Jews -- History

The collection contains various materials pertaining to the historical research conducted by Baruch Ophir, and comprises three folders.

The collection contains a manuscript by Fritz Meir Fraenkel titled "Deutsche Juden im alten Jischuw" (typescript, 16 pp.) about German-Jewish emigration to Palestine before the founding of the Zionist movement, focusing on "Kolel Hod", an organizational and financial institution and a "Landsmannschaft" founded by immigrants of German and Dutch origin in Palestine in 1837.

The collection, furthermore, includes offprints and clippings of articles by Fraenkel (such as "Zur Folklore der Berliner Juden from" (1957), "Zur Deutung einiger Kontraktionen im Hebraeischen" (1958), "Abraham und Aron – zwei Beitraege zur biblischen Namensforschung" (1962), "Drei verkannte Fluessigkeitsbenennungen im Hebraeischen" (1967), "Deutsch und Hebraeisch miteinander verwandt?" (1969)), book reviews by Fraenkel, and ten editions of the periodical "Sprachwart. Monatsblaetter fuer Sprache und Rechtschreibung" (1962-1969) as well as three editions of the journal "Archiv fuer das Studium der neueren Sprachen" (1961-1965) mostly containing articles by Fraenkel on linguistic matters (German and Hebrew language).

The linguist Fritz Meir Fraenkel was born in Berlin in 1906. He was a member of the Zionist youth movement "Blau-Weiss" and other Zionist organizations and wrote for the weekly "Juedische Rundschau" until 1938.

He immigrated to Palestine in 1933 and settled in Jerusalem. He worked for "Keren Hayesod" and other institutions and continued writing articles for various Hebrew journals and newspapers.

Fraenkel died in Israel in 1976.

This collection contains the research of University of Miami professor of photobiology and medical researcher Elli Kohen. Professor Kohen was a prolific writer in a variety of topics ranging from photobiology to the history of cats to the study of Ladino and Sephardic Jewry. The bulk of this collection contains his notes and drafts of essays and book chapters on the history of Sephardic and Turkish Jews.

The collection holds mostly manuscripts of lectures given primarily at institutions of Jewish adult education. They were given by various scholars, lecturing on Judaism; Jewish history; Jewish philosophy; and other topics pertaining to Jewish culture.

The collection holds materials by and pertaining to the writer Josef Kastein (1890-1946).

The file contains various documents pertaining to Joseph Walk's research on Karl Gustav Kindermann and his relations with the Nazi and Japanese regimes during World War II. The file comprises three folders.

The collection holds materials by and about Martin Buber.

This collection is made up of Moshe Starkman’s correspondence with many well-known literary and political figures, as well as with various New York and international organizations. There are also biographical sketches written by several of the authors that Starkman included in the Anthology of American-Jewish Poetry and the Lexicon of Modern Yiddish Literature, of which he was an editor.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of historian and bibliographer Philip Friedman. These materials include correspondence with individuals and with organizations, newspaper clippings, subject files, manuscripts of works by Friedman and by others, and some of Friedman’s personal documents. These materials relate to Friedman’s work on the histories of various Jewish communities, particularly those in Poland, and his work gathering source documents about the Holocaust.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Shmuel Niger, including correspondence with many important literary figures, as well as manuscripts by Niger, writings about Niger written by others, Niger’s speeches and lectures, selections from his published writings, and biographical materials. These materials serve to illustrate Niger’s great importance to Yiddish literary criticism and Jewish historical writing as well as his role as a writer on contemporary themes, a teacher and lecturer, editor and communal leader.

The collection holds a list of Jewish citizens in West Prussia, circa 1812. Also included are two published articles about the history of Jews in West Prussia.