350 YEARS of American Jewish Life See Page 6

Summer 2005 | Volume 1, Issue 3

THE MAGAZINE OF THE CENTER FOR JEWISH HISTORY

350 YEARS of American Jewish Life see page 6

Inside… From the Executive Director 2 Chairman’s Report 3 Editing America 4 A Talmudic Resurgence 5 At Home, in the World 6–9 First Community? 7 Center Newswire 10–11 The Berlin Holocaust Memorial 14 Development News 16 From the Executive Director

Home page of Jews in America: Our Story (www.jewsinamerica.org) featuring an image from the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute. A new image from the web site’s gallery appears every time the page is reloaded. (courtesy Center for Jewish History and Leo Baeck Institute). Insets: Albert Einstein, 1946. (Photo by Paula Wright; courtesy Leo Baeck Institute); Front of a Rosh Hashanah portrait greeting card, New York, ca. 1889, (Photo by Ph. Hurwitz; courtesy YIVO); Members of a Sephardic youth group at a festive gathering, New York City, ca. 1949 (courtesy American Sephardi Federation). O n Memorial Day week- graph? Words can describe the record as we can. What, you Center partner’s vast resources, end, 2005, the New York Times past and exercise our imagina- may ask, does digitizing do? It the greatest collection of Dias- Magazine published a photo- tion, but encountering these expands the access to artifacts, pora Jewish historical artifacts graph of Charleston, South artifacts imparts something of particularly through the Inter- in the world. 2 Carolina, at the end of the Civil the past’s realness, reminding net, to almost anyone who What is happening today War. The city had been virtual- us that our history was once wishes to see them. And at the Center for Jewish Histo- ly destroyed, and that simple, someone else’s present. These although digitization does not ry is nothing short of a revolu- startling photograph taught old, sometimes faded relics, allow you to touch the real tion—surely an intellectual me more about Reconstruction these captivating visual object, the quality of digital one, but ultimately a social than all the books I had ever images, provide bridges images possible today is so and civic and perhaps political read about that troubled peri- between yesterday and today, exact and so powerful that it one as well. When people gain od in American history. bringing about a richer, more seems as if you were with the access to information, when Several weeks earlier I engaged historical understand- original itself. Sometimes, the public can read and inter- had been given a preview of ing. By exciting our emotions, truthfully, even better than pret for themselves without the Yeshiva University Muse- these artifacts encourage our being with the often fragile, mediation, more understand- um’s show, “Printing the Tal- intellects as well, and can lead crumbling original. ing and more mutual respect mud: From Bomberg to us to greater empathy and The Center began its will likely follow. A renais- Schottenstein,” in which I saw understanding. work by creating the web site sance ideal, this second major before my eyes the first print- This is why the digital www.jewsinamerica.org, using round of democratization of ed edition of the entire Talmud revolution that is now taking images from our five partner the “stuff” of the Jewish peo- from 1523. The original pages place is so significant. Until collections to tell a multimedia ple is bound to have profound were turned out for me (and recently, the most engaging story of grandeur and achieve- and as yet unknown implica- for you, hopefully, as well) to records of the past have been ment. We followed shortly tions and results. As the print- see their beauty and magnifi- available almost exclusively to thereafter by marking the ing of the Talmud brought new cent, defying words. A few scholars. Handling these anniversary of the end of WWII depth and breadth to the life weeks later, I entered the records damages them and by launching the web site of Jews in Europe and ulti- Great Hall at the Center to shortens their life span. So www.lettersfront.org, portray- mately around the world, so stand before the famous 1818 they have been carefully ing the glorious tale of the too this democratization of letter from Thomas Jefferson stored in climate-controlled 500,000 Russian Jews who the history of the Jewish peo- to Mordecai Manuel Noah chambers with access given served nobly and heroically in ple will likely lead to inspiring defending religious freedom. only to a select few. But now the victorious Red Army victo- results in the years to come. What is it that is so elec- the archival world, with the ry over the Nazis. By next fall, trifying about being in the Center for Jewish History in we plan to have added other presence of an original docu- the forefront, is seeking to web sites conveying to the ment, manuscript or photo- digitize as much of the visual public more and more of the Published by From the Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011 Chairman 212-294-8301 fax: 212-294-8302 www.cjh.org and www.jewsinamerica.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS PARTNER INSTITUTIONS ear Friends and Colleagues, Bruce Slovin, Chair American Jewish Historical Society D Joseph D. Becker, Vice Chair David Solomon, How to achieve an exemplary com- Kenneth J. Bialkin, Vice Chair Executive Director Erica Jesselson, Vice Chair memoration? This is a crucial American Sephardi Federation Joseph Greenberger, Secretary Esme M. Berg, Executive Director question for American Jews who Michael A. Bamberger are dedicated to understanding Norman Belmonte Leo Baeck Institute their remarkable heritage. It is even George Blumenthal Carol Kahn Strauss, FRED CHARLES Eva B. Cohn Executive Director more important for those of us who David Dangoor Yeshiva University Museum are committed to sharing that history with the general public and Henry L. Feingold Sylvia A. Herskowitz, Director Max Gitter to preserving that heritage for posterity. This year has been blessed Michael Jesselson YIVO Institute for Jewish Research with a confluence of anniversaries, and the Center for Jewish Histo- Sidney Lapidus Carl J. Rheins, Executive Director ry has demonstrated its unique and important place in the cultural Leon Levy ACADEMIC ADVISORY Theodore N. Mirvis and intellectual landscape in the way that it has celebrated them, COUNCIL Nancy T. Polevoy Elisheva Carlebach, Co-Chair achieving, we believe, exemplary commemorations. Robert Rifkind Queens College This summer is an especially exciting season at the Center, David Solomon Michael A. Meyer, Co-Chair which is hosting landmark exhibitions to commemorate the 350th BOARD OF OVERSEERS Hebrew Union College William A. Ackman anniversary of the first Jewish settlement in North America. To mark Stanley I. Batkin Robert Chazan this occasion, the Center’s five partners—the American Jewish His- Joseph D. Becker New York University torical Society, American Sephardi Federation with Sephardi House, Kenneth J. Bialkin Todd Endelman Tracey Berkowitz Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute University of Michigan Leonard Blavatnik for Jewish Research—have all mounted extraordinary exhibitions George Blumenthal Henry L. Feingold celebrating the diversity and vibrancy of American Jewry. Arturo Constantiner Baruch College Mark Goldman The landmark exhibit at the Center, “Greetings from Home, David Fishman Joan L. Jacobson Jewish Theological Seminary 350 Years of American Jewish Life,” organized and presented by the Ira H. Jolles American Jewish Historical Society, in cooperation with the ASF and Harvey M. Krueger Ernest Frerichs 3 Sidney Lapidus Brown University YUM, is associated with the official activities of the congressionally Leon Levy Jane Gerber mandated Commission for Commemorating the 350th Anniversary of Ira A. Lipman Graduate Center of the City Jewish Settlers and explores the process by which Jews established Theodore N. Mirvis University of New York Joseph H. Reich a home for themselves in this new nation. Robert S. Rifkind Deborah Dash Moore We are also proud that coinciding with the 350th are two Stephen Rosenberg Vassar College anniversary exhibits of partner institutions. “YIVO at 80,” organ- Bernard Selz Riv-Ellen Prell Bruce Slovin ized by YIVO, highlights documents and photographs from its vast University of Minnesota Edward L. Steinberg archival collection and offers a fascinating look at Eastern Euro- Joseph S. Steinberg Lawrence H. Schiffman pean Jews as they established themselves in their new homeland; Michele Cohn Tocci New York University Fred S. Zeidman and “Starting Over: The Experience of German Jews in America, Jeffrey Shandler Roy Zuckerberg Rutgers University 1830-1945,” organized by the Leo Baeck Institute in conjunction Peter A. Geffen, with its 50th anniversary, chronicles the significant role German Executive Director Paul Shapiro United States Holocaust Jews played in shaping contemporary American intellectual and STAFF Memorial Museum cultural life. Ira Berkowitz, Visitors to the Center will also have an opportunity to view Chief Financial Officer Chava Weissler Lehigh University Yeshiva’s University Museum’s “Printing the Talmud: Bomberg to Sandra Rubin, Director of Development Beth S. Wenger Schottenstein,” a fascinating exploration of the study of the Talmud University of Pennsylvania Robert Friedman, from its development in ancient times to its current incarnation on Director, Genealogy Institute Steven J. Zipperstein the World Wide Web. Stanford University Michael Glickman, So how does one achieve an exemplary commemoration? This Director of Public Affairs Editor: Benjamin Soskis year at the Center for Jewish History is our answer to that question. Natalia Indrimi, Program Curator Managing Editor: Tamara Moscowitz It involves a deep engagement with the past that also insists on Tamara Moscowitz, looking toward the future. It requires seeing the past as alive and Director of Public Relations The Jewish Experience is made vital, and understanding our responsibilities to preserve and learn possible, in part, with a grant from Bob Sink, Chief Archivist and from it. This year, the Center for Jewish History is making one of the Project Director the Liman Foundation. most important contributions to our city’s unparalleled cultural life. Diane Spielmann, Ph.D. Design: Flyleaf Director, Lillian Goldman Your support will ensure our continued success, for this year, and for Reading Room many years to come. Lynne Winters, Director of Production JEWS AND

Page one of first clean “Tracate Eruvin” copy of Howl, Part I, sent Salonika or Fex, by the author to Jack 1521. Printed by Kerouac in 1955 who, Don Judah in turn, sent it on to John Gedahia or Clellon Holmes. Holmes Samuel Nedivot. returned the manuscript Courtesy of The to Ginsberg in 1980. Jewish Theologi- Photo courtesy of the cal Seminary of © Allen Ginsberg Trust America.

