Alaska

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).

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 chaplain's kit used by Rabbi Emery Glancz during his service as an army chaplain during World War II. Included in the kit is a flag with the Ten Commandments; one Ten Commandments plaque; two brass candlesticks, one marked "US;" two brass communion plates marked "US;" one brass priest's communion cup with cross; and three silver-plated cups.

The Rudolph Seiden Collection describes the life and work of Rudolph Seiden, who was a chemist and a Zionist activist. Included in this collection is personal and editorial correspondence regarding Judaism, Zionism, anti-Semitism and the proposed Jewish resettlement in Alaska in the 1930s. Unpublished manuscripts collected by Rudolph Seiden for the Foreign Authors’ Syndicate can be found in this collection as well as autographs from Max Brod, Lujo Brentano, Franz Oppenheimer, Erich Muehsam, Arthur Schnitzler and Otto Warburg.