February 16, 2025

Vol. 6, No. 7

Jewish Artists:

Charlotte Reizenstein

Jewish Encyclopedia:

Maimonides School Ladies Auxiliary

Iris Samson:

Israel Day Parade

A Patchwork Life:

Gut Yontif: Tu B'shvat

Calendar:

Mar. 6: "Teach Them to Your Children"

Jewish Genealogy Society:

Feb. 16: Jane Neff Rollins



Community:

URA photographs

SHHS archives

JCBA "Road-Trip"

Research Tools:

Newspapers, Cemeteries,

Memorial Plaques, Books,

Population Figures, Synagogues, Newsletter Archive,

Shul Records America

Jewish Artists:

Charlotte Reizenstein Rosenberg Sherman (1911-1999) 

Black and white photograph of Charlotte Reizenstein Rosenberg sitting and knitting—c1935.

Reizenstein Family Papers and Photographs [MSS 73]

Charlotte Louise Reizenstein showed an early talent for art while attending Peabody High School in East Liberty. She gained membership to the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh at 16 and began exhibiting locally. She graduated with a scholarship to the Carnegie Institute of Technology’s Department of Painting and Design but instead enrolled at the Art Student’s League in New York. 

She later regretted that decision, feeling she had been too young and too immature to take full advantage of the opportunity. “I was much too busy having a good time in New York,” she explained in an oral history with the National Council of Jewish Women-Pittsburgh Section in 1976.

Reizenstein returned to Pittsburgh after two years and continued training with W. Reid Hastie. Tuberculosis forced her to pause her artistic pursuits for a year. Soon after her recovery, she married Jack Rosenberg and started a family.

The early years of their marriage came during the most challenging years locally of the Great Depression. Unable to afford a place of their own, Charlotte and Jack Rosenberg lived with family. She went to work from her father’s famous glassware store downtown. She worked as a “bridal secretary,” while also illustrating company advertisements on the side.

With the birth of her daughter, Charlotte effectively paused her artistic career for a decade. During this time, she became highly involved in the local Jewish community. She oversaw a forerunner to the United Jewish Federation’s Women’s Division.

She resumed her artistic practice in the early 1950s, studying in the evenings with Samuel Rosenberg at the YM&WHA and Jean Thoburn at the Arts & Crafts Center. She created Thoburn with teaching her artistic technique and Rosenberg with teaching her artistic appreciation.

Reizenstein’s Co. advertisement from the time when a newly married Charlotte Reizenstein Rosenberg was producing illustrations for her family company.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Feb. 26, 1935

Newspapers.com

She rejoined the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, eventually becoming its secretary. She also joined the Pittsburgh Watercolor Society, becoming its president. By the time she recorded her oral history in 1976, she believed that the best artists working in Pittsburgh were as good as any artists working anywhere in America, but she felt Pittsburgh was overlooked by an art establishment inclined to disregard anything happening outside of New York.

“I think I have a good bit of innate talent. I think I really might have gone quite far,” she said in the oral history interview. “You don’t really have to be the greatest genius in the world to go very far, but you do have to devote all of your time to it—and you have to eat and sleep it. I made that decision many years ago when I decided I wanted a husband, and I really wanted a child, more than I wanted a career. So I settled for a small career… There have been rare times when I have had a feeling that I missed something, but I think that my life has been too rich through fulfilling my place with them to really bemoan the fact that I did not leave them and pursue my own life.”

All year, the Rauh Jewish Archives is highlighting stories of Jewish artist in Western Pennsylvania before World War II. If you would like to donate a material from this time period, or any historic materials documenting Jewish life in this region, contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.

Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:

Rambam School Ladies Auxiliary/Beth Yakov School

Notice for the Women’s Organization for the Beth Yakov School for Girls.

Jewish Criterion, Aug. 14, 1942

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

Rabbi Wolf Leiter started the Beth Midrash Rambam at 1620 Murray Ave. in July 1942, shorty after relocating to Squirrel Hill from his longtime home in the Hill District. Beth Midrash Rambam was a synagogue with an associated study hall. The educational component was initially called the Rambam School and eventually became better known as the Maimonides Institute. Almost immediately upon starting the Rambam School, the new Ladies Auxiliary of the Rambam School announced plans to start the Beth Yakov School for Girls. 

A seamstress named Sarah Schenirer had started the first Bais Yaakov school in Krakow, Poland in 1917. It was the first formalized system of Jewish education for girls. She received an early blessing for the initiative from the Belzer Rebbe (Rabbi Issacher Dov of Belz) at a time when the Rabbi and Rebbetzin Leiter were still living in the Belz community in Galicia.

By the end of the 1930s, the Beis Yaakov network in Poland had 250 schools with more than 40,000 pupils, as well as emerging branches in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, New York, and Palestine, according to the Jewish Women’s Archive. The American system expanded in the early 1940s with new schools in Baltimore in 1942, Detroit in 1943, and then subsequently in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, and Toronto. 

The Beth Yakov School in Pittsburgh opened student registration in August 1942 for local girls ages six to 16, but the effort was short-lived. Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh began around the same time. It soon provided full-day schooling for boys and girls, which lessened the need for Beth Yakov.

Iris Samson:

Israel Day Parade

[Editor's Note: The Rauh Jewish Archives is pleased to introduce a new column from Iris Samson. Samson has had a long career as a journalist in Pittsburgh, working for the Jewish Chronicle for many years and then for WQED-TV. Her column will explore local Jewish historical topics with a combination of research and memoir as she recalls personal experiences with these events.

For her first column, she recalls the grand Israel Day Parades that once brought hundreds to the main streets of Squirrel Hill in the 1970s and 1980s.]

Color photograph of the four people carrying a large banner reading “Salute to Israel Parade” ahead of a large crowd of marchers—undated.

—Jewish Chronicle Records [MSS 906]

Every year, on a Sunday in late April or May we’d gather in Squirrel Hill to celebrate a momentous birth, that of the state of Israel.

It began in 1968, a year after the still new state fended off enemies on all sides to emerge victorious. Israel was saved by the young people, and in celebration, young people from all over the tri-state area began the Youth Salute to Israel parade.

It grew and grew and for the next 25 years, everybody came — politicians and community leaders, long-time Pittsburghers and “New Americans” from the former Soviet Union. Holocaust survivors and second-generation children joined.  Every synagogue and Jewish day school, and dozens of Jewish organizations sent marchers and watchers.

We lined the curbs from Forbes to Murray to Beacon to Shady, depending on the route that year.  I came first as a newlywed in 1983, then pregnant with my first in 1987, then with two strollers in 1991, until the parade wound down by the year 1993 and became the Yom Haatzmaut celebration.  

It began with members of Jewish youth organizations led by the American Zionist Federation, an amalgam of every Jewish organization in Pittsburgh with ties to Israel or supporting Israel. ZOA, Hadassah, Pioneer Women, Israel Bonds…the list was long.

Black and white photograph of marchers in an Israel Day Parade, passing outside the Squirrel Hill branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Pictured include Mayor Sophie Masloff, and city councilman Bob O’Connor with his son Corey—c.1990.

—Jewish Chronicle Records [MSS 906]

Every local politician with any sense of community came. Mayors and local politicians walked at the head. There are photos of Sophie Masloff and Bob O’Connor clutching young Corey’s hand. Former Mayor Pete Flaherty and Rep. Ivan Itkin. Color guards with soldiers, high school marching bands, and police riding beautiful horses and floats from various groups—and everyone in a sea of blue and white.  

A few years after it began, it was no longer just a youth parade. There were months of planning involved, with meetings and reminders and packets sent out to each organization — what to wear, what the theme would be that year, logistics and details. To the watchers like me who lined the route, it looked just like fun.  

There were activities leading up to that day — lectures and singers and Israeli dancing, essay contests, speeches and even cooking contests judged by writers from the Press and Post Gazette. Kugels and coffee cakes, chicken soup and chopped liver — it was a prize to win top award and have your picture in the Jewish Chronicle.

The names and faces are recognizable and not, because thousands of us would go and we would look forward to it year after year, after year. 

Time it was, and what a time it was. Our innocence may be gone, but the memories remain, preserved in photographs.

—Iris Samson

Louise Silk: A Patchwork Life:

Lydia Rosenberg

The earliest description of Tu B’Shvat is simple. In the Mishnah (Rosh Hashana 1:1) we read, “On the first of Shevat is the New Year for the tree, according to Beit Shammai. But Beit Hillel say: It is on the fifteenth of Shevat.”

The day originally served a technical purpose. It marked the start of an agricultural cycle used to determine certain tithes mandated in the Torah for produce grown in the land of Israel. With the migration to other lands, the holiday expanded. Throughout the generations, Jewish groups have used the day to explore different ideals: Zionist, environmental, mystical.

In the third of our four-part holiday series “Gut Yontif: A Patchwork Holiday Experience,” artist Lydia Rosenberg conducted a modern Tu B’Shvat seder. 

The medieval mystics of Judaism first conceived of the concept of adapting the well-know rituals of the Passover seder to the seemingly minor holiday of Tu B’Shvat. With their penchant for symbolism and numerology, they connected the four cups of wine to the four seasons, as well as to the “Four Worlds” defined in the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. It was a way of drawing down unimaginable spiritual energy into the mundane physical world.

As an early member of the Jewish Women Center in the 1990s, Louise Silk participated in some of the first Tu B’Shvat seders ever conducted in Pittsburgh. Rosenberg used a modified version of the Jewish Women’s Center seder text, updated with the help of local micro-nursery “future is nuts” to create stations for the four seasons. Each station contained fruits, wines, mixed drinks, and handcrafts while music played. On a blowy night in winter, the Heinz History Center was filled with a bounty for all five senses.

The final installment of our Gut Yontif! series will be Wednesday, March 12 with an all-embracing Purim party from Olivia Devorah Tucker. 

The “Gut Yontif!” series is made possible thanks to a generous grant from the SteelTree Fund of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

March 6:

"Teach Them To Your Children"

Since the times of the Talmud, Jewish education has been a communal responsibility. How has Western Pennsylvania met this challenge? 

In a fast-paced and engaging monthly series “Teach Them To Your Children,” Rauh Jewish Archives Director Eric Lidji will cover 150 years of Jewish educational initiatives in Western Pennsylvania, showing how our community has perpetuated Jewish knowledge from generation to generation. 

This series will take place monthly in the Community Day School library (2743 Beechwood Blvd.) on Thursday evenings at 7 p.m.

Jan. 9—The 19th Century

Feb. 6—The 1900s

The series continues March 6 with a review of local Jewish educational initiatives between 1910 and 1920. The Jewish community created its first enduring educational initiatives, including the Hebrew Institute and the Southwestern District of Pennsylvania Jewish Religious Schools program.

The schedule for the rest of the year includes:



April 10—The 1920s

May 8—The 1930s

June 12—The 1940s

July 10—The 1950s

Aug. 14—The 1960s

Sept. 11—The 1970s

Oct. 9—The 1980s

Nov. 13—The 1990s

Dec. 11—The Future

"Teach Them To Your Children" is presented by Community Day School, Hillel

Academy of Pittsburgh, and Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh.

Jewish Genealogy Society

Feb. 16:

"We Never Heard from Them Again"

Researching Relatives Who Died in the Holocaust

with Jane Neff Rollins

This talk puts the systematic murder of Jews and other persecuted populations during World War II into historical context before showing attendees how to research the fate of long-lost relatives. Resources to be covered will include the JewishGen Holocaust database, the U.S. Holocaust Historical Museum, Yad Vashem, the Arolsen database, collections of oral history recordings, Yizkor (memorial) books, newspapers, and more. Also included will be the intellectual and emotional challenges genealogists will face in doing this kind of research.

Jane Neff Rollins is a professional genealogist who works primarily with clients whose ancestors came from the former Russian Empire, providing research and translation of Russian documents. She has researched in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Washington DC, and Jerusalem. She is an alumna of ProGen Study Group 29, and a multi-time attendee of the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy and the Forensic Genealogy Institute.

Jane has lectured at the annual conferences of the National Genealogical Society, the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, the Southern California Genealogical Society, and virtually and in-person for societies throughout the United States.

Jane’s genealogy articles have appeared in NGS Magazine, FGS Forum (for which she won the 2020 Forum Writer’s Award), Crossroads, and Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy: “Researching Jewish Ancestors Who Served in the Civil War.” Other writing has appeared in Roots-Key, the LA Jewish Journal, and medical trade magazines.

Community

Urban Redevelopment Authority Archives

The City of Pittsburgh Archives has launched a new digital archive containing thousands of photographs and documents spanning more than two centuries. Of particular interest to local Jewish history is a collection of more than 2,000 photographs of properties in the lower Hill District taken by the Urban Redevelopment Authority in the late 1950s prior to demolitions in the area. 

Squirrel Hill Historical Society Archives

Squirrel Hill Historical Society has added a collection of 60 historic images of Squirrel Hill to the Historic Pittsburgh website. The collection contains selected images from three organizations: the Squirrel Hill Historical Society, Squirrel Hill Urban  Coalition, and Mary S. Brown Memorial-Ames United Methodist Church. The photographs document many aspects of life in Squirrel Hill, including many beloved businesses from the 1990s that no longer exist.

From the Jewish Cemetery & Burial Association

"Road Trip: The Jewish Cemeteries of Western Pennsylvania"

The Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh has released a new documentary showcasing Jewish cemeteries in Western Pennsylvania.

“Road Trip: The Jewish Cemeteries of Western Pennsylvania” is a one-hour tour of the many cemetery properties overseen by the JCBA, as well as an overview of the organization’s ongoing work to care for these sacred burial grounds. The video is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate these special Jewish cultural sites in our region. The video includes many historic photographs and documents from the collections of the Rauh Jewish Archives. 

Research Tools

The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project contains digitized, searchable copies of four local English-language Jewish newspapers between 1895 and 2010. It is a valuable tool for researching almost any topic about Jewish history in Western Pennsylvania. For a primer on using the website, watch our video.

Western Pennsylvania Jewish Cemetery Project

The Rauh Jewish Archives launched the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Cemetery Project in 1998 to preserve burial records from Jewish cemeteries across the region. Over a period of fifteen years, the information was compiled into a searchable, online database containing approximately 50,000 burial records from 78 Jewish cemeteries throughout the region.

Western Pennsylvania Yahrzeit Plaques Project

The Rauh Jewish Archives launched the Western Pennsylvania Yahrzeit Plaques Project in 2020. The goal was to create a comprehensive collection of burial records from memorial boards at synagogues across the region. Volunteers are currently transcribing these boards and records are being added monthly to our online database. The database currently contains more than 2,700 listings.

Rauh Jewish Archives Bibliography

University of Pittsburgh librarian and Rauh Jewish Archives volunteer Laurie Cohen created this comprehensive bibliography of the Rauh Jewish Archives library holdings from 1988 through 2018. It lists nearly 350 volumes arranged by type and then by subject. This a great tool to use early in your research process, as you’re surveying available resources on a given subject.

Jewish Population Estimates

Looking to figure out how many Jews lived in a certain part of Western Pennsylvania at a certain moment in time? This bibliography includes more than 30 estimates of the Jewish population of Pittsburgh and small-towns throughout the region, conducted between 1852 and 2017.

Synagogues

A database of buildings throughout Western Pennsylvania known to have hosted Jewish worship services. Includes links to photographs and citations with original source material. Database currently includes 90 locations from 2 institutions

Rauh Jewish Archives Newsletter

The Rauh Jewish Archives has been publishing a weekly newsletter since 2020. The newsletter contains a variety of articles about local Jewish history, including much original research not found anywhere else. You can find and read every issue—more than 150!— in our new index.

Shul Records America

Online finding aid from JewishGen listing congregational archival collections held at publicly accessible repositories across the United States. Includes 63 listings from the Rauh Jewish Archives, as well as other repositories with Western Pennsylvania congregational records.

The Rauh Jewish Archives was founded on November 1, 1988 to collect and preserve the documentary history of Jewish life in Western Pennsylvania and to make it available to the world through research assistance, programing, exhibits, publications, and partnerships.

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