Israel

Correspondence of Albert Salomon, manuscripts, course outlines, photos

The collection documents American Jewish Committee’s efforts to combat all forms of discrimination against the Jews in the United States. Additionally, there are materials pertaining to AJC’s work regarding other minority groups in the United States. The collection offers researchers a unique chance to see how and what was done prior to the changes in public opinion and civic and legal laws. The American Jewish Committee Records, Subject Files consists of materials created by executive offices, departments, local offices and chapters of the Committee concerning a variety of matters; foremost Jewish civil and religious rights, immigration, and the Holocaust.

The records of the American Jewish Historical Society, the oldest national ethnic historical organization in the United States, include correspondence of officers and staff as well as inter-office memos, multiple versions of the constitution and by-laws of the society, meeting minutes of administrative branches and committees, membership and financial records, reports, exhibit materials, records relating to the society’s library and archival holdings, press releases and newspaper clippings, and publications and newsletters created by the society. There are also materials from various programs, such as meetings and conferences, tours, lectures, awards and dinners, films, and educational programs.

The AMIT records contain correspondence, periodicals, program, project, and subject files, films, reports, convention and chapter material and photographs that document the organizational activities, educational and humanitarian achievements in Israel, and fundraising efforts of this American Jewish Zionist volunteer organization from 1933-2005. The AMIT Records were donated to the American Jewish Historical Society in 2010. The donation, while incomplete, represents the most complete set of documents, to date, related to the projects and achievements of AMIT and its history as the American Mizrachi Women's Organization.

The Annual and Mid-Winter National Conventions Records document the proceedings and outcomes of the conventions and conferences attended by Hadassah’s National Board as well as by convention delegates from the various regions of Hadassah. The conventions in particular are where local and regional leaders meet with each other and the National Board and learn about Hadassah’s various projects and committees. This record group also includes annual reports from 1926-2001.

The materials in the record group mostly consist of reproductions of building plans of the Hadassah hospitals on Mount Scopus and Ein Kerem from the 1920s to the 2000s. Other properties documented in the record group include buildings managed by Youth Aliyah, Hadassah Youth Services, Young Judaea, Hadassah Israel Education Services, the National Office, and the Hadassah Medical Organization. These records document a core Hadassah function, the building of medical and social service facilities in Palestine/Israel.

The collection consists almost entirely of newspaper clippings of Arno Herzberg’s articles. The articles deal with the Jewish situation in Germany in the 1930s, Israel and her problems with the outside world, Jewish holidays, and a small amount of articles dealing with economic issues, such as taxes. Other materials include a small amount of correspondence, manuscripts (all the manuscripts are photocopies lacking any annotations or remarks), and a memoir depicting the Hess family members between 1930 and the 1940s, including their imprisonment in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

This is the collection of Arthur A. Goren, a historian and professor of American Jewish history at the Hebrew University and Columbia University. This collection consists of his research material and professional files from his academic pursuits and career as a professor, primarily at Columbia University. Included in the collection are copies of articles and photocopies of archival material used for research, drafts of speeches and manuscripts, handwritten and typed research notes, correspondence, clippings, photographs, and teaching and course material such as syllabi, readings, notes, and bibliographies.

This collection documents the professional activities and personal life of Arthur Waskow, a Jewish Renewal rabbi and political activist. The collection includes such printed materials as brochures, booklets, clippings, correspondence, financial documents, photographs, and Waskow's writings. Materials in the collection reflect various aspects of Arthur Waskow’s personal and professional life, including teaching, involvement in the human and civil rights movements, and the peace process in the Middle East.

This record group contains three-dimensional objects and printed materials that relate to the history of Hadassah. A bulk of this record group consists of promotional and commemorative objects and awards created by Hadassah for its Annual and Midwinter National Conventions, and for Young Judaea events. Examples of such items include t-shirts, hats, bags, buttons, stationery and keychains. Artifacts created by local Hadassah chapters and regions, as well as awards received by local and national Hadassah leaders from other organizations, are also included. Of a particular interest is the bronze death mask of Henrietta Szold.

This record group is made up of mostly audio and moving images materials, including ¼-inch open audio reels, 16mm film, filmstrips, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, CDs, DVDs, LPs, 3.5 inch floppy disks, and other media, dating from the 1920s up to 2010. The films and audio recordings document Hadassah's efforts to publicize themselves to their members and those outside of Hadassah, by raising awareness of their history, fundraising efforts, and projects in United States and Israel, especially the Hadassah Medical Organization and Youth Aliyah projects and programs. Hadassah also used recordings to document important proceedings, including departmental and board meetings, Midwinter Conferences, and National Conventions.

The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence to Bertha Badt-Strauss from various writers and friends between 1940 and 1969. The letters deal with topics related to emigration/immigration, Judaism, Zionism and publishing opportunities in the United States and Mexico. Included are manuscripts, poems, photographs and clippings of Badt-Strauss's correspondents, as well as some of her own writings.

This collection holds predominately private letters from Berthold Rosenthal to his son on a Kibbutz in Israel. The correspondence documents developments within his domestic life from 1940 to his death in 1957. The correspondence covers his opinions on a variety of political and religious topics. The collection also contains articles on Berthold Rosenthal’s life and his works.

The Records of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites (1859-1878) documents the life cycle of the Board of Delegates, a Jewish civil rights organization located in New York City. The Board served in a two-fold function: acting as a central organization for American Jews and working on behalf of Jews abroad. To the latter end, the Delegates collaborated with the Committee of Deputies of British Jews and the French Alliance Israélite Universelle to provide for the relief and aid, civil, and religious rights of Jews throughout the Americas, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, particularly Romania, Ottoman Palestine including Jerusalem, and Morocco.

In the U.S., the Delegates were partially responsible for the appointment of the first Jewish Military Chaplain and surveyed member synagogues concerning the history and size of their congregation, the first organization to systematically record this type of information in the States. The Delegates merged with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) in 1878 and dissolved in 1925. Correspondents include Adolph Crémieux, Sir Moses Montefiore, Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, Isaacs S. Myer, the Rev. Dr. Arnold Fischel, and Maj. General Benjamin Butler. Documents include correspondence, minutes, committee reports, memorials, announcements, surveys, some printed material including clippings, and a 1932 Rabbinical thesis on the Delegates by Allan Tarshish.

The collection contains various materials pertaining to the Bondi family, mostly concerning Aron (Alfred) Bondi and his scientific career.

This collection is comprised of correspondence and financial documents from and to the Central Committee Knesseth Israel Charity of Rabbi Maier Baal Haness from 1924 through 1950. The charity was a Jewish charity formed in 1924 in both Israel and the state of New York with the purpose of collecting contributions to help the state of Israel and American Jews. The collection contains charity donation records from 1924 through 1950.

This record group contains materials related to the local units of Hadassah—groups, chapters, regions, and co-ops—as well as Junior Hadassah, a youth organization that functioned as a group within the Hadassah Chapter structure. The record group documents over one hundred years of Hadassah’s growth, and illuminates a century of American Jewish communal life, particularly that of Jewish women, across the United States. The record group reflects the formation, administration and activities of the individual groups, chapters, co-ops and regions, and contains information on local events and programs organized around fundraising, Zionism, Jewish heritage, religion and holidays celebration, the study of Hebrew and Yiddish, women's issues, fashion, health, technology and many other topics.

This record group documents the creation, management, and use of the Hadassah Archives and provides valuable contextual information for researchers, current managers, and future managers of the Hadassah Archives. As an organization, Hadassah created active records of business that were housed in its Central Files department. In the 1950s, Hadassah began the process of creating an official archives, precipitated by a project to locate and compile sources for a biography of Hadassah founder, Henrietta Szold, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of her birth. This record group documents three specific periods of custodianship—the 1980s, 1996-2011, and 2015-2016—and the various archivists who managed and shaped the archives during those years. RG 23 includes born digital, digitized, and paper material.

This record group documents the work of the Hadassah national board through board and executive committee meeting minutes, board member subject files, correspondence and reports, as well as minutes and materials generated by Hadassah ad-hoc and non-Executive committees, from 1912-2012. This record group also includes files from milestone anniversaries of Hadassah and legal documents pertaining to its projects.

