, photographs, newspaper clippings, ephemera, and a scrapbook which document the lives of members of a German Jewish family in the midwest during late 19th and early 20th centuries. Also includes materials on Isaac Brown (1840-1901) and his children Hannah (1870-1950), Dora (1871-1938), and Mitchele (1880-1962).

Contains letters and articles in manuscript to Leeser pertaining to: his work as editor of The Occident, his translation of the Bible and his other literary works; discussions concerning Jewish law, the Reform movement in the United States and in Curaçao; Reform and Orthodox Judaism in Albany, N.Y., Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson's anti-Semitic comments in the United States Congress; the founding of a synagogue in San Francisco; the condition of Jews and Jewish education in America and in England; equal rights for Jews in Massachusetts and North Carolina; the controversy over the Touro Monument; slavery and the Civil War; and converts to Judaism. Also includes information on Israel Joseph Benjamin's trip in the U.S., 1859-1862; Isaac Mayer Wise; Sabato Morais; a manuscript guidebook on Jewish ritual slaughter written by Moses Julian in Barbados in 1820; Moses Montefiore's report on his mission to Rome on behalf of the Edgardo Mortara affair; articles discussing Christian theology; the Jews in Cochin, India and in China; a Latin preface to Leeser's Hebrew Bible; a Portuguese prayer against the evil eye; and poems on topics of Jewish interest.

This collection comprises a huge amount of letters that the German-Jewish historian Isaak Markus Jost sent to his former teacher and good friend Samuel Meyer Ehrenberg and his son Philipp Ehrenberg. Prominent issues are education, politics and intellectual life in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main.

The collection consists of published sermons and speeches by Joseph Lehmann in folder 2, as well as obituaries for him by the Jewish Reform Congregation in Berlin in folder 1.

This collection records the professional life and scholarship of Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman (1919-2017). A refugee who escaped Austria after the Nazi Anschluss in 1938, Rabbi Haberman had a distinguished career as both a champion of theological education and spiritual leader throughout the United States. Rabbi Haberman’s life work is well-documented through the items in this collection that include correspondence, handwritten notes and notebooks, philosophical research, conference lectures, and drafts of his later-published materials.

This collection contains correspondence and other materials related to the Braun-Vogelstein family.

This collection details the life of the philosopher Julius Goldstein and his wife Margarete Neumann Goldstein. Among the topics present in these papers include German family life in the early twentieth century, the First World War and its aftermath in Germany, the political and economic changes during the Weimar Republic, German Jewish communities, and progressive Judaism. The collection is comprised largely of correspondence, diaries, and clippings, but also contains reports, publications, and personal papers.

This collection holds material relating to Karl Rosenthal, rabbi of the Berlin Reform Congregation and Temple of Israel in Wilmington, North Carolina. Items in this collection center on his life, especially his time as rabbi in Berlin, as well as on the life of his wife. In addition to biographical material, the collection also holds Karl Rosenthal's writings, such as sermons and published articles. There are also two tapes of a lengthy interview with Trudie Rosenthal that describe the Rosenthals' life in Germany.

The Leo Baeck Family Collection documents the lives and influential events of members of the Baeck and Berlak families, specifically Leo Baeck, Ruth and Hermann Berlak, and Marianne and A. Stanley Dreyfus. Most prominent is the documentation on Leo Baeck's life; other salient themes include the World War I experience of Hermann Berlak and the Dreyfuses' involvement in preserving the memory of Leo Baeck's life and teachings. The collection includes extensive correspondence; a large accumulation of articles, especially those focused on Leo Baeck; a smaller amount of personal papers, manuscripts, drafts and notes; and a few photographs and slides.

The Leon Kronish Papers incorporate the personal and professional papers of Rabbi Leon Kronish with the organizational records of Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach, Florida, where he served as spiritual leader for over fifty years. Included are sermons, correspondence, memorandums, newsletters, worship service manuals, programs, pamphlets, greeting cards, administrative records, financial records, notes, clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, and sound recordings.

This collection holds the papers of Leopold Stein, rabbi of the Burgkunstadt and Frankfurt Jewish communities in the mid-nineteenth century. Among the documents here are biographies, official documents, poetry, and correspondence. In addition, there are also some papers, largely correspondence, of the educator Aron Wolfssohn.

Correspondence with individuals, including Alexander Altmann, Werner Cahnmann, Guido Kisch, Raphael Straus, and Max Warburg; business correspondence with publishers and organizations; correspondence with family members, including his brother, the novelist Lion Feuchtwanger.

Dienemann's dissertation, articles and manuscripts by him on theology and Jewish history, and lecture notes for his Jewish history course during the 1930s at the Freies Juedisches Lehrhaus, Frankfurt; sermons by Dienemann, and records kept by him of rabbinical duties performed in Offenbach.

Lectures; sermons; clippings; photos; correspondence.

The collection documents a very wide spectrum of Paul Rieger’s writings and interests. Series I contains personal documents such as his ordination certificate as well as Rieger’s correspondence. The most extensive part of the collection is Series 2: Writings, which contains a variety of manuscripts, articles, notes, index cards, correspondence, excerpts and lectures. Rieger’s articles cover a wide scope of topics, incuding Jewish and non-Jewish issues. His main work however, was Zur Geschichte der Juden in Rom. Series 3 holds a vast amount of off-prints about different subjects, such as on Jewish and non-Jewish topics, on Palestine and Israel as well as on Leo Baeck. Series 4 consists of Jewish, Yiddish, Israeli and German newspapers, and newsletters of Jewish communities in Germany. Series 5: Varia covers miscellaneous documents, such as letters of protection, legal documents, an abundance of marriage contracts, original signatures of Jewish personalities such as of Martin Buber and a record of the first meeting of the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbuerger juedischen Glaubens. There are also various pictures and drawings of different places, synagogues and people. Series 6: Oversized Materials contains Hebrew learning material, newspapers and fliers of Germany as well as Nazi propaganda.

The collection contains mainly sermons and manuscripts by Rabbi Henry Joseph Messing, one of the earliest reform rabbis in America. The collection is arranged into two series and three subseries. Materials in the collection include sermons, manuscripts, non-liturgical texts, newspaper clippings, and notebooks.

The records of Temple Beth El offer a valuable insight into a small town Southern Jewish community. The community members, composed mainly of German Jews devoted to the Reform movement, participated actively in charity work and mutual benefit societies, and maintained a close relationship with Jewish communities throughout the South. Temple Beth El was one of the first members of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Its history reflects the struggles a small town Jewish community experienced in maintaining their Jewish identity as well as the cooperation and acceptance of their non-Jewish neighbors. A significant part of the collection concerns the activities of women in the Helena Jewish community, who were a tight knit group that conducted extensive charity work. The Sisterhood took an active role as member of the Mississippi-Arkansas Federation of Temple Sisterhoods. The records also include minute books for the B'nai B'rith Esther Lodge. The collection contains correspondence, real estate deeds, financial ledgers, minute meetings, news clippings, a scrapbook, and photographs.

This collection is comprised of correspondence, invitations, programs, fliers, pamphlets, reports, memorandum, membership applications and a directory of publications. The documents in this collection describe resolutions and reports concerning organizational issues, reports concerning reaction to ACJ from other organizations and general promotional materials. Of special interest to researchers will be the correspondence that addresses the 1963 60 Minutes television program "A Tyranny of Minorities." Another topic discussed in the correspondence is David Ben Gurion's visit to Boston in 1967 on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal. Included in the collection are the following publications: Brief (1958), The Council News (1949-1957), Education In Judaism (1967), Information Bulletin (1943-1967), Issues (1966-1991), News (1947-1967), and Blueprint (I & II).