Printed ephemera

Under the employ of the New York Kehillah, detective Abraham Shoenfeld infiltrated and documented Jewish crime rings, prostitution houses and gambling establishments from 1912 to 1917. For the American Jewish Committee from 1938 to 1964, he investigated anti-Semitic organizations and individuals. He also authored a controversial book about the New York crime world, The Joy Peddler, and he was at work on other pieces of fiction and his memoirs. The bulk of his papers consist of investigative reports and research for the American Jewish Committee, his manuscripts, and his collection of anti-Semitic literature.

Addenda to the Joseph Braunstein Collection hold the private and professional documents of Dr. Joseph Braunstein, a musicologist and amateur mountaineer from Vienna. The addenda cover Braunstein’s successful emigration to the United States, as well as his activism at “Alpenverein Donauland” in Austria during the 1920s and 1930s. They further document many of his travels abroad.

Contains records on the formation, purpose, and activities of the American Jewish League for Israel, as reflected in organizational documents (including minutes), event literature, publications (including the AJLI newsletter, AJLI Bulletin, later called the AJLI News Bulletin and other titles), scholarship material, financial information, membership appeals, correspondence, media coverage, and photographs.

This collection contains the records of the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews, an organization founded in 1961, in New York City, by members of the Joseph Popper unit of B’nai B’rith, to foster and disseminate knowledge about the history and culture of Jews in the Czech and Slovak lands. Along with the Joseph Popper unit and, later, the Holocaust Survivors of Slovakia, the society sponsored an annual memorial service held in New York City to honor Czechoslovak Jews who perished in the Holocaust. A majority of the records are from the tenure of Rabbi Norman Patz as president (1994-2008). The materials primarily comprise correspondence, and items related to the annual memorial service, including texts of addresses, and yizkor memorial booklets. Also included are meeting minutes, letters to the membership, financial reports, writings, speeches, obituaries, clippings, photographs, and printed ephemera. The society's correspondence reflects its participation in cultural events related to Czech and Slovak Jewish history, as well as its relationship to the Jewish communities in the Czech Republic and, to a lesser extent, Slovakia; some correspondence with members contains genealogical information.

The City Athletic Club (CAC) was a New York City-based, Jewish, athletic, social, and gentleman's club, founded because Jews were rarely admitted to the established clubs at the time. Over the years, the CAC expanded its facilities, but its membership began dwindling in the 1990s, and the club closed in 2002. The City Athletic Club Records primarily consist of membership applications with supporting documents, but also contain a complete set of Board of Governors minutes, committee minutes, photographs, lantern slides, newsletters, printed matter, ephemera, and plaques.

The collection holds official paperwork and publications of Congregation Beth Hillel in Washington Heights. The majority of this congregation had emigrated from Munich, with an additional number of émigrés from Nuremberg. Prominent members of this congregation included the former leading Rabbi of the Munich Main Synagogue, Rabbi Leo Baerwald, as well as businessman and president of the congregation, Hermann Schuelein.

The collection documents the life and professional activities of the German-born attorney Curt Silberman, in the period of his life following his emigration to the United States, from the 1940s to the 1990s. The materials include correspondence; manuscripts of speeches; ephemera; clippings; publications such as organizational newsletters and anniversary booklets; and photographs. The majority of the materials relate, on the one hand, to Silberman's service in and engagement with social welfare, cultural and educational organizations and institutions, including the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe and allied organizations; and, on the other, to his activities as a lecturer and speaker, both in the United States and (from the 1960s on) in Germany, especially his hometown of Würzburg, on topics including the commemoration of Kristallnacht, German Jewish history, and aspects of international law.

This collection of posters includes approximately 1,000 rare or unique items pertaining to over 100 displaced persons (DP) camps and centers in Germany, Austria, and Italy, dating primarily from 1946 to 1952. Comprised of approximately 60% handpainted and 40% printed items, it includes posters produced by diverse Jewish groups within individual camps, such as administrative and cultural committees, sports clubs, Zionist and religious groups, and landsmanshaftn; as well as organizations active throughout the camps, including the Jewish central committees in the respective countries, the World ORT Union, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish National Fund, and the Jewish Agency. A small number of items also document activities of the revived Jewish communities in the city centers of Munich and Vienna. Many of the posters use not only language but also color, graphic design, and pictorial and figurative elements to engage their audience with calls to entertainment, lectures, protests, and commemorations.

Folders 13 and 14 pertain to the friends and extended relatives of Ernestine and Hans Rosenberg, respectively. The folders contain mostly handwritten correspondence about family life, particularly the dangers of wartime Europe, but Folder 14 also includes genealogical information about Hans Rosenberg’s family dating back to the late nineteenth century. Folder 15 contains a 1920s postcard from Renee née Goldschlaeger Kraessel, the maternal aunt of Ernestine Rosenberg, and sheet music from pieces that Renee wrote and co-wrote. Folder 16 contains restitution papers for Renee’s brother, Karl Goldschlaeger. Folder 17 includes personal and professional correspondence with Hans Rosenberg and typewritten lectures from Emil Fröschels, a speech and voice specialist at the University of Vienna and mentor to Hans.

The collection contains play manuscripts, programs, playbills, posters, photographs, correspondence, agreements, scrapbooks, clippings, printed ephemera, and memorabilia relating to Yiddish theater primarily in the early twentieth century, especially the interwar period. Also included are items of printed ephemera related to Yiddish film, Hebrew theater, and a broad range of Jewish performers, including cantors, singers and dancers. Geographically, the materials originate predominantly in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe, including parts of the Russian Empire and, later, the Soviet Union; and, to a lesser extent, the United States, especially New York City. Also included are materials from Western Europe, Palestine (Eretz Israel), South America, and other regions around the world. Among the theater personalities represented in the collection with significant amounts of material are Herz Grossbard, David Herman, Joseph Winogradoff, Rudolf Zaslavsky, Zygmunt Turkow, Jonas Turkow, Moyshe Lipman, Ida Kaminska, and Esther Rachel Kaminska. The theater groups best represented include the Varshever Yidisher Kunst-Teater (VYKT; Warsaw Yiddish Art Theater), founded by Zygmunt Turkow and Ida Kaminska; the Vilna Troupe; Yung Teater / Nay Teater (Warsaw; Vilna), under the direction of Michael Weichert; the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (known by its Russian acronym "GOSET"); Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theatre, of New York; and the Hebrew theater "Habimah." A wide variety of other professional as well as amateur theater groups are represented with smaller amounts of material.

The collection includes materials related to the professional and personal life of the German-born businessman Fred W. Lessing, in the period following his immigration to the United States in 1942. Approximately half of the collection by extent comprises correspondence and documents pertaining to Lessing's restitution claims, including documentation related to the brickworks and brewery businesses of his father, Willy Lessing, and correspondence in the early postwar years with his father's former bookkeeper, Franz Bütterich, of Bamberg, who had served as a trustee for the firm under the Nazi regime from 1938 to 1943. Other materials relate to Fred Lessing's activities as a member of the board of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York, and as a member of the executive committee of the Wiener Library, London. Also included are materials concerning the history of the Jews of Bamberg, and postwar commemorative activities there; documents and notes pertaining to Lessing's family history; and a relatively small amount of personal correspondence and ephemera, including some pertaining to Lessing's receiving an honorary doctorate at Tel Aviv University.

The Freedom Benevolent Society was a mutual aid and fraternal organization founded by Jewish immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1882, on the Lower East Side of New York City. Originally known as the Erster Kaiser Franz Josef Kranken Unterstützungs–Verein, or the First Franz Joseph Sick and Benevolent Society, it was incorporated in 1883. Its main purpose was to provide its members with sick benefits, and relief in times of need, as well as fellowship and entertainment. Eventually it also functioned as a burial society, and maintained cemetery plots. The collection documents the society's activities over more than a century, from 1884 until its initiation of dissolution proceedings, in 1991. It includes membership applications from the early decades of the society's history (1884-1927), anniversary programs spanning fifty years (1932-1982), and a visitors' register for the 1500th meeting, in 1950, as well as account books, meeting notices, and two cemetery plans, one of which relates to the Franz Joseph Ladies Sick and Benevolent Society.

