Judaism -- Prayers and devotions

The collection consists of materials relating to Jewish religious life in Europe from the 1830s to the 1930s. Topics include: marriages, births, divorces, deaths, bar mitzvahs, holidays, the Sabbath, daily customs, ritual slaughter (shehitah), ritual baths, mezuzahs, prayers, rabbis. Items include: marriage contracts, divorce deeds, wedding invitations, birth announcements, bar mitzvah speeches, New Year's cards, correspondence, photographs.

Cantorial records

The collection consists mainly of the correspondence of Johanna Boetz, Richard Scheuer and the city of Gelnhausen about its Jewish community in general and particularly about the rededication of the local synagogue on September 25, 1986. Also included are press releases and newsletters, manuscripts such as "Das Schicksal der Juden im Main-Kinzig-Kreis, Jugendliche suchen eine Erklaerung," and clippings.

This collection is composed of photostat or microfilm copies of rare books and manuscripts in Old Yiddish from various European libraries. These include the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Cambridge University Libraries, Bavarian State Library in Munich, British Museum in London, Hamburg Library. There is a subsidiary collection of Judeo-Arabic pamphlets on microfilm received from Mr. Robert Attal of Tunisia. The collection includes prayer books, glossaries, prescriptions, recipes, medical treatises, story books, scientific texts, poetry, folksongs, commentaries. The materials have been arranged by library of origin, with the Judeo-Arabic titles forming a separate group.

A short caption of M. Freilich’s life until the end of World War II. Personal documents (travel pass, id card), photos, newspaper clippings.

A collection of textual fragments and prints. The fragments consist of 148 illustrated title and text pages of mahzorim (festival prayer books), sidurim (standard prayer books), the Pentateuch, scriptures, Hebrew grammar books, and secular works. The prints consist of thirteen items by Ben Shahn (Dreyfus trial), Bezalel Schatz, Louis Lozowick, and six prints by Mane Katz, based on the novel Stempenyu by Sholem Aleichem.

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

The Weiss-Frohsinn Family Collection contains the papers of members of the Weiss and Frohsinn families, with a focus on the life of the gymnastics teacher Lily Frohsinn (née Weiss). The collection includes official documents, correspondence from friends, photo albums and photographs, a family tree, poetry, and other papers as well as prayer books..