Jews -- Colonization

Circulars and correspondence relating to organizational activities. Materials relating to the convention of 1933. Financial materials. Lists of candidates for colony membership, resolutions, by-laws, minutes of meetings.

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 file contains various documents pertaining to Ernst Hermann and comprises two folders.

Correspondence relating to Cherniak's association with Yiddish cultural organizations. Letters from Freeland League, YKUF, YIVO, ORT, Canadian Jewish Congress, Yiddish schools, Jewish Labor Committee. Correspondence with individuals: Mendl Elkin, Peretz Hirschbein, Shmuel Niger, Chaim Zhitlowsky.

Joseph A. Rosen was an agronomist and official of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. In the 1920s and 1930s he organized and coordinated relief activities for impoverished Jews in the Soviet Union. Joseph A. Rosen was a director of the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint) that tried to develop Jewish settlements and assisted with organization of Jewish factories, cooperatives, schools, and health care facilities. All these subjects are covered in this collection. These are the papers of Joseph A. Rosen in his official capacity as a Director of the Agro-Joint. The collection contains agreements between Agro-Joint and the Soviet government, reports, and field observations of the agronomists and officials of the relief organizations, particularly of the Agro-Joint, technical reports and documentation necessary for development and financial sustainability of the Jewish settlements. Maps and landscape plans are also part of this collection.

This collection contains the papers of Joseph Perkins Chamberlain, a professor of law who worked with many refugee aid organizations during the 1930s and 1940s. The papers reflect the work of Chamberlain and the organizations in rescuing and assisting refugees from Europe during this time. Although the bulk of the documents consists of correspondence, the collection also includes minutes of meetings, reports, statistical information, clippings, booklets and transcripts of speeches.

The collection includes: Photograph of a Zeirei Zion conference. Articles by Pilch on the 19th Zionist Congress in Prague. Photograph of American Jewish educational leaders, 1910. Materials relating to the League of Jewish Youth of America. Copies of the youth publication Hed-Ha-Galil.

The papers consist primarily of correspondence with the Freeland League, Jewish Teachers' Seminary in New York, and other Jewish cultural organizations. Also included are manuscripts of Zelitch's memoirs.

Real estate lawyer, judge, newspaper editor, and philanthropist, Myer S. Isaacs was the eldest son of the second English-speaking Rabbi in the United States, the Rev. Dr. Samuel M. Isaacs (1804-1878). The Isaacs Family were founding members of the New York-based Jewish civil rights organization, the Board of Delegates of American Israelites (1859-1878), published the Jewish Messenger (1859-1902), and Myer was the first president of the Baron de Hirsch Fund. This Collection contains documents deriving from Myer and Samuel Issacs, and Myer's brothers Abram (1852 or 53-1920) and Isaac Isaacs (1845-1907). Information concerning Myer's children may also be found, including documents from his son Stanley (1882-1962), Manhattan borough President and New York City Councilman. Includes correspondence, clippings, commencement programs, invitations, souvenir and anniversary programs, election campaign materials, obituaries, funeral programs, and citizenship papers.

The collection is divided into 5 series: I) Personal Papers and General Correspondence (folders 1-5); II) Journalistic Articles (6-51b); III) Jewish Folklore (52-99); IV) Various Materials (100-105); V) Photographs (106-117).The collection includes Yiddish folkore materials, including notebooks of songs, folk plays, folktales, folk humor, anecdotes, proverbs. Clippings of Litwin's articles relating to various topics, including: Russia, 1917-1930; Palestine and Zionism; towns and cities in Europe; landsmanshaftn; Poale Zion activities, 1915-1928; Jewish occupations; colonization and farming; Jewish holidays; Yiddish theater; education. Poems by Litwin. Photographs of personalities, towns in Europe. Correspondence with Abraham Cahan, Saul Ginsburg, Abraham Liessin, Baal Makhshoves (Isidor Eliashev), Shmuel Niger, Zalman Reisen, Sholem Aleichem, Israel Zinberg. Family correspondence.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Isaac Nachman Steinberg, a Russian-Jewish political writer, leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party during the 1917 revolution in Russia, People’s Commissar of Justice in the first Bolshevik government, leader of the Jewish Territorialist Movement and of the Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonization, and a founding member of the YIVO Institute in Vilna. These materials include Steinberg’s writings, personal correspondence, clippings, journals, meeting announcements, and some photographs. These materials relate mainly to Steinberg’s work with the Freeland League and plans for the large-scale settlement of Jews in various places around the world.

The papers relate to Schaechter's work in Yiddish linguistics, and his involvement in the Freeland League and in Jewish cultural life. Correspondence and printed materials relating to the Freeland League and the periodical Oyfn shvel. Records of the Gezelshaft far Yidishe Yishuvim in Amerike (Association for Jewish Settlements in America), 1950s. Materials on Jewish settlement projects in the U.S. and Israel. Minutes of the Workmen's Circle Kropotkin Branch #413, Los Angeles, California, late 1940s-1960. Minutes of the East Side Women's Group (Los Angeles), Jewish Culture Club (Los Angeles), 1961-1968. Photographs of various Yiddish schools. Personal correspondence.

Circulars, pamphlets, brochures from HIAS, YKUF, Congress for Jewish Culture and other organizations relating to Jewish life in Philadelphia. Materials relating to the Workmen's Circle Schools and to International Workers' Order Schools. Clippings relating to Yiddish culture in the U.S.S.R.

This collection documents the research of Jewish historian Samuel Oppenheim (1857-1928) concerning the lives of colonial Jews in the Americas, and the early history of the United States. Included in the collection are his notes, transcripts of original works, photocopies of the records of the Dutch West India Company, correspondence relating to his research, his writings, and original documents from the Mayor’s Court of the City of New York that date from 1653-1760.

The collection relates primarily to Herwald's participation in the Jewish Territorialist movement and the Freeland League. Materials on Freeland League, 1931-1946: colonization projects in British Guiana, New Zealand, British Honduras, South Africa. Materials on the Territorialist movement: correspondence, including Israel Zangwill; reports, pamphlets, clippings of Herwald's articles. Personal documents. Copies of Der yidisher zhurnal, 1905.