The General Jewish Council was an umbrella organization founded by the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith, and Jewish Labor Committee in order to coordinate their rights defense activities.

The bulk of the records in this collection date between from 1938-1944, the active years of the Council. Materials consist primarily of correspondence, minutes, memoranda, and reports.

This collection documents the life and career of the historian and professor Gerard Caspary (1929-2008). The collection consists of memoir manuscripts, photographs, newsletters, and family histories, among other materials.

The Germany (Vilna Archives) collection contains materials of diverse provenances pertaining to Jewish life in Germany and, to a much lesser extent, other German-speaking areas of central Europe (Austria, Bohemia, Moravia), from the 16th century until the beginning of the Second World War. It includes correspondence, financial records, official documents, business records, writings, minutes, reports, book catalogs, printed ephemera, occasional clippings, and a handful of photographs. A little more than 60% of the collection comprises personal and family papers, or individual items of correspondence (approximately 140 different name headings); and a little over 20%, portions of the records of the Jewish communities of Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Filehne (Wieleń), Raschkow (Raszków), and Rybnik. The remainder of the collection consists of various printed ephemera and scattered records related to Jewish communities, organizations, or firms, including publishers and booksellers. Also included are some 15 individual older items dating from the mid 16th to the early decades of the 19th century, including Schutzbriefe (residence permits), petitions, and attestations, as well as a mohel book (registry of circumcisions). Especially noteworthy among the personal papers are those of art dealer Josef Sandel, comparative law scholar Ernst Rabel, the Henschel brothers (artists), writer and social activist Lina Morgenstern, engineer Erich Kempinski, and writer and editor Julius Rodenberg. The several rabbis represented include Josef Jona Horovitz, of Hunsdorf (Huncovce) and Frankfurt am Main; Salomon Breuer and Isidor Friedmann, both of Frankfurt am Main; and Wolf Landau, of Dresden.

This collection documents the parental families of Peter Gomori – primarily pertaining to his mother, Charlotte née Nadas Gomori – and of Jannette Katz- Gomori – pertaining to her parents, Anne née Wolff Katz and Rudolf Katz; documents are from before, during, and after World War II and the Holocaust. The collection consists mostly of family photographs and includes one family album; two death certificates; travel documents; handwritten and typewritten correspondences; a handwritten will; inventories of wedding presents and furniture purchases; and a prayer book.

This collection documents the life and career of the historian Hans Baron (1900-1988), along with the lives of his wife Edith née Alexander Baron (1903-1994) and their children Rinehart Baron (1932-2009) and Renate Baron Franciscono (1934–). The collection consists of handwritten and typewritten correspondence; family albums, histories, and photographs; and scholarly articles on the Italian Renaissance.

The Harry R. Rosen Community Building Consultants Records consist of photographs, research, and administrative documentation by and for the dozens of Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) in the United States, Canada, and Israel that Harry R. Rosen and his firm helped develop from the 1970s to the early 2000s.

The Hebrew National Orphan Home Alumni Association Records document the activities from the establishment of the association in 1925 until its demise 2011. The records consist primarily of the Association's newsletter, The Alumnus, programs of reunion events, meeting minutes of both the general meetings and the association advisory board, newspaper and magazine clippings, oral histories on audiocassettes and videotapes, alumni writings, scrapbooks, correspondence, and a few photographs.

Hebrew Orphan Asylum was founded in 1822 as the Hebrew Benevolent Society. It underwent various changes of name until 1906, and merged with The Jewish Child Care Association of New York in 1940. The collection includes extensive administrative records including financial statements, property records, Board, Committee, and Executive minutes, donation books, publications, and state and government correspondence and reports. The collection also includes children's admission and discharge ledgers, medical records, and conduct books. Also within the collection are childcare studies, dedication speeches, writings by alumni, oral histories, newspaper and magazine clippings, and photographs.

