Slaughtering and slaughter-houses

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.

Collection contains miscellaneous papers and correspondence, in both Hebrew and Yiddish, pertaining primarily to Eudovich's emigration from Vilna to England and South America (1905), and to his career as a shochet (ritual slaughterer) in Argentina (1905-1913) and Cleveland (1919-1936).

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.

Collection contains an 1808 invoice, signed by Abraham Isaacs (1737-1815) in Hebrew, for various types of meat sold to Frederick Frazier; and an inventory of the estate of Jacob Isaacs (1793-1831), 1831.

The collection contains documents pertaining to Rabbi Keller's career in Witkower, Kingdom of Hanover, prior to coming to Lexington, Missouri. Included in the collection are the following items in Yiddish, with English translations: 1) A sermon (undated); 2) A wedding address (undated); 3) A letter of introduction for Rabbi Keller (1834); and 4) a kabalah for shehitah for Rabbi Keller (1826). Also included are photocopies, in German, of a letter of recommendation for Rabbi Keller (1831), and a copy of his birth certificate (1831); and English translations in manuscript of all of the above documents, as well as letters to Rabbi Keller (1828, 1829) and his rules for shehitah (1831).

Collection consists of correspondence, speeches, photographs, clippings, and memorabilia relating to Crestohl's activities as a lawyer and as a member of the House of Commons in the Parliament of Canada representing Montreal-Cartier, 1950-1963. It includes material relating to Canadian immigration policies, German rearmament, humane slaughtering, and citizen reactions to these issues; correspondence with members of the Israeli Parliament, and correspondence and speeches relating to his numerous activities in communal and Jewish affairs in general and Zionist organizations and The ORT in particular; and personal writings and memoirs in typescript and published material by and about Leon Crestohl.

The collection also contains correspondence in English and Yiddish between members of the Crestohl family, primarily his mother Rose (Weitzman) Crestohl, 1926-1941, and published and manuscript material, both original and copies, relating to the career of his father Hyman Meyer Crestohl, 1904-1921.

Contains manuscript listings of 910 circumcisions performed in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, and the District of Columbia from 1836-1862. Among the entries, which include 47 geographic locations, are 739 for Baltimore, 51 for Washington, D.C., 19 for Alexandria, VA, 12 for Frederick, MD, 11 for Hanover, PA, and 10 for Hagerstown, MD. Also includes an article about the book from 1889, and a letter from 1831 from Michael Samuel Rosenberg to the Jewish community of Baltimore, certifying that the meat being shipped to them was kosher. The letter was found pinned in back of the record book.

Contains minutes of meetings (1960-1961), correspondence and reports pertaining to its activities. Among the latter were matters pertaining to open enrollment in the public schools, Negro-Jewish relations, Sabbath legislation and kosher slaughtering.

This Collection contains personal papers, correspondence, and other material relating to the Phillips family, 1733-1954. The majority of the materials are in regard to the following family members: Jonas Phillips (1733-1802), Naphtali Phillips (1815-1868), Joseph Phillips (1811), Rebecca Hart Phillips (1812), Joshua Phillips (1852-1858), Isaac Phillips (1830-1884), Roslie Solomons Phillips (1872-1945), Naphtali Taylor Phillips (1895-1954).

Notable objects in this collection include Jonas Phillips' copy of a book on the laws and practice of shehita, printed in Wandsbeck, Germany, in 1733; Naphtali Phillips' letters regarding Congregation Shearith Israel; Isaac Phillips' correspondence relating to his position as Appraiser of Merchandise for the Port of New York; Roslie Solomons Phillips' letters from Eleanor Roosevelt; and Naphtali Taylor Phillips' correspondence relating to Congregation Shearith Israel, the Touro Synagogue, the Federation of American Zionists, the National Conference of Jewish Charities (Committee on Palestinian Charities), and Adolphus S. Solomons. Collection also contains published Masonic materials, political memorabilia, and a letter from George Mifflin Dallas to an unidentified member of the Phillips family, 1856.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Wąbrzeźno, known in German as Briesen. The records date from 1871 to 1921, concentrated in the era when the town of Briesen was part of the province of West Prussia, in the German Empire; only a handful of items date from the years 1920-1921, when the town was part of Poland. The collection comprises administrative and financial records kept by the Briesen Jewish Community Council, except for one volume of records kept by the Jüdischer Lese-Verein (Jewish Reading Society) of Briesen, in the years 1901 to 1908. Approximately 40% of the collection comprises financial records, 1882-1921, including official budgets and tax lists; 20% concerns the community's religious institutions; and another 20% comprises records related to community employees, especially rabbis and cantors. The remainder of the collection includes correspondence, communal meeting minutes and decisions, circulars announcing meetings, and a variety of administrative records. Included are records pertaining to communal council elections; synagogue seat rentals; burials and the care of graves; the construction and maintenance of the mikveh (ritual bath house); the expansion of the cemetery; synagogue rules and the renovation of the synagogue; charitable activities, often in cooperation with regional and national Jewish organizations; and the religious school and Jewish elementary school.

The collection comprises a portion of the records of the Jewish community of Ostrów Wielkopolski, today in west-central Poland, in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. The region was annexed by Prussia in 1793, in the Second Partition of Poland; in German the town was known as Ostrowo. The records date mainly from 1834 to 1919, with a few materials from as early as 1822. During this period the town was part of the Posen (Poznań) region of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Empire; in 1919, it was incorporated into the Second Republic of Poland. The community numbered nearly 2,000 members in the late 19th century and declined steadily thereafter due to migration of members to larger German cities or overseas; only a small Jewish community remained during the interwar period. The records are mainly those of the Jewish communal administration, or council; a small amount of material pertains to several community voluntary organizations. Included are financial records such as budgets, balance sheets, and tax lists; communal minutes and decisions throughout the period; correspondence with the government, and, to a lesser extent, with Jewish organizations and other Jewish communities; records pertaining to community members' naturalizations, marriages, births, and synagogue seat contracts; petitions from individual community members, especially pertaining to charitable aid in the mid to late 19th century; records pertaining to communal educational and religious institutions; records on the hiring and employment of community rabbis,cantors, and other personnel, including application materials from candidates not hired; property records and mortgages; documentation of construction and renovation of communal buildings; records related to court cases, bequests, and estate and guardianship matters; and ephemera such as meeting notices and announcement fliers, as well as scattered clippings.

This collection contains primarily copies of Morais' sermons and addresses, both in published and manuscript form, the majority of the latter written in shorthand. Collection also contains the manuscript copy of his unpublished translation of the Book of Jeremiah (67 pages), a brief resume and explanation of the Laws of Shechita in manuscript form, a manuscript copy of a Contract of marriage at which he officiated (1862), a manuscript poem in Hebrew on the assasination of President Lincoln, a letter of condolence to Lucien Moss (1872), and clippings from the Jewish Messenger of a series of articles by Morais. Included with collection are 33 unidentified manuscript items, mostly in shorthand.

Contains a kabbalah, in Hebrew, certifying that Samuel Bar Isaac Keyser of London, while in Philadelphia, examined Israel Delieben and found him competent to slaughter meat in the proscribed manner.

Collection contains two kabbalot, in Hebrew, from Rabbi Bernhard L. Levinthal of Philadelphia and Rabbi B.S. Rabiner of New York, certifying Seelav's competency as a shohet. Also contains an English letter testifying to his appointment as rabbi of Congregation Agudath Achim of Philadelphia; and one photograph.

This volume, which belonged to Shmuel Robles de Medina, hazzan of Congregation Neve Shalom, contains the following: a Hebrew poem with the first letters forming the acrostic, "Shmuel Robles de Medina"; formulas for ketubot, divorce, power of attorney, certification of ritual slaughter, removal of a required levirate marriage (halizah) in Portuguese and Hebrew; specifications for a mikveh with the mention that land for the mikveh was purchased by Rabbi Olivera. Of interest is a document for halizah which was received from Amsterdam. The document includes the names of the parties involved as well as the names of the witnesses, including David Cohen d'Azevedo (d. 1792). The last few pages contain copies of documents which have been copied out in Dutch.

Contains Sulzberger's passport from Baden (1848), seven documents from Germany certifying his qualifications as a shohet, and three letters from German friends and relatives (2 from 1853, 1 undated) regarding immigration to America. Also includes the will of Nathan Segal (Michaelfeld, 1825); a Halitzah document (Eppingen, 1830); two letters; and the will of Mayer Sulzberger.

Contains the surviving papers of Rabbi Tobias Geffen who served as a rabbi in New York City (1904-1907), Canton, Ohio (1907-1910), and Atlanta, Georgia (1910-1970). Includes extensive correspondence with members of his family, autobiographies in Yiddish and English (several versions) and other material relating to his personal life.