Theology

This collection documents the professional and personal life of Henry M. Rosenthal from 1925 to 1989. His tenure as religious director of the 92nd Street Young Men's Hebrew Association and membership of the faculty at Hunter College are well documented through correspondence and supporting materials. Rosenthal’s Philosophical career and published writings make up the bulk of the collection, which includes manuscripts, drafts, and bound copies of his work. Unpublished manuscripts are of particular interest, as are the early drafts of his posthumously published "The Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes's Secret; Spinoza's Way". Personal journals and early letters between Rosenthal and his wife, the former Rachel Chernowitz, complete the collection.

The Milton Steinberg (1903-1950) Papers documents the personal and intellectual life of the American author, philosopher, rabbi, teacher, and theologian. The collection contains correspondence, writings, photographs, audio recordings, and memorabilia. In addition to numerous articles, he authored several books including, The Making of the Modern Jew (1934), As A Driven Leaf (1939), A Partisan Guide to the Jewish Problem (1945), Basic Judaism (1947), A Believing Jew (1951), Anatomy of Faith (1960), and A Prophet’s Wife (2010). In a professional career that lasted a little over twenty years, he served as rabbi at three synagogues, primarily at the Park Avenue Synagogue. In addition, he was active in the community at large, and worked with many Jewish community and civic organizations. As a disciple of Mordecai Kaplan, he and others helped to establish the Reconstructionist movement of American Jewry.

This collection is primarily comprised of administrative materials, journal issues, editorial content, and interviews. Interviews are transcribed for inclusion in editorial content. The collection was pre-arranged by the organization prior to donation.

The complete run of Sh'ma is available via our shared digital asset management and preservation system. Links to the digitized serial can be found in two parts. For 1970-2002, please see https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE10853379. For 2002-2019, please see https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE10940070.

While our collection is arranged archivally in its original order, Stanford's Berman Jewish Policy Archive offers the ability to search the Sh’ma Journal database by article title, author, or keywords. Cross referencing these two collections increases discoverability and makes the Sh’ma collection more accessible to all users.

Each entry in Stanford’s database contains a selection of keywords, or “topics”. A keyword search will typically yield a range of files within the scope of your chosen topic. For example: entering “kosher” into the search bar will retrieve any files containing “kosher” as a topic, as well as files containing shared keywords such as “food,” “Jewish law,” and “tradition”. The ability to cast a wider net allows for the discovery of more resources and can be particularly helpful when conducting preliminary research.

The Sh’ma Journal collection at AJHS allows the user to browse the journal’s complete run in chronological order. Each volume has been digitized as a single entity and can be accessed by issue number, rather than individual articles. Once the user has identified a relevant article through a keyword search in the Stanford database, they can then locate the complete publication in the AJHS collection and continue their research from there. Likewise, the user might identify an article or topic of interest within the AJHS collection and then utilize the Stanford database to locate related articles through a keyword search.

Click here to browse the Sh'ma Collection hosted by the Berman Jewish Policy Archive