This highly diverse collection contains material of various sources, times, and genres, from Germany, Austria, Eastern Europe and Argentina. The documents included range from correspondence, such as letters, postcards or telegrams, to emigration documents, such as ship lists and permits, to vital records, such as family registers, various certificates and awards, to a number of small publications, such as brochures, programs and clippings. There is also a number of Jewish devotionals, including Yahrzeit calendars, religious graphics and prayer manuals, as well as some ephemera.

This collection contains materials relating to the lives and families of William Niclas (1913, Ratibor, Silesia - 1978, Hampton Bays, NY) and Ilse Niclas née Israelowitz (1910, Koschentin, Silesia - 2006, California).

The collection holds correspondence showing mostly the personal lives of the Arnhold family from Dresden throughout the first half of the 20th century. The letters discuss family affairs like the engagement of Ilse Arnhold in 1913 and the birth of her children, travels through Europe, and longer stays abroad as well as the everyday lives of the family members.

The Jewish Center of Bayside Hills was founded in 1952 by young couples settling in the area after WWII. These records consist of draft constitutions, newspaper clippings, photographs, and negatives. The photographs encompass the inaugural meeting, the building dedication ceremony, an election forum, and entertainment events.

Joseph Eaton (born Josef Wechsler) was an American sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh and a German-Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States as a child in 1934. The collection primarily comprises correspondence, writings, clippings, ephemera, and photocopied archival materials related to Eaton's genealogical research in the Bavarian localities of Schwabach, Nuremberg, Fürth, and Theilheim (Waigolshausen), including materials pertaining to the history of the Jewish communities in those localities, as well as specifically to Eaton's own immediate family and his ancestors of the Wechsler, Rosenbaum, and Goldschmidt families. Included are materials related to Eaton's travels to those localities in the context of programs hosting former Jewish residents and commemorating the Holocaust and the German-Jewish communities that were destroyed. A small portion of the collection pertains to Eaton's scholarly interest in the experiences of Jewish communists in East German society, including transcripts and/or audio files of two interviews he conducted with Hermann Axen, a Jewish concentration camp survivor who from the 1970s until 1989 was a member of the Politburo of the ruling Socialist Unity Party.

The Leon Kronish Papers incorporate the personal and professional papers of Rabbi Leon Kronish with the organizational records of Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach, Florida, where he served as spiritual leader for over fifty years. Included are sermons, correspondence, memorandums, newsletters, worship service manuals, programs, pamphlets, greeting cards, administrative records, financial records, notes, clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, and sound recordings.

Lights in Action (LIA) was a network of students dedicated to inspiring Jewish pride and unity among college students. LIA student activists designed, created, and distributed Jewish/Zionist literature that reached approximately 100,000 students on over 120 campuses. In addition, LIA designed and coordinated national student projects like Shabbat Leumit, a guide to lead students across North America through the rituals during Shabbat. LIA also hosted and sponsored national conferences, summer programs in Israel, leadership training, and seminars on a variety of topics of interest to Jewish students. The records include Lights in Action publications and printed matter, administrative records, photographs and slides, audiovisual material, sound recordings, and born digital material.

The Lithuanian Jewish Communities Collection is comprised of documents relating to Jewish cultural, religious, social, political, and economic life in approximately 150 towns in Lithuania. The bulk of the collection pertains to the period between 1919 and 1926, when elements of a system of Jewish national autonomy existed within the Lithuanian state, including a Ministry of Jewish Affairs and governmentally empowered Jewish community councils. Smaller parts of the collection relate to the periods before (1860-1918) and after (1927-1940) the autonomy.

The Name File record group is a collection of documents representing various individuals, corporations, and non-profit groups who were affiliated with Hadassah. These files were originally arranged alphabetically by the organization's central filing department as a ready reference source on leaders, doctors, speakers, donors, and religious figures associated with Hadassah's many projects. This collection includes correspondence, clippings, newsletters, and other ephemeral documents.

This collection contains clippings and other published materials, as well as transcripts of speeches and memoirs that were produced in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, which occurred on November 9-10, 1938. Commemorations were held at the sites of pogroms, as well as by the international community.