Jews -- Palestine

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 contains various material pertaining to Aryeh Ben-David and comprises six folders.

The Elias Tcherikower Collection documents the professional and personal life of Elias Tcherikower, a scholar, communal activist, and one of the founders of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and to a smaller extent personal life of his wife, Riva Tcherikower, née Teplitski. Collected here are Tcherikower’s writings, professional and personal correspondence, photographs, manuscripts by other scholars, research materials, printed materials, financial documents, conference and exhibit materials, minutes of meetings, bibliographic materials and personal materials of Riva Tcherikower, née Teplitski, and Chaim Tcherikower.

Eliyahu Guttmacher was a rabbi, Talmudic scholar, mystic, communal leader, and early Zionist. During his lifetime he was known as the Tsadik of Grätz and thousands of Jews flocked to him for blessings and advice. Guttmacher was also known for his support of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, an early Zionist, and for his extensive collection of funds for institutions in Palestine. The bulk of the collection consists of several thousand kvitlekh (written requests to a rabbi asking for a blessing or advice). The kvitlekh were received from Jews residing in Poland and other, mostly European, countries. They reflect the social history of European Jews in the mid-19th century and relate to financial, medical, and family problems. In addition, the collection contains the following: general correspondence, including inquiries relating to religious matters, family correspondence, legal documents such as court and government papers, bills, certifications by unidentified authors, discussions on Jewish law by unknown authors, amulets, business documents, and receipts for contributions to charitable institutions in Palestine.

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 collection contains a manuscript by Fritz Meir Fraenkel titled "Deutsche Juden im alten Jischuw" (typescript, 16 pp.) about German-Jewish emigration to Palestine before the founding of the Zionist movement, focusing on "Kolel Hod", an organizational and financial institution and a "Landsmannschaft" founded by immigrants of German and Dutch origin in Palestine in 1837.

The collection, furthermore, includes offprints and clippings of articles by Fraenkel (such as "Zur Folklore der Berliner Juden from" (1957), "Zur Deutung einiger Kontraktionen im Hebraeischen" (1958), "Abraham und Aron – zwei Beitraege zur biblischen Namensforschung" (1962), "Drei verkannte Fluessigkeitsbenennungen im Hebraeischen" (1967), "Deutsch und Hebraeisch miteinander verwandt?" (1969)), book reviews by Fraenkel, and ten editions of the periodical "Sprachwart. Monatsblaetter fuer Sprache und Rechtschreibung" (1962-1969) as well as three editions of the journal "Archiv fuer das Studium der neueren Sprachen" (1961-1965) mostly containing articles by Fraenkel on linguistic matters (German and Hebrew language).

The linguist Fritz Meir Fraenkel was born in Berlin in 1906. He was a member of the Zionist youth movement "Blau-Weiss" and other Zionist organizations and wrote for the weekly "Juedische Rundschau" until 1938.

He immigrated to Palestine in 1933 and settled in Jerusalem. He worked for "Keren Hayesod" and other institutions and continued writing articles for various Hebrew journals and newspapers.

Fraenkel died in Israel in 1976.

The collection contains the correspondence between Jakob Katz and his fiancée Gerti Birnbaum, and comprises 195 letters in seven folders. Katz's letters were written in Frankfurt, in Magyargencs (Hungary), and in London; Birnbaum's' letters were written in Kissingen, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Kreuznach, Berlin, Jerusalem, London, Frankfurt, and Tel Aviv. The earliest letter is dated July 1, 1933, and the last was written on February 18, 1936. Some letters are undated or appear to have been written by a third person.

The collection contains arious materials pertaining to the Kartell Jüdischer Verbindungen in Palestine/Israel (KJV or ק.י.פ.).

The bulk of the collection holds manuscripts, correspondence and clippings pertaining to the work of the industrialist Nathan Eidinger in achieving emancipation for Romanian Jews after World War One. Also included are documents related to his and his family’s plight in Switzerland and France during World War Two.

Young Judaea is the oldest Zionist youth organization in the United States, established as a national organization in 1909 by the Federation of American Zionists. It was supported by Hadassah, including direct financial sponsorship from 1967-2011. The major aims of Young Judaea throughout its history have been to advance the cause of Zionism, to further the mental, moral, and physical development of Jewish youth, and to promote Jewish culture and ideals in accordance with Jewish traditions. Young Judaea has remained non-partisan and non-denominational, embracing and recruiting Jewish youth from all backgrounds.

The Youth Aliyah Records in the Hadassah Archives document Hadassah's work with multiple international organizations to rescue Jewish children from continental Europe to Palestine from 1933-1945. The collection also documents Hadassah's involvement with Youth Aliyah since 1946 in providing residential, educational, vocational, rehabilitative and therapeutic care for displaced and at-risk youth from around the world.

The material in this record group was culled from Hadassah's Central Files in Israel in the early 1980s to document Hadassah's role in Zionist history. Originally formed from a Zionist women's study group, the first Hadassah chapter in New York had a strong relationship with the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA; then known as the Federation of American Zionists). The material in this record group documents Hadassah's relationship to the ZOA and to other Zionist organizations in the United States, Europe, and Palestine/Israel, particularly in the years leading up to Israeli statehood in 1948. Other subjects addressed in this record group include the founding of Hadassah; World War II, particularly relating to Jewish emigration and refugees; the founding of the United Nations and the debate over recognition of a Jewish state; the partition of Palestine; and Arab-Jewish relations. Included are articles, clippings, convention resolutions, correspondence, diary extracts, memorandums, minutes, press releases, printed ephemera, publications, reports, and speeches.