David Friedman (Friedmann; 1893-1980) was an artist in Berlin. During the Nazi Holocaust, he was incarcerated in the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz. He resumed his artistic career immediately after the war and then immigrated to the United States. His papers include artwork, memoirs, and essays focusing on his experiences in the Holocaust.

This collection holds the diaries of the Israeli artist Yehuda Bacon.

The collection consists of photographs, letters, documents and books related to the life of Dorothea Gould, née Guttmann, and her husband, Henry Gould.

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.

Emigration 1864-1952: This collection - encompassing about 90 years - contains papers about the situation and persecution of Jews in Eastern European countries (Russia, Poland, Roumania, Bulgaria, Lithuania). Papers describe the activities of various relief organizations. There are more than 170 papers (ca.900 pages), about half of them written in German, about 30 each in French or English, over 20 in Yiddish and some in Polish. A printed appeal of the Reichsausschuss fuer Russisch-Juedische Fluechtlingshilfe, Berlin (1929) carries among others the signatures of Leo Baeck and ALbert Einstein. (VI, 16).

This collection consists of buttons, a keychain, and a sticker advocating support for Holocaust survivors, human rights issues, Israel, and Soviet Jews. Organizations represented include Boston Mobilization for Soviet Jewry, Coalition to Free Soviet Jews, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, Jewish Students Network, National Conference on Soviet Jewry, Student Zionist Council, and Young Judaea.

This collection contains the papers of Ernst Mueller: mathematician, writer, philosopher and librarian. The most prominent material here are his unpublished writings, including autobiographical items such as diaries and memoirs along with essays, articles and drafts of longer works. Major themes of the collection reflect Mueller's interest in Kabbalah and anthroposophy, in addition to a number of works relating to various areas of Jewish studies. Other materials in this collection include correspondence of Ernst Mueller and his wife Frieda, notes, many poems of himself and his brother Edmund, and a few biographical articles and official papers.

The Erwin Lichtenstein Collection documents the work of Erwin Lichtenstein as an author. The bulk of the archival collection is in reference to his book Die Juden der Freien Stadt Danzig unter der Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus 1933-1945. The correspondence with Sam Echt, Werner Feilchenfeld, Ernst Loops and others reflect the response to Erwin Lichtenstein's publication. Noteworthy with regard to the book is the correspondence between Günter Grass and Erwin Lichtenstein. Although the bulk of the documents consists of correspondence, the collection also includes newspaper articles and book reviews, corrections and changes and the original manuscript of the aforementioned book.

This record group includes documents created and maintained by the Office of the President, the Office of the Executive Director and the Chair of the Division Coordinators/Directors Committee. Prominent is the Henrietta Szold series, containing correspondence by and to Szold as well as printed materials written by and about her. The files in this record group were created by a national president or executive director, or for their use, or maintained in their office during their years in office. Included are correspondence, minutes, memos, publications, reports and subject files on topics with which these individuals were involved.

The Frederick Lachmann collection includes fragmentary materials that allow us all but a glance into the life and professional activities of Frederick Lachmann and members of his family. The core of the collection consists of printed copies of articles that Frederick Lachmann wrote for Aufbau. Also included in the collection are correspondence, photographs, and writings.

Hadassah Functions and Operations Records represent the bulk of aid and services provided to Hadassah's membership, from the 1920s to 2011. Materials found in the record group include correspondence, clippings, press releases, manuals and kits for chapters and members to implement programming and chapter structure, fundraising campaigns, scripts, study guides, programming for local and national meetings, biographical files, and training documentation. Departments documented in the record group include Public Affairs, Education, Women's Health, American Affairs, Zionist and International Affairs, Speakers Bureau, Fundraising, Program, Organization, Outreach and Tourism Departments. Materials related to the general administration of Hadassah are also in the record group; these materials include research and development of projects, archives department correspondence and other materials, Hadassah House administration, and strategic planning. The record group also documents Hadassah's efforts to expand membership outside of the United States, by the development of Hadassah International.