wishing to recompile and revisit their basic codex in order to make it suitable to new times, new continents, new sensibilities. The result is the inimitable Talmudic page, containing text and commentary, a paragon of editing, creating a Editing America literary dynamic that simultaneously expands, by Liel Leibovitz alters and preserves. The Talmudic tradition, however, is not limited to religious writings. Take William Shawn, for E diting courts a certain ambivalence. Often, it is perceived example: One of the few men discussed in the as the dark doppelganger of the creative process, the series who was actually a professional editor, The unproductive force that torments the writer with comments and New Yorker’s Mr. Shawn, as he was known, hailed corrections in a sharp, red pen. But let a book, an article, a from Chicago, a first generation American Jew. movie run too long, and a common gripe is sounded: this could Since the beginning of his tenure at the magazine have used an editor. in 1933, Shawn did more than edit pieces; he edited—that is to The question of the nature of the editing process is at the say, rewrote, redesigned, reinvented—the reality of American 4 heart of an upcoming series of screenings and panel discussions journalism itself. at the Center for Jewish History this summer, titled “Editing Consider this: Shawn provided his writers with salaries and America,” and the answers it offers are unorthodox. offices, demanding nothing in return; some, like Joseph “Editing,” says Natalia Indrimi, the series’ curator, “is Mitchell, produced only a few works in decades-long tenures. about approaching preexisting text from the perspective of an Shawn was never afraid to break form, as he did when he dedi- outsider and tweaking its structure to generate fuller and newly cated the entire magazine to one story, John Hersey’s harrowing nuanced content.” This, she adds, applies not only to journalism, tale of the aftermath of the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He literature or film, but also extends to other fields, such as music, would purchase stories from writers and let them brew for religion, politics and social action. months, even years, until they were just ripe for the zeitgeist. In other words, far from being an impediment to creativi- These examples transcend mere journalistic tactics; they ty, or a utilitarian footnote to a preexisting text, editing reflect a profound intellectual sensibility that was more than a involves the reshuffling of reality’s component parts. An editor, little bit informed by Jewish values, encouraging pieces infused then, could very well be someone like Rabbi Sabato Morais, with a sense of moral urgency rather than the magazine’s tradi- founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary, who was one of the tional slice-of-life pieces, rich with bemused bonhomie. Shawn’s first American Jewish clergyman to introduce social issues, such predecessor, The New Yorker’s founder Harold Ross, conceived the as slavery, into the religious arena, or union activist Baruch magazine as a blasé and ironic affair, an intellectual anodyne Charney Vladeck, the head of the Jewish Labor Committee, who written for Manhattan’s Jazz Era upwardly mobile elite. Shawn, helped transform the Jewish-American labor movement from a on the other hand, injected it with the gravitas it enjoys to this trickle to a torrent. day. He brought with him not only a whiff of European journal- Both these men, as well as several others discussed ism, where intellectuals often took over countless columns in throughout the series, fit squarely into Indrimi’s definition of budding publications, but also a passion for the written word editing; both took preexisting elements—a sleepy and uncertain and its capacity to change the world that is fundamental to religiosity, a hesitant and low-key labor movement—and re- the Jewish tradition. Think of it as the People of the Book in assessed their meaning according to a larger concept. magazine form. In both cases, the larger concept is the same: It involves This, more than any actual concrete achievement, may be immigrants wishing to wed Jewish and European traditions to why Shawn has come to represent the quintessential editor; his the exigencies of life in America, realizing both the opportuni- legacy and originality lie not in creating something from noth- ties and the limitations of their new homeland. ing, but rather in reassembling something—a magazine—in an The intricate relations between the spatial and the textu- inventive way. This, Indrimi says, is “the essence of editing, look- al, of course, are a staple of the Jewish experience: Consider the ing at the existing elements, altering their proportions, adding a Talmud, an ongoing process of editing orchestrated by Jews critical dimension, making something new and more inclusive.” continued on page 15 THE WORD

A Talmudic Resurgence by Lawrence H. Schiffman

“Der Babylonische Talmud in Auswahl” Trans- lated by Jacob Fromer. Berlin, 1924. Published by Brandes Verlag.

factors, literary and historical, the Babylonian Talmud became the final, authoritative collection, guiding the subsequent development of Judaism in medieval and modern times. To understand the Talmud is to understand much of the essence of Judaism. For Judaism is a total civilization, aspects of which can be reflected and defined through the looking-glass of halakhah (legal teaching) and aggadah (non-legal teachings designed to inculcate the principles of Jewish thought and theology). Yet Judaism also involves the creation of a reality beyond that of time and space, one that continues to shape the Jewish present, while linking it to other places and F irst, this March, there was the Siyyum haShas, the event other times. The sages of the first century debate with those of celebrating the completion of a seven-and-a-half-year the twentieth century, and the Babylonian Rabbis interact with cycle of study of the Babylonian Talmud. About a hundred those of France. The Talmud was able to grant significance to 35 thousand people were hooked up elec- every human act, and to place the life tronically, and 20,000 attended in of the individual Jew in collective Madison Square Garden. Then, later that national and cosmic context, thereby month, there was the celebration, forging a Jewish community that sponsored by the Mesorah Heritage Foun- transcends time and space, while rec- dation, the research arm of ArtScroll, of ognizing their particularities. Indeed, the completion of their English transla- the great prominence of the Babylon- tion and commentary on the Babylonian ian Talmud reminds us of the Talmud, the Schottenstein edition. And potential for Diaspora countries to now the Yeshiva University Museum, at rise to the greatest of heights, even as the Center for Jewish History, is featur- Israel remains the spiritual center of ing its exhibit entitled, “Printing the the Jewish people. Talmud: From Bomberg to Schotten- The first extant mention of stein.” This superb exhibit traces the Rehov Synagogue Mosaic Floor, 6th-7th century, the written Babylonian Talmud is in dissemination of the Talmud as a cultur- stone tesserae. On loan from The Israel Antiquities the early tenth century, but it most Authority. Exhibited at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. al monument of the Jewish people. It likely began circulating in the Jewish couldn’t have come at a better time: Put simply, we are witness- world as a written manuscript before that, sometime after the ing a phenomenal renaissance in the study of the Talmud that, Islamic conquests of the seventh century. The transmission of as it continues to spread beyond the Orthodox community, has these manuscripts testifies to the Talmud’s influence and to the the potential to play a major role in the revival of Jewish obser- spread of the Jewish tradition to all corners of the earth, as the vance and commitment. manuscripts reflect the scribal habits, linguistic traditions, and The Talmud has a long history, originating in the oral textual features of each community. Yet this diffusion was not tradition of biblical times. Interpretations of the Torah passed unchallenged. down in various forms and expanded in every generation; these During the medieval period, Christian opposition to the traditions were codified in the third century into the Mishnah Talmud grew more strident and led to the confiscation and burn- and the other early Rabbinic works. The Mishnah served as the ing of the Talmud in France in 1242. Yet attempts to stop basis for the emergence of two Talmuds, explanations of the oral printing and dissemination must have been stimulated in part by law in the Land of Israel and Babylonia. Edited and transmitted the interest in the Talmud even among the Christian intelli- orally, these texts were eventually written down, constituting gentsia. In fact, it was the interest demonstrated by Christians the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. As a result of a series of such as Daniel Bomberg, publisher of the first complete edition continued on page 13 350 YEARS OF AME

At Home, in the World: 350 Years of American Jewry by Benjamin Soskis

W hat then is the American, this new man? The French immigrant Hector St. Jean de Crèvecoeur famously posed this question more than two centuries ago. His answer—that he was something new and plural and vital—linked the indeterminacy of American identity with the potency of American identity. The American was excep- tional to the extent that such a question could even be asked of him or her, and ever since, Ameri- ca’s often awkward grappling with its ambiguous character has been coupled with its more confident claims to exceptionalism. And if so for the American, even more so for the American Left: A poster advertising a Chicago Jew. There is no doubt that the production of the 1929 play Greetings from American Jewish experience is Home by Sam Auerback and Hershel Shorr. Kanof Yiddish Theater Poster collection; Top: unlike any that has preceded it. Interested in Athletics? Jewish Community The United States has been a net Centers Publicity Photo, 1950s National importer, and not an exporter of Jewish Welfare Board Records. Courtesy Jews, and once settled here, Jews American Jewish Historical Society. have enjoyed rights, privileges and 6 social status often denied them by cal Society in its new exhibit, “Greet- other nations. In part, this is ings from Home: 350 Years of because, as New York University American Jewish Life,” commemorat- professor of American Jewish His- ing the 1654 arrival of the first Jewish tory Hasia Diner has suggested, in community to North American shores. America other groups have served Indeed, the curators of this exhibit as this nation’s Jews—the have coupled their focus on the dis- despised group upon which the tinctiveness of the American Jewish majority enacted their frustrations experience with an exploration of the and fears. Jews were deemed less ways in which that experience is theologically and ecclesiastically bound up in the worldwide Jewish threatening than Catholics, and experience, in the collectivity of Clal less racially threatening than Israel. The exhibit highlights the African-Americans. Moreover, unlike transatlantic elements of American those other groups—and unlike Jewry: the exchange of letters, remit- European Jews, for whom the process of emancipation brought tances of money, return visits, enduring family relationships, with it a protracted public discussion in legislatures and news- and philanthropic interventions, which formed a bridge across papers on the nature of Jewish citizenship—Jews in America the Atlantic. “This [emphasis on the relationship between Old were largely free to define their identities privately, voluntarily, World and New] is at the cutting edge of American Jewish his- communally, without the concern that their own political eman- torical scholarship right now,” says Diner, who served as an cipation would depend on the public’s acceptance of those advisor to the exhibit, and contributed an essay to the exhibi- definitions. That does not mean that the process of forging an tion catalog. “We maintained a dual focus on the development of American Jewish identity has been untroubled—the interplay Jewish life in America and the connections to Jews around the between ethnic, religious, and cultural identifications has been world. That’s something that hasn’t yet been done.” anything but—yet it does suggest that the free market in reli- This international focus accords with the breadth of the gious affiliations that America has encouraged has produced the archival collections of the Center for Jewish History’s con- most vibrant, the most diverse, the most interesting Jewish com- stituent partners, and makes special sense this year, marking the munity in the world. 80th anniversary of the establishment of the YIVO Institute for The difficulty, though, is to prevent a recognition of Jewish Research. YIVO is the preeminent institution in the study exceptionalism from becoming an endorsement of parochialism. of East European history and culture, and contains perhaps the This is the challenge embraced by the American Jewish Histori- nation’s most impressive archives on the history of American RICAN JEWISH LIFE

Jewish immigration. In honor of the anniversary, this year the institute has prepared a special exhibit, echoing many of the First Community? themes in “Greetings from Home,” and showcasing some of the highlights from its archives and library. As Carl Rheins, YIVO’s Complicating the Story executive director, explains, “YIVO is the nexus of a thousand years of Ashkenazic culture, linking tenth-century Poland to the of New Amsterdam’s present ... YIVO [links] the American Jewish experience with the European, with Yiddish as the linchpin.” Indeed, given that Original Jewish Population more than ninety percent of American Jews are of Eastern Euro- by Noah L. Gelfand pean origin, the study of the American Jewish experience must necessarily incorporate the Eastern European experience as well. Marty Peretz, chairman of the board of overseers of YIVO, sug- In January 1654, after nearly gests that the history of New World Judaism is “intrinsically nine years of fighting, Por- linked” to the history of Eastern European Judaism. “The Amer- tuguese-Brazilian liberation ican Jewish labor movement…the banking community, the forces succeeded in defeating influence of scholarship and culture is ultimately based on the the Dutch West India Company traditions of Vilna, Kiev, and Warsaw. From Hollywood to City in the Pernambuco region of College, everywhere you look in America,” you can detect the Brazil. The loss of New Hol- influence of Eastern European Jewry, he claims. land, as the Dutch called their “Greetings from Home” shares this same sense of the con- Brazilian colony, had a pro- tinuities and engagements between the Old World and the New, found effect on Jewish history and that relationship is nicely expressed in the artifact from throughout the Atlantic which the title of the exhibit was taken: a 1926 poster from World. The region had been Chicago for the Yiddish drama, Greetings from Home. On the home to the first outwardly poster’s left we view a shtetl scene: A pious, bearded man, practicing Jewish community dressed in traditional garb, flanked by broken furniture and Shearith Israel, Mill Street in the New World, but in the standing in a dilapidated cottage, prepares to send a letter, while synagogue, 1730. Courtesy aftermath of the Portuguese a circle of chagrined villagers looks on. On the right side of the American Jewish Historical Society reconquest and their reinstitu- 73 poster, there is a very different tableau: a group of men and tion of the Inquisition in women, elegantly dressed, sit in a theater box, while a distin- Brazil, Jews had to flee Pernambuco. Many returned to Amster- guished-looking man with a similarly disconsolate expression dam or migrated to Caribbean colonies such as Curaçao, receives a letter from the US Postal Service. These two scenes are Barbados, and Martinique. Most famous among these exiles was separated by the roiling ocean—with a lone steamer sailing in a shipload of twenty-three Sephardic refugees from Brazil that the background, and the Statue of Liberty presiding in between. came ashore in New Amsterdam in September 1654. In one reading, the meaning of the poster is clear: the Old The arrival of these twenty-three refugees has often been World family informs their New World kin of some terrible tragedy viewed as the inauguration of Jewish life in the territory that that has befallen their community. And the desperation of each would become the United States, and the 350th anniversary of side might reflect as well the recent passage of severe immigration their disembarkation has been met with a torrent of interest and restrictions in 1924, which drastically reduced the number of attention. Everything from newspaper editorials and magazine immigrants allowed into the United States from eastern and articles, to short films, dedicated web sites, books, and museum continued on page 8 exhibits have all drawn attention to those original Twenty- Three. And it is to culminate the celebration of this anniversary that the American Jewish Historical Society prepared the exhibit, “Greetings from Home: 350 Years of American Jewish Life.” There is no doubt that the 350th anniversary celebrations have been tremendously successful in stimulating broad public interest in the long, fascinating history of Jews in American society. Yet, the singling out of these twenty-three refugees from Brazil as the founding mothers and fathers of America’s Jewish community and applying September 1654 as the formal beginning of this community presents an intriguing conundrum for the professional historian. While documentary evidence regarding the Twenty-Three is fragmentary and limited, the gaps in our body of knowledge do at least provide the historian with an opportunity to complicate the story of New Amsterdam’s early Jewish population and interrogate the concept of the “first Jewish chaplains, Kobler Field, the Marianas, 1945. Aryeh Lev Papers, Jewish community in America.” National Jewish Welfare Board. Copyright American Jewish Historical It first bears noting that the twenty-three Sephardic Society. continued on page 12 At Home, in the World nor of Dutch New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, sought to expel continued from page 6 the few Jewish refugees who had migrated to the colony in the mid 17th century, only the intervention of the colony’s propri- southern Europe. The single ship sailing in the background then etors, Amsterdam’s West India Company, urged on by its Jewish becomes both an image of hope, and of anxiety (and in fact, the shareholders, overturned his decision. And for much of the first poster advertises a future play entitled The Closed Door). century and a half of American Jewish life, favors often traveled Yet the meaning of home in the poster is not entirely clear, westward across the Atlantic. The exhibit reveals an American and that ambiguity can perhaps also be read in the distressed Jewish population enmeshed in a web of shared responsibility expressions of each side. For what does it mean for one’s home to and mutual concerns. In 1729, a fledgling congregation in colo- be the site of grief and persecution, and what does it mean to have nial New York wrote to a more established one in Jamaica, asking one’s home closed to friends and family? Is the “greeting from for support; in 1759, the Touro synagogue in Providence, Rhode home” a sort of chastisement to the comfortable, perhaps Island, wrote to its older brother in New York. even assimilated, American Jews about forgetting their less fortu- Then, as Steven H. Jaffe, an independent historian and the nate Old World brothers and sisters? Or is the irony of the greeting that the contrast between the two groups itself insists upon a redefinition of the location of home to more favor- able shores? Does “home” convey Old World commitments or the tug of New World possibilities? The poster itself is nicely balanced between those two interpretations, but it’s something of a fearful symmetry: for is the secu- rity of home compromised when curator of the exhibit, explains, its meaning is so indeterminate? “During the nineteenth century, Yet, as Hasia Diner points at a point when American Jews 8 out in her catalog essay, the were more numerous, prosper- ambiguity as to the meaning of home has not always been so prob- ous, and secure in their rights as Americans, they began to feel lematic for American Jews; indeed, it has often been the source of a duty to provide funds and other forms of support to Jews strength. For a diasporic people, the concept of home was always around the world, especially in moments of crisis or persecu- more latticed, more fluid, more open to revision. “[T]heir past had tion.” Indeed, “Greetings from Home” features some notable been that of the proverbial ‘Wandering Jew,’ a steady movement artifacts from the long, distinguished tradition of Jewish fund- around the globe from homes in the south to new homes in the raising. One of the most remarkable is a letter sent by a north, and back again from the north to the south; from east to Sephardic congregation in London, in 1775, to the Jews of Con- west and west to east,” Diner writes. Jewish involvement with gregation of Shearith Israel in New York City, informing them trade, their comfort with the life of the peddler and itinerant, that the Londoners had just received an emissary from the Jew- meant that home was as much an idea as it was a physical sanc- ish community in Smyrna, in what is now Turkey. The tuary. Indeed, Jewish merchants and shopkeepers were often some community there had just suffered a terrible fire, which of the earliest settlers in frontier towns, and they carried their destroyed their synagogues and houses of study, and so they had unsettled understandings of home among their wares. sent the emissary to London to raise money. The Londoners, in And over the course of American Jewish history, these turn, forwarded the request to the New Yorkers, remarking on understandings of home have been able to embrace several their reputation for generosity. Tugging at the heartstrings (and notable paradoxes. The most pronounced of these, and the one the pocketbook) while massaging benefactors’ self-regard: in that “Greetings from Home” has illuminated so finely, is that the modern times, a notably successful philanthropic strategy. The more at home Jews have felt in America, the more their gaze has exhibit documents the continuation of this tradition of Ameri- been focused outward. The more at home Jews are, the more they can Jewish engagement with the world since the colonial regard themselves as part of the larger, worldwide Jewish com- era—from the mammoth petition book protesting the Kishinev munity, and insist on fulfilling the obligations of that Pogrom of 1903 to posters in support of Soviet Jews. relationship. When American Jews are most comfortable in their But besides chronicling this commitment to international Americanness, they are most able to transcend it. philanthropy, how can an exhibit demonstrate being at home in In a sense, the American Jewish engagement in the world America? Of course, the exhibit does not skimp on many of the is simply the return of an early favor. After all, when the gover- classic figures of American Jewish history—there is material on

Left to right: Molly Picon (1898-1992), in Sipke. Hand-colored photograph, Molly Picon Papers, American Jewish Historical Society; Jewish immigrants out- side a shelter run by HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), New York City, 1916 (courtesy YIVO Institute for Jewish Research); two-dollar Confederate bill, 1862, Judah B. Benjamin Papers, American Jewish Historical Society; Seixas Family circumcision set and trunk, ca. 18th century, wooden box covered in cowhide with silver implements: 2 silver trays, 1 clip, 1 pointer, silver flask, spice vessel, 3 small silver items, trunk, American Jewish Historical Society; Gore/Lieberman presidential campaign poster, 2000, courtesy American Jewish Historical Society Einstein and on Irving Berlin, on Hank Greenberg and on Houdi- Take, for instance, the 1933 cookbook on display in the ni, on Isaac Mayer Wise and on Stephen Wise. And part of being exhibit, full of recipes for how to cook with Crisco vegetable at home in a place is taking on its own failings, and so the exhib- shortening. “People don’t realize this,” says Jaffe, “but Crisco it does not shy away from Jewish participation in the slave trade represents this amazing moment in American Jewish history, (while not encouraging that unfortunate canard that Jews bore because it’s parve. So you can cook anything with it.” Proctor & a large responsibility for it, a charge without any historical back- Gamble, which invented Crisco, quite shrewdly appreciated the ing). The exhibit is also able to demonstrate how the great potential market they had among American Jewish housewives moments of American history have intersected with the lives of for their product; in fact, when they announced the invention of American Jews, some ordinary, some distinguished, displaying the product in 1910, they declared that Crisco was what the prayers offered in support of George Washington and the Patriot “Hebrew race has been waiting 4,000 years” for. To solidify this cause; artifacts from the life of businessman and philanthropist market, they created a cookbook, printed in both Yiddish and Adolphus Simeon Solomons, who helped to achieve the revoking English, full of Crisco-friendly recipes. The book itself is a fasci- of General Ulysses S. Grant’s order barring Jews from Tennessee, nating token of Americanization, of generational change and generational continuity, for the expec- tation was that the immigrant mama would follow the Yiddish, while her more acculturated daughter would read the English. The kitchen would be the site of the perpetuation of an identity secure in both its American-ness and Jewishness. Of course, being too much at home can have its perils. Some would argue that a level of discomfort is necessary for American Jews to maintain their separateness. They might even invoke the famous story from the 1883 celebratory banquet at a posh resort for the inaugural class of graduates Kentucky and Mississip- from Cincinnati’s Hebrew Union College, the first successful Jew- pi; and the chipped, ish school of higher education in America. A number of Orthodox defiant portable Torah rabbis in attendance stormed out when they were presented with ark that World War II the first course—a decidedly non-kosher shrimp appetizer—an 9 chaplain Joseph S. Shubow carried with him in the back of his early protest, one might suggest, against “comfort food.” jeep while visiting soldiers and displaced persons in the field. But what this exhibit demonstrates so admirably is that, But in “Greetings from Home,” this heroic element in Amer- ultimately, being at home in America has not attenuated Amer- ican Jewish history is also tempered with the more prosaic and ican Jews’ religious identity, but expanded it. The ambiguity of plebian. Such attention in fact honors the particularities of the the meaning of home was not a sign of the weakness of Ameri- American Jewish experience. For as Diner argues in her essay, the can Jewish identity but of its variegated strength. Perhaps no story of American Jewry is one best told from the grassroots level. figure featured in the exhibit demonstrates this point better The United States had no rabbinical leadership till the middle of than Molly Picon, the star of the Yiddish stage and screen. Born the 19th century; nor did the government ever officially recognize on the Lower East Side, Picon became immensely popular with a particular Jewish communal organization, with its representa- American Yiddish-speaking audiences, with American television tive religious authorities, as it did in Europe. Instead, power viewers, and with theater audiences from Chicago to Johannes- shifted to the laity, and to a proliferation of congregations and burg to Vilna. The exhibit features a poster from a 1932 Buenos voluntary associations, an energy radiating from the bottom up. Aires production of the Yiddish play, Oy iz dos a Meydl!—“What Based in part on Diner’s own work, Jaffe has chosen to a Girl!”—or, as the poster declares, “Ay que Muchacha!” In its express that grassroots emphasis through a fascinating section linguistic jumble, its transatlantic fluency, the advertisement on Jewish-American food. True, “you can’t get more banal than promotes not just Picon’s performance, but the American Jewish food,” admits Jaffe, while lamenting that he is limited to archae- experience itself. Far from home, Picon helped to convey its ological and nonperishable artifacts—no kugel will be served— many meanings, its varied blessings. but food “so pervades Jewish identity, is so defining of comfort and conflict” for Jews, that he sees it as an essential ingredient Benjamin Soskis is a Ph.D in American religious and intellectual in the appreciation of the American Jewish experience. history at Columbia University.

American Jewish Historical Society YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Custodian of the Records of the Jewish Experience in America Understanding the Eastern European Roots of the Founded in 1892, the American Jewish Historical Society is one of Contemporary Jewish Experience country’s preeminent historical institutions. Its mission is to collect, Founded in 1925 in Vilna, Poland (now Lithuania), YIVO is a preserve, and disseminate the record of Jewish life in America. The Society has research, training, and resource center in Jewish studies specializing in the amassed a vast collection of books, archives, photographs, and other objects on history and culture of Ashkenazic Jewry with an emphasis on Eastern European the American Jewish experience which is available to scholars, academics, and Jews and their descendants in the United States. The YIVO Archives and Library others who are interested in learning more about the rich heritage of the Amer- house 360,000 books, and 220,000 photographs, forming an unparalleled ican Jewish community. repository on the life of Eastern European Jews. Center Newswire Events The History of Jewish Involvement in Business and Finance

Over eighty hedge fund managers gathered on Tuesday, April 19, at the Center for Jewish DE MELANIE EINZIG MELANIE EINZIG History for an evening devoted to “The History of Jewish Involvement in Business and Finance.” Co-chaired and underwritten by Joseph S. Steinberg and William A. Ackman, members of the Board of Overseers, the evening began with tours of the Center’s archives and the Strashun Rare Book Room. A Following was a slide presentation, with the MELANIE EINZIG philanthropist and historian, Ambassador John Loeb, Jr. and the historian Dr. Kenneth Libo, F entitled “The Lehman-Loebs and Their SUN A.L. GORDON/N.Y. Ancestors: Three Centuries of American Jewish G Business History.” An engaging and lively discussion on Ambassador Loeb’s MELANIE EINZIG illustrious family — which includes Herbert H. Lehman, former governor of New York and the current District Attorney Robert Morgenthal — preceded a talk about more intimate topics on the subject of finance. Among the eight topics discussed with the historians over dinner (in small groups in designated rooms B around the Center) were: “Interest Rates in the Ancient World,” with Richard Sylla; and “Wandering Jews: Peddlers, MELANIE EINZIG Immigrants and the Discovery of New Worlds,” with Hasia Diner. Joining Mr. Ackman and Mr. Steinberg on the Committee were Bruce and Tracey Berkowitz, David Neikrug, Tonia Pankopf, Charles J. Rose, Bruce Slovin, and Michele Cohn Tocci.

(A) Joseph S. Steinberg (B) Avivith Oppenheim and Tracey Berkowitz (C) Brian Feltzin and Jonathan Gray (D) Alessandra Rovati, Olivier Sarfeti, Tonia Pankopf, and Ben Sontheimer (E) Bruce Slovin and Michele Cohn Tocci (F) Ambassador John L. Loeb, Sharon Handler (background), and William Ackman (G) Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr., Joseph S. Steinberg, Dr. Kenneth Libo

10 C MELANIE EINZIG

Smithsonian Affiliate Membership

The Center for Jewish History is proud to have become a Smithsonian Insti- tution Affiliate. Through Smithsonian Affiliations Program, the Center and its partners will benefit from greater national recognition and increased A B MELANIE EINZIG MELANIE EINZIG access to the Smithsonian's collections and resources, including membership initiatives and cross-marketing opportunities. Jewish This designation as a Smithsonian Affiliate is a significant recognition of the importance of the Center for Jewish History to the Jewish community Leaders Visit and to Jews around the world. the Center March 20, 2005

(A) Congressman Jerrold Nadler with Peter A. Geffen, Executive Director of the Center for Jewish History C MELANIE EINZIG (B) David Weprin, New York City Councilman and Chairman of the Council’s Finance Committee (C) New York State Senator Eric T. Sneiderman and Sidney Lapidus, President of the American Jewish Historical Society Recent Programs Latin American Artists Exhibit at Yeshiva University Museum at the Center

(A) “Manhattan Mincha Map,” a series of photographs by Jaime Permuth on display January 30 — June 19 (B) “Having Trouble to Pray,” drawings and paintings by Moico Yaker, on display February 6 – May 1, 2005 Exhibitions presented by Yeshiva University Museum. A B

Films

The 9th International Sephardic Film Festival — Roots and Origins; February 3 to 9, 2005 (A) Abjad directed by Abolfazl Jalili (B) Derrida directed by Amy Ziering Kofman

Expression and Exploration: Paths of Jewish C Artists Monday Night Film Series (C) Judy Chicago discussing her film The Dinner Party shown on December 6, 2004 A

Lectures 11 (A) “The Cultural Politics of Dislocation: Clarice Lispector and Ways of Being Jewish in Brazil” (left, Lispector; right, translator and speaker Gregory Rabassa). March 13, 2005 (LBI/YIVO) (B) “Rescued from the Reich: How B One of Hitler’s Soldiers Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” Book launch with Bryan Rigg. January 11, 2005 A A (LBI/YIVO) (C) “Latin American Art and Identity Symposium” March 23, 2005 (YUM) Moderator Performance Julian Zazagoita, Director, El Museo del Barrio (D) “Nazi Laws, Jewish (A) Robin Hirsch in Kinderszenen: Scenes Lives: Letters from Vienna,” a book from a Childhood, the first of a seven-part launch with Edith Kurzweil. performance cycle entitled Mosaic: February 1, 2005 (YIVO) Fragments of Jewish Life. Two performances: March 29, 30, 2005 (LBI) (B) Z’VI, a work-in-progress B of a an electro-acoustic opera by Richard D

Teitelbaum (shown). April 13, 2005 (LBI) MELANIE EINZIG (C) Sephardic Resonances with Myrna Herzog on viola da gamba. January 19, 2005 (ASF) MELANIE EINZIG

C MELANIE EINZIG C MELANIE EINZIG First Community? August 22, 1654, more than indebted to the ship’s captain the Jewish inhabitants of New continued from page 7 two weeks ahead of the for their passage. Yet, the fact Amsterdam since 1655 had refugees from Brazil. that they waited so long to been returned to Amsterdam, Questions of priority in leave Brazil suggests that the apparently because a minyan history are not especially Portuguese-Brazilian rebellion could not be maintained in the enlightening, and it is not had already left these Jews city. The following year, of the necessary to belabor the point impoverished and unable to original 1654 Jewish immi- that Barsimon, Pietersen, and pay the West India Company grants, only Asser Levy and his Levy established themselves in the departure fees required of family appear to have been New Amsterdam before the all settlers leaving their present in the Dutch colony Twenty-Three. What is impor- colony. This is an essential when it fell to English invaders. tant, however, is to recognize point. Rather than comprising History is often the story that these individuals were a cohesive group determined of unintended actions and Ship arriving New Amsterdam, 1654. separate from the Brazilian to reestablish a Jewish com- unplanned consequences, and Courtesy American Jewish refugees. In acknowledging munity elsewhere in the Dutch the story of the formation of Historical Society this fact we can see that the Atlantic, the Twenty-Three the first American Jewish com- two groups had very different were most likely a diverse munity is one of contingency refugees were not the first reasons for being in the group of families—the rem- and accident. This, of course, outwardly practicing Jews to colony—the former came on nants of a once thriving does not make it any less wor- set foot in the future United their own accord and deliber- population—united only in thy of commemoration. The States. While there may have ately to New Amsterdam to their poverty and desire to unintended arrival of the Twen- been others who have escaped engage in commercial oppor- avoid Portuguese rule. ty-Three in New Amsterdam, the historical record, we know tunities, while the latter There is nothing in the along with the intended jour- for certain that Joachim arrived somewhat involuntari- evidence to suggest that, like ney of the three Ashkenazi Gaunse, a Jewish metallurgist ly after a long and circuitous Barsimon, Pietersen, and Levy, traders, spurred an unprece- and mining engineer from journey in which they proba- who came to New Amsterdam dented transatlantic lobbying Bohemia, sojourned briefly on bly had originally intended to individually to engage in effort between Amsterdam’s the Outer Banks of present- go to the Netherlands, not its trade, the Twenty-Three were Sephardic leadership and the day North Carolina in 1585, small, struggling outpost in also anything other than a col- Dutch West India Company to 12 looking for valuable minerals North America. Indeed, the lection of individual families. ensure Jews the rights to live, at Roanoke before sailing back Sephardim of Brazil had strong Throughout the Sephardic trade, and worship in New to England with Sir Francis religious, family, and econom- diaspora, synagogue member- Netherland. For a variety of Drake in 1586. More signifi- ic ties with Amsterdam, while ship defined community complex reasons and in spite of cant in terms of colonial none of these aspects existed belonging. This was the case in local opposition from Director- settlement and community for them in New Amsterdam. Amsterdam, the center of sev- General Peter Stuyvesant, the development, however, was Indeed, for the Twenty-Three, enteenth-century Western Company ruled in favor of the the appearance of three North America was not neces- European Jewry, where as Jews and established a policy Ashkenazi Jews in New Am- sarily the Promised Land. many as three thousand Por- that would make further immi- sterdam in the summer of 1654, Thus, the issue of intent tuguese Jews lived, as well as gration and the formation of a shortly before the arrival of becomes crucial in under- in Recife, which at its height real Jewish community a possi- their Sephardic brethren from standing New Amsterdam’s counted over one thousand bility in New Netherland. By Brazil. According to council initial Jewish inhabitants. The Jewish inhabitants. While we the beginning of the 18th cen- minutes, port books, and court fact is, we know very little know the Jewish refugees were tury, after the colony had records, Jacob Barsimon, most about the twenty-three privately worshipping with a passed over to English rule, likely along with Solomon Sephardic refugees, who were Torah in their homes in New New York could indeed boast a Pietersen and Asser Levy of among the last Jews to flee Amsterdam, an actual syna- Jewish community of some Vilna, all identified on the Recife following the fall of gogue did not develop, twenty families, as well as its documents as Jews, reached Dutch Brazil. We are not even notwithstanding Congregation own synagogue. A recognition New Amsterdam on the certain of their names. We do Shearith Israel’s—New York’s of the community’s contingent Peereboom [Peartree] from know, however, that they oldest congregation—claim of beginnings makes the story of Amsterdam via London on arrived in New Amsterdam 1654 as their year of origin. It its subsequent success even could not, for the twenty- more remarkable, and makes its three refugees had no commemoration even more American Sephardi Federation Representing the Diverse Spectrum of Sephardic Jews intention of staying in New compelling. in the United States Amsterdam. They were not Founded in 1973, the American Sephardi Federation promotes and pioneers, but rather displaced Noah Gelfand, is a Ph.D preserves the spiritual, historical, cultural, and social traditions of Sephardic persons who preferred to candidate in Atlantic History communities. It created the only North American Library/Archives dedicated return to Europe or the at New York University and solely to the Sephardic experience and offers the only permanent Sephardic exhibition gallery. Caribbean. By 1663, the green served as a Fellow at the Cen- veiled Torah that had served ter for Jewish History in 2002. A Talmudic Resurgence for this exhibit is our earliest taries from the Middle Ages, being opened to untold num- continued from page 5 preserved evidence of Talmudic and notes refer to the Bible, bers of people to whom it was textual materials, the fifth other Talmudic works, to previously closed. The renewed of the Babylonian Talmud, century Rehov Inscription, medieval codes, even occasion- attention on the Talmud can which led to the survival of found in the synagogue at ally to modern traditional energize the quest for Jewish full sets of the early editions ancient Rehov, just 5 km. works. This physical form continuity throughout the of the Talmud, such as the south of Beit Shean in north- intends to encourage a dialogue world by showing that in “Wittenberg Copy” of the ern Israel. This entire between texts and commen- essence, the study and prac- Bomberg edition, the center- inscription has been brought taries, and between all of them tice of the age-old traditions of piece of the YUM exhibit. to the museum. It contains and the student. The student is Judaism hold the keys to its It was in the modern parallels to excerpts from Tal- often also in dialogue with a future. This is as it should be, period that the most serious mudic texts, showing that the chavruta, a traditional study for the Talmud has historically challenges were posed to the traditions later incorporated partner, and they and all the always been the possession of authority and centrality of the into the larger collections texts participate in an ongoing the entire Jewish people, not Talmud. These challenges came originally circulated independ- dialogue between a world of just of an elite or even of the about as a result of the inner ently and that they served as humanity and a divine com- Rabbinic class. Indeed, YUM’s dynamic of Jewish moderniza- guides for the people, hence mand—the written Torah. This exhibit may be further testi- tion. Modernity brought in its their public display. ongoing, eternal dialogue—the mony to that fact that we may wake the breakdown of tradi- The name of the exhibit Rabbis taught that the Torah now be seeing the reestablish- tional Jewish life, the rise of derives from the beautiful served as the blueprint for cre- ment of Talmudic study as the modern Jewish religious move- Bomberg edition of the Baby- ation—is contained in the center of a Jewish community ments and secularism, and the lonian Talmud, containing words of the Talmud and in its engaged in the deepest explo- political emancipation of Euro- mostly first edition tractates physical form, and in study and ration of its traditions. pean Jews. The horrors of the and some material from the in the life of ritual, ethics, Holocaust led to the destruc- theology, and law that it engen- Lawrence H. Schiffman is tion of the great European ders. It is a dialogue that Edelman Professor of Hebrew centers of Talmud study, and celebrates the capacity to sanc- and Judaic Studies at New the academies of the Islamic tify acts and issues through York University and a member world came to an end in the inquiry and debate. of the Center’s Academic aftermath of the rise of the So the Talmud is not just Advisory Council. This article 13 State of Israel and the expul- a book to study. It is an is adapted from his essay sion of the Jews from Arab approach to life, in which in the catalog of Yeshiva lands. These factors threat- inquiry and debate transform University Museum’s exhibit, ened to push the Talmud to the the mundane into the holy. “Printing the Talmud: From margins of Jewish life. But the While halakhah certainly lays Bomberg to Schottenstein.” renewed expansion of Yeshiv- down certain standards and ot, university Judaic Studies requirements representing both programs, and the various the Torah’s law and the Rab- translations and publication binic injunctions, inquiry about projects have brought about a Tractate Makkot Prague, 1716. all of them, as well as determin- miraculous revival of the role (Courtesy the Library of the Jewish ing the application of most of of the Talmud as the ultimate Theological Seminary of America) them, became in Judaism a transmitter of Jewish law and form of divine worship. The lore—of the heritage of ancient second and third—all printed Talmud in its widest sense is Israel in the modern world. by Daniel Bomberg between not just knowledge, but it The significance of the 1522 and ca.1543. It was this is the life of Torah. In fact, Yeshiva University Museum edition that permanently fixed Talmudic study is turning a exhibit is to demonstrate pre- the page numbers and the new corner in our own time. cisely this: the tenacity of the arrangement of the commen- Most importantly, the Talmud study and printing of this taries of Rashi and Tosafot. is being restored to its central sacred text through the ages, As is on ample display in position in traditional Jewish even in the face of enormous the exhibit, on the Talmudic culture, and with its modern difficulties. One example of the page, the Mishnah and Talmud translations, such as the fascinating material assembled are surrounded by commen- Schottenstein edition, it is

Yeshiva University Museum Educating Audiences of All Ages with Dynamic Interpretations of Jewish Life, Past and Present Founded in 1973, Yeshiva University Museum celebrates the culturally diverse intellectual and artistic achievements of 3,000 years of Jewish experience and offers a window onto Jewish culture around the world. Leo Beack Institute sequence of this higher profile Founded in 1955, was that Jews were attacked as the Leo Baeck Insti- “controlling”, “dominating”, tute is the single and “radical.” most important source for These attacks against the documenting the vibrant Jews were not without effect. life of German-speaking The excitement of the new and Jewry, covering hundreds unlimited possibilities sug- of years prior to the gested by the spirit of the Holocaust, the years of 1920s quickly faded….[B]y the the Third Reich, as well as time of the German election in the postwar resurgence of 1930, unemployment was ram- a Jewish community in pant, and the economic slump Germany. led to a national malaise that To mark the occasion focused its discontent on liber- of Leo Baeck Institute’s al attitudes, on democracy, and 50th anniversary, LBI is especially on the Jews. Hitler presenting an exhibition saw his opportunity and he recognizing the achieve- took it…. ments and contributions of The edicts and restric- German Jews who immi- tions subsequently enacted grated to America. against Jews meant that the “Starting Over: The German ranks of mathemati- Photo courtesy of Eisenman Architects Experience of German Jews cians, scientists, jurists, in America, 1830-1945,” on publishers, playwrights, musi- view through November 15, The Berlin Holocaust cians, artists and writers were 2005, explores the impor- diminished to the point where tant role that German Memorial in the Context mediocrity took over….The Jewish immigrants played Nazi press rejoiced with the in the shaping of American of German Jewish History banner headline: “Something 14 culture and professional wonderful has happened; they life. Many of the 150 On May 25, 2005, Carol Kahn Strauss, the executive have gone.” Some Jews com- objects and documents director of the Leo Baeck Institute, was invited to speak mitted suicide, many were featured in the exhibit— at a dinner in the residence of the German embassy in killed, but most emigrated, photographs, letters, Washington, DC, hosted by German ambassador Wolf- mainly to the United States. sketches, maps, medals, gang Ischinger in honor of the unveiling of the As three successive gen- and other rare artifacts— Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in Berlin. erations of Germans coped are on display for the Below is an abridged version of that speech. with the mass murder and first time. forced exodus of the best and [T]o me, the Berlin memorial is a reflection of both the nobility brightest in virtually every and the humility of Germany today. What other nation has so field of human endeavor, the publicly and meaningfully acknowledged a collective responsibil- question became, How to commemorate this unprecedented ity for what is arguably the worst catastrophe to befall the Jews catastrophe?…. since the destruction of the Temple? It is often a long time after The author James Young, the only foreigner and the only a cataclysmic event has taken place for the historical reality to be Jew to serve on Germany’s commission to select a design for a assimilated. Often it is recast and reshaped, usually into art, national Holocaust memorial, has written several books on the drama, fiction, or poetry. In this case, it is rendered in dilemmas Germany faces when it attempts to formalize the self- stone…nameless, faceless, universal and particular. inflicted void in its midst—the void of its lost and murdered And it is in the heart of Berlin, where European Jewry first Jews. For Germans, this void has come to define part of the experienced the opportunities and risks that came to be identi- national identity. fied with modernity in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was in Yet, as far as I can tell, for German Jews, that is actually not Germany, and in Berlin in particular, that achievements in art and the case; for them, the Holocaust does not define Germany. The culture, science and medicine, business, commerce and the law years of debate, discussion, controversy and conflict that raged were so noticeably developed by the nation’s Jewish citizens…. throughout Germany over the actual and symbolic form a memo- The uneasy association of German Jews interacting with rial for the murdered Jews of Europe should take were not echoed other Germans was often trumped by the objective accomplish- in German-Jewish communities in America or elsewhere. In Ger- ments of working together. Berlin became the world capital of the many the debate itself was clearly part of the process of facing 1920s: it became synonymous with cosmopolitanism, with quality, history. But for the aging survivors and their families settled for with innovation, and with Jews. Social interaction between Jews three generations (mostly) in the United States, the culture of and Germans was increasingly visible, especially in Berlin. One con- remembrance is different. For them…the only consideration was that Nazi crimes against the Jews must never be upward…” Editing America forgotten. The rebirth of a Jewish community in Ger- continued from page 4 While it may be different for East Euro- many, which Leo Baeck praised on his first Examples abound. Allen peans, it seems that for German Jews, the first postwar visit to Germany in 1949, seems to con- Ginsberg ripped open the body association is “Heimat”: recollections of child- firm that Germany has still not lost its appeal of poetry and rearranged its hood, family, and school-friends. Pleasant for Jews seeking to make better lives for them- organs, writing verse that memories persist. Unlike many American Jews selves, offering many of the same risks and sounded more like a howl than who are reluctant to visit Germany, many Ger- opportunities that attracted them to Berlin a like a pleasant, rhythmic song. man Jews are eager to revisit their towns and century ago. The memorial, I think, is essential: Lenny Bruce made the obscene cities. They point with pride to the contribu- “We would not close our eyes to the evils that look mundane and the mundane tions and accomplishments of their forebears, beset our path.” But our tradition also teaches seem enraging by trivializing including fighting for the fatherland in the First us that the forces of destruction do not define dirty words while awakening World War, service in communal organizations, us for all time. Our tradition is to remember, and sleeping societal notions such as involvement in commerce and in culture, and to move on. Rabbi Leo Baeck was among the racism and hypocrisy. Even a the establishment of department stores, news- first to recognize the potential for dialogue and man of action like Vladeck had papers and orchestras that continue to this day. reconciliation between Jews and Germany, just an intricate connection to lan- I have rarely heard German Jews refer to them- after the Holocaust, after what he called “the guage: More than teaching the selves as victims. illusion of assimilation ” was over. workers how to march or strike, But of course they were, and more than In a very moving talk at the White House Vladeck—who was also a jour- once in their long and illustrious history in Ger- more than 20 years ago Elie Wiesel said that nalist, an editor, and the general many, from settling along the Rhine 2,000 years he had learned that suffering confers no manager of the Yiddish newspa- ago to the rightwing extremists active today. privileges; rather, it confers obligations. per Forward—taught them Indeed, alongside material that attests to the “Survivors,” Wiesel said, “have tried to teach how to speak, tore from their remarkable contributions of Jews in Germany, their contemporaries how to build on ruins, tongues the tepid language of the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute are over- how to invent hope in a world that offers contracts and wages and flowing with documents that confirm the none, how to proclaim faith to a generation implanted in them a vocabulary centuries-old existence of anti-Semitism. Still, I that has seen it shamed and mutilated. And that concerned itself with big- would say that in the context of German Jewish I believe that memory is the answer, perhaps ger, bolder issues such as the history, this important new monument in Berlin the only answer.” quality of life, social justice, and is a necessary marker but not a definitive one. Leo Baeck Institute exists to capture the economic parity. 15 It is an undeniable and inescapable part of a historical memory, to catalogue the legacy of Editing, then, both pre- bigger and much less negative picture… the German-Jewish experience that can be doc- serves and transforms. It As the director of the Leo Baeck Institute umented on paper, on film, on canvas. The conjures up a portrait of a Jew- in New York I am always quick to emphasize Berlin memorial captures the private memory ish community, immigrants and that the Institute is a research library and that is in the heart of each and every human native sons alike, who sought archive and not a religious organization….And being who has suffered, and who has used that approval on the one hand and yet, when I saw the plans of Mr. [Peter] Eisen- suffering…to move forward with courage and upheaval on the other, who man’s extraordinary design, and then its actual strength. For all those generations who will understood the good and the installation when I was in Berlin for its inaugu- grow up without personal memory of the Holo- bad about America, who used ration, I could not help but remember a prayer caust, this memorial is absolutely necessary. It their language to edit the col- from the old Reform Hebrew Union prayer book, is a reminder of the irreparable loss Germany lective American narrative. that reads, in part, “We would not close our inflicted upon itself by destroying its Jewish eyes to the evils that beset our path but strug- minority, which, in the context of our shared Liel Leibovitz is a journalist gle… to turn them into steppingstones, leading history, played such a vital and vibrant role. living in New York City.

The Lillian Goldman Reading Room O ver 4,000 visits are made to the exquisite and accommodating Reading Room annually — scholars, academics, writers, as well as the general public make use of the extraordinary resources available, representing nearly fifty countries in parts of the world as far reaching as South Africa, Singapore, Estonia, Argentina and Israel. Hours: Monday–Thursday, 9:30 am–5:15 pm. Friday, by appointment only. For information on the Center’s Graduate Seminars for academic audiences, you can contact Diane Spielmann, Director, at [email protected]. FRED CHARLES Development News The Center for Jewish History thanks the many individuals, foundations, and government agencies whose generosity is essential to the growth of its dynamic programs. (A list of donors of $10,000 or more appears on pages 18–19.) Here we highlight some of the new grants, programs, and recent developments at the Center, made possible by the support of institutional and individual supporters of the Center’s five partners.

Gala Dinner On December 15, 2004, over two hundred guests were treated to a memorable evening in celebration of the 350th anniversary of Jewish settlement in North America at the Center for Jewish History’s Third Annual Board of Overseers and Board of Directors Dinner. With Chairman of the Board Bruce Slovin and his wife, Francesca Slovin, leading a Dinner Committee consisting of Karen and William Ackman, Tracey and Bruce Berkowitz, Diane and Joseph Steinberg, Edward L. Steinberg, and Michele Cohn Tocci, the event raised more than $825,000 in support of the Center’s work. The event began with a cocktail reception on the Selma L. Batkin Mezzanine where a variety of Jewish-American hors D d’oeuvres were served, in keeping with the theme of the evening. BEN ASEN

Guests had an opportunity to participate in a guided tour of the

A Center, which included a visit to the Lillian Goldman Reading

E A

B Room, the Werner J. and Gisella Levy Cahnman Preservation Lab- oratory, the Center’s Genealogy Institute, and the Strashun Rare Book Room, home of YIVO’s rare book collection. Guests were then invited into the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Auditorium where they were entertained by the Rafi Malkiel Quin- E tet, which performed the songs of Jewish-American composers, BEN ASEN 16 including Leonard Bernstein, Irving Berlin and George Gershwin. Jewish comedian Joel Chasnoff kept everyone laughing as the evening’s Master of Ceremonies. Following the entertainment, guests enjoyed a candlelit dinner “From the Jewish-American B BEN ASEN Kitchen” in the Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Great Hall.

Left side: (A) C. Virginia Fields, Manhattan Borough President, and Bruce Slovin, Chairman (B) Stephen and Sherry Jacobs, Joseph S. Steinberg (C) Michael Fragin, Executive Assistant to F BEN ASEN Governor George E. Pataki; Carol Philippi; Jonathan Greenspun, Commissioner New York City Community Assistance; Michael Glickman; Tarky Lombardi, New York State Senator (retired)

Right side: (D) Sylvia A. Herskowitz, Executive Director of Yeshiva University, and Joseph D. Becker, a member of the Board of Overseers (E) Emanuel and Ria Gruss with Peter A. Geffen, Executive Director of the Center (F) Sandra Rubin, Director of Development, with Joseph and Marilyn Schwartz

C BEN ASEN

CJH Welcomes Sandra Rubin as Director of Development The Center for Jewish History has benefited from almost two years of development consulting services from Sandra Rubin, who has played a critical role in securing several major gifts for the Center. Sandi is a highly experienced fund-raiser and a remarkably accom- plished professional. She served for many years as the Executive Director of the Jerusalem Foundation. This past January, the Center announced that Sandi would assume the full-time responsibilities of Director of Development. With Sandi now leading our Develop- ment Department, the Center will undoubtedly have much continued success during the months and years ahead in securing the necessary funding to sustain the Center’s operations and to expand and enhance its offerings to the public. Gruss Lipper Digital Lab The Center’s Board of Overseers Welcomes The Center for Jewish History and its partners have long Two New Members viewed the widespread digitization of their respective archival collections as a means both of preserving these invaluable and The Center is very pleased to announce that Tracey Berkowitz irreplaceable materials and providing more widespread access and Fred S. Zeidman have agreed to to them by stu- join its Board of Overseers. This Board dents, scholars was established nearly three years and the general ago, and its purpose is to advise and public. The Cen- assist the Board of Directors in the development and fulfillment of the Center’s mission. It now comprises twenty-seven distinguished leaders with expertise in business, finance, law, medicine, philanthropy and scholarship.

Tracey Berkowitz received her MELANIE EINZIG undergraduate degree from the Uni- Tracey Berkowitz versity of Massachusetts, where she studied marketing. She has worked in Citizenship certificate for Henry Sohn, February 12, 1878. (LBI) This document strategic market planning in England was restored by the Center's Cahman and the United States. Ms. Berkowitz Preservation Lab and has been digitized resides in New Jersey with her hus- and archived with bibliographic reference on band, Bruce, and their three children. FRED S. ZEIDEN COURTESY the new Online Public Access Catalog. Fred S. Zeidman received his B.S. in Business Administration from ter for Jewish History’s partners have all undertaken digitiza- Washington University and his M.B.A. 17 tion projects individually, either doing limited digitization from New York University. He current- in-house or outsourcing larger projects. ly lives in Houston, Texas, where he is Thanks to a generous grant of $792,501 from the Gruss involved with educational and civic Lipper Family Foundation, the Center for Jewish History is now organizations. Other posts include: Fred S. Zeidman constructing an on-site digital laboratory that will serve all Chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memo- the partners’ digitization needs in a professional and timely rial Council in Washington, D.C.; National Board Member, State manner. The grant will provide for the preparation of the dig- Israel Bonds; and Director of the American Jewish Committee. ital lab space, the provision of necessary equipment, and We look forward to the meaningful and lasting contributions staffing for the first two years of the lab’s operations. The our newest Overseers will make to the Center for Jewish History. advanced equipment used in the lab by its highly specialized staff will allow for a wide range of digitization projects, including films, music, and three-dimensional objects. All digitized images will be archived with bibliographic references on the Center for Jewish History’s new On-line Public Access Catalog, Congressional Appropriations a vast electronic database of the partners’ collections accessi- The United States Congress made two appropriations to the ble from any computer terminal with Internet access. Center for Jewish History. The first, of $500,000, will enable the Construction of the Gruss Lipper Digital Lab has already Center to continue to enhance its in-house preservation begun. The space chosen is currently being retrofitted with laboratory and digitization program on behalf of the partners. environmental controls to provide the proper temperature and The funds will be used to support the physical treatment of humidity necessary to protect the documents or objects being books and documents, microfilming and cataloguing collections, pending digitization. As always, the Center for Jewish History’s digitization of collections, and to expand the gathering and doc- priority is to ensure that these extraordinary material traces of umentation of historical collections for web-based projects and the past five hundred years of Jewish history are preserved for programs. The second appropriation, of $100,000, will be used the future, while allowing them to be accessible to those who directly to support the educational activities and initiatives of might learn from them. The Gruss Lipper Digital Lab will sure- the Center’s partners. ly become an essential resource to scholarship worldwide . The Center is grateful for the continued support of United States Senators Charles E. Schumer, Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), and Arlen Specter (PA), and United States Representatives Jer- rold Nadler, Nita Lowey, and Carolyn B. Maloney. DR. AND MRS. LINDSAY A. ROSENWALD THE PHILIP DEVON FAMILY FOUNDATION THE MORRIS AND ALMA SCHAPIRO FUND BERNICE AND DONALD DRAPKIN S. H. AND HELEN R. SCHEUER FAMILY E. M. WARBURG, PINCUS & CO., LLC FOUNDATION HENRY, KAMRAN AND FREDERICK ELGHANAYAN FREDERIC M. SEEGAL MARTIN I. ELIAS THE SELZ FOUNDATION GAIL AND ALFRED ENGELBERG THE SHELDON H. SOLOW FOUNDATION CLAIRE AND JOSEPH H. FLOM DAVID AND CINDY STONE— FOREST ELECTRIC CORPORATION FREEDMAN & STONE LAW FIRM MICHAEL FUCHS ROBYNN N. AND ROBERT M. SUSSMAN DAVID GERBER AND CAROLYN KORSMEYER MELANIE EINZIG SIMONA ARU SIMONA HELENE AND MORRIS TALANSKY ROBERT T. AND LINDA W. GOAD WACHTELL, LIPTON, ROSEN & KATZ GOLDMAN, SACHS & CO. DR. SAMUEL D. WAKSAL REBECCA AND LAURENCE GRAFSTEIN FRANCES AND LAURENCE A. WEINSTEIN EUGENE AND EMILY GRANT FAMILY Sharing Our Commitment GENEVIEVE AND JUSTIN WYNER FOUNDATION BARBARA AND ROY J. ZUCKERBERG CLIFF GREENBERG The Center for Jewish History expresses its gratitude and deep EMANUEL GRUSS BUILDERS LORELEI AND BENJAMIN HAMMERMAN appreciation to the following donors of $10,000 or more, whose JOSEPH ALEXANDER FOUNDATION JAMES HARMON gifts will help further its mission to preserve the Jewish past, DWAYNE O. ANDREAS— ELLEN AND DAVID S. HIRSCH protect the present, and secure the future. This roster repre- ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND FOUNDATION ADA AND JIM HORWICH ANONYMOUS HSBC BANK USA sents individuals, foundations, corporations, and government BEATE AND JOSEPH D. BECKER PAUL T. JONES II agencies that have generously contributed to our efforts. ANTHONY S. BELINKOFF GERSHON KEKST HALINA AND SAMSON BITENSKY KLEINHANDLER CORPORATION FOUNDERS ANA AND IVAN BOESKY KNIGHT TRADING GROUP, INC. S. DANIEL ABRAHAM, CITIBANK JANET AND JOHN KORNREICH THE DAVID BERG FOUNDATION DR. EDWARD L. STEINBERG— ROSALIND DEVON KPMG LLP BIALKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION— HEALTHY FOODS OF AMERICA, LLC VALERIE AND CHARLES DIKER HILARY BALLON AND ORIN KRAMER ANN AND KENNETH J. BIALKIN ANONYMOUS ERNST & YOUNG LLP LAQUILA CONSTRUCTION GEORGE BLUMENTHAL ANTIQUA FOUNDATION MR. AND MRS. BARRY FEIRSTEIN THE FAMILY OF LOLLY AND JULIAN LAVITT ABRAHAM AND RACHEL BORNSTEIN EMILY AND LEN BLAVATNIK RICHARD AND RHODA GOLDMAN FUND LEHMAN BROTHERS LILI AND JON BOSSE ESTATE OF SOPHIE BOOKHALTER, M.D. ARNOLD AND ARLENE GOLDSTEIN EILEEN AND PETER M. LEHRER LOTTE AND LUDWIG BRAVMANN BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN— JOHN W. JORDAN DENNIS LEIBOWITZ THE ELI AND EDYTHE L. BROAD FOUNDATION C. VIRGINIA FIELDS, MANHATTAN THE SIDNEY KIMMEL FOUNDATION ABBY AND MITCH LEIGH FOUNDATION THE CAHNMAN FOUNDATION BOROUGH PRESIDENT GERALD AND MONA LEVINE LIBERTY MARBLE, INC. CONFERENCE ON JEWISH MATERIAL CLAIMS LEO AND JULIA FORCHHEIMER FOUNDATION THE LIMAN FOUNDATION KENNETH AND EVELYN LIPPER FOUNDATION AGAINST GERMANY—RABBI ISRAEL LILLIAN GOLDMAN CHARITABLE TRUST MERRILL LYNCH & CO., INC. MACKENZIE PARTNERS, INC. MILLER FUND FOR SHOAH RESEARCH, HORACE W. GOLDSMITH FOUNDATION LOIS AND RICHARD MILLER BERNARD L. AND RUTH MADOFF FOUNDATION DOCUMENTATION AND EDUCATION KATHERINE AND CLIFFORD H. GOLDSMITH ARLEEN AND ROBERT S. RIFKIND SALLY AND ABE MAGID THE CONSTANTINER FAMILY THE JESSELSON FAMILY MRS. FREDERICK P. ROSE JOSEPH MALEH MR. AND MRS. J. MORTON DAVIS THE KRESGE FOUNDATION MAY AND SAMUEL RUDIN FAMILY LAUREL AND JOEL MARCUS 18 DONALDSON, LUFKIN & JENRETTE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION, INC. MR. AND MRS. PETER W. MAY MICHAEL AND KIRK DOUGLAS BARBARA AND IRA A. 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THE SKIRBALL FOUNDATION CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK JAMES AND SUSAN RATNER SUSAN AND ALAN PATRICOF TISCH FOUNDATION PATRICIA AND JAMES CAYNE PHILANTHROPIC FUND ANNE AND MARTY PERETZ THEODORE AND RENEE WEILER FOUNDATION CENTER SHEET METAL, INC.—VICTOR GANY ANITA AND YALE ROE CAROL F. AND JOSEPH H. REICH CHASE MANHATTAN CORPORATION THE FAMILY OF EDWARD AND JUDITH AND BURTON P. RESNICK PATRONS CAREN AND ARTURO CONSTANTINER DORIS ROSENTHAL THE MARC RICH FOUNDATION WILLIAM AND KAREN ACKMAN CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON JACK AND ELIZABETH ROSENTHAL RIGHTEOUS PERSONS FOUNDATION— ANONYMOUS THE NATHAN CUMMINGS FOUNDATION SHAREN NANCY ROZEN STEVEN SPIELBERG JUDY AND RONALD BARON ELLA CWIK-LIDSKY THE HARVEY AND PHYLLIS SANDLER STEPHEN ROSENBERG—GREYSTONE & CO. JAYNE AND HARVEY BEKER IDE AND DAVID DANGOOR FOUNDATION LOUISE AND GABRIEL ROSENFELD, HARRIET ROBERT M. BEREN FOUNDATION ESTHER AND ROBERT DAVIDOFF CAROL AND LAWRENCE SAPER AND STEVEN PASSERMAN ANTHONY DEFELICE—WILLIS ALLYNE AND FRED SCHWARTZ IRENE AND BERNARD SCHWARTZ The Constantiner JOSEPH E. SEAGRAM & SONS, INC. ALFRED AND HANINA SHASHA Date Palm Café ELLEN AND ROBERT SHASHA Light fare, offered at moderate prices in an intimate, quiet setting SIMPSON THACHER & BARTLETT SKADDEN, ARPS, SLATE, All products and food are glatt kosher and produced under the supervision of MEAGHER & FLOM LLC ALAN B. SLIFKA FOUNDATION Foremost Caterers. For group reservations and to inquire about catering services, SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA kindly call 917-606-8210. JERRY I. SPEYER/KATHERINE G. FARLEY THE SAM SPIEGEL FOUNDATION MEI AND RONALD STANTON ANITA AND STUART SUBOTNICK Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Bookstore LYNN AND SY SYMS Visit the Center’s bookstore with its rich offerings of scholarly and contemporary books, jewelry, and LYNNE AND MICKEY TARNOPOL THOMAS WEISEL PARTNERS objects on Jewish history, culture, and language. Select books on American Jewish history on sale to ALICE M. AND THOMAS J. TISCH coincide with the exhibition, “Greetings from Home: 350 years of American Jewish Life.” Open select TRIARC COMPANIES— NELSON PELTZ AND PETER MAY evenings, please call in advance. SIMA AND RUBIN WAGNER CLAUDIA AND WILLIAM WALTERS WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES Become a Friend of the Center PETER A. WEINBERG ERNST AND PUTTI WIMPFHEIMER— Support the Center for Jewish History with a gift of $36 or more, and you will become a Friend of the ERNA STIEBEL MEMORIAL FUND Center and be eligible for the following benefits: DALE AND RAFAEL ZAKLAD FRED S. ZEIDMAN • Take advantage of a 10% discount at the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller bookstore. HOPE AND SIMON ZIFF • Enjoy a 10% discount in the Constantiner Date Palm Café. THE ZISES FAMILY • Receive a 15% discount on the price of your ticket for Center-sponsored events, films, LIST COMPLETE AS OF MARCH 30, 2005 concerts, and lectures. For information on Planned Giving and Bequests, contact the Development Office, 212-294-8312, or e-mail [email protected].

Center for Jewish History (all facilities closed Saturdays)

EXHIBITION HOURS THROUGH SEPT. 15 LILLIAN GOLDMAN READING ROOM GENERAL TELEPHONE NUMBERS Monday 11am–7pm Monday–Thursday 9:30am–5:15pm Box Office 917-606-8200 Tuesday–Thursday 11am–5pm Friday By appointment only Reading Room 917-606-8217 Friday 11am–3pm Genealogy Institute 212-294-8324 Sunday 11am–5pm CONSTANTINER DATE PALM CAFÉ General Information 212-294-8301 * For evening programs contact: 917-606-8200 Monday 11am–7pm Group Tours 917-606-8226 Tuesday–Thursday 11am–4pm PARTNERS Sunday 11am–4pm AFFILIATES American Jewish Historical Society American Society for Jewish Music (AJHS) FANYA GOTTESFELD HELLER 212-294-8328 www.ajhs.org 212-294-6160 BOOKSTORE Association for Jewish Studies American Sephardi Federation (ASF) Monday 11am–7pm 917-606-8249 www.asfonline.org 212-294-8350 Tuesday–Thursday 11am–6pm Austrian Heritage 212-294-8409 Leo Baeck Institute (LBI) Friday 11am–3pm www.lbi.org 212-744-6400 Centro Culturale Primo Levi Sunday 11am–5pm 917-606-8202 Yeshiva University Museum (YUM) www.yumuseum.org 212-294-8330 (Also open on select evenings; call 917-606-8220.) Gomez Mill House 212-294-8329 Jewish Genealogical Society of New York YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 212-294-8326 (YIVO) www.yivoinstitute.org 212-246-6080 Yemenite Jewish Federation of America 212-294-8327

COVER: Background: Seltzer bottles, New York, early 20th century. From left to right: Save Ethiopian Jewry button appearing on an American Association for Ethiopian Jews poster, Graenum Berger Papers, American Jewish Historical Society; Judah Touro (1775-1854); J.B. Lightman, Knish Man, New York, 1933, Graduate School for Jewish Social Work Records; Invitation to Purim Association Fancy Dress Ball, March 15, 1881, Rosalie Solomon Phillips Collection, Phillips Family Papers, 1733-1954. Upcoming Highlights

NOW ON VIEW: Visit www.cjh.org for a complete schedule, admission fees, starting times. Exhibitions

“Greetings from Home: 350 Years of American Jewish Life” (AJHS). Through Sept. 15. “Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg To Schottenstein” (YUM). Through Aug. 28. “Starting Over: The Experience of German Jews in America, 1830–1945” (LBI). Through Nov. 15. “YIVO at 80: A Brief Encounter with Archives” (YIVO). Through Sept. 15.

Films

“Editing America”—the Monday Night Film Series celebrates 20th-century cultural icons appearing in award-winning films—Bob Dylan, Noam Chomsky, Allen Ginsberg, Dorothy Parker, and the Fleischer Brothers (creators of Popeye and Betty Boop), among many others. Through Sept. 19.

Other Events

“Soldiers and Slaves: American POW’s trapped by the Nazis’ Final Gamble.” A lecture with author and New York Times correspondent Roger Cohen (co-sponsored with LBI and the American Council on Germany). June 29.

“An Evening of Live Jewish Rock: Music with the Blue Fringe Band” (YUM). July 20.

20 YIVO honors Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter for his lifetime achievement at a book launch celebrating the publication of Plant Names in Yiddish. July 24.

Visit [email protected] for videoconferencing of events. COURTESY YIVO ARCHIVES YIVO COURTESY LBI ARCHIVES 1911. COURTESY FOR NEW YORK, BREMERHAVEN CECILIE LEAVING KRONPRINZESSIN

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