No. 52

Memoir: Reflections

Mildred Arons Friedman Papers [2022.0020]

Jewish War Veterans

Calendar: JGS Pittsburgh Presents: Judy Russell



Community News: The Letters, Jakob's Torah, 1950 Census, Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

Memoirs:

Reflection

Page from Mollie Brunwasser scrapbooks featuring photo booth photographs of Mollie and May Brunwasser and older photograph of Brunwasser family with annotations.

—Brunwasser Family Papers [MSS 502]

Why do people write memoirs?

As we described last week, the artist Joe Jacobs woke one morning in January 1982 flooded by details of his childhood in Braddock in the 1930s.

What exactly was the nature of his epiphany that morning? 

He suddenly saw his life as a story. 

A memoir is not a comprehensive accumulation of every memory contained in your mind. It is a selection of memories. It is just the memories that matter. They matter because they are the ones that help you make sense of the world. 

Read through the memoirs we’ve shared this year, and you can find a sense of purpose in each anecdote, no matter how slight it may seem.

For example, Mollie Brunwasser spends several pages of her epic memoir “Memories of Yesteryears” describing her 85th birthday: what she ate, who visited her, what gifts she received. The extreme detail can easily be dismissed as obsessive or pointless. Upon closer inspection, powerful themes emerge: that generosity is available to everyone, that kindness can come from anywhere, that delight is a choice. Like light passing through patterned glass, an entire worldview is made visible through these simple, daily anecdotes.

The prospect of populating a blank page with a complete worldview might be overwhelming. But the truth is, everyone does this naturally, without trying. 

Your life is mostly made up of events you don’t remember. The few that stick are those that reflect your particular perspective on the world.

By sharing your memories, you share their meaning, too.

All year, we've been sharing memoirs written by Jewish people who spent some portion of their lives in Western Pennsylvania. We reviewed more than 50 memoirs in this newsletter, and we added 42 of these memoirs to our website the Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania. Most of these memoirs have never before been widely and easily available to the public.

While we highlighted as many stories as we could this year, time prevented us from reviewing every memoir in our collection. And, of course, we hope many of you will write memoirs and share a copy with the Archive. We look forward to returning to this theme in the future. For now, we take leave of this topic.

With the next issue of the newsletter, we’ll introduce the theme for 2023.

New Collection:

Mildred Arons Friedman Papers [2022.0020]

Page from Mildred Arons Friedman's high school autograph book, 1924.

—from Mildred Arons Friedman Papers [2022.0020]

Mildred Arons Friedman (1905-1993) was born in Homestead, Pa. Her family moved to the East End of Pittsburgh in the late 1910s or early 1920s. She graduated from Peabody High School in January 1924 and married Nate Friedman in 1937. The Mildred Arons Friedman Papers [2022.0020] contains materials from Peabody High School and the University of Pittsburgh. Of note is an autograph book signed by Friedman’s Peabody High School classmates. It gives a wonderful sense of the spirit of teenagers in the 1920s.

Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:

Jewish War Veterans of America

Clarence "Code" Gomberg (right) and other representatives of the Jewish War Veterans of America attending a parade on lower Fifth Avenue, Nov. 1966.

—from Clarence Gomberg collection on Jewish War Veterans of Allegheny Co. [MSS 919]

The Jewish War Veterans of America was founded in 1896 by Jewish veterans of the U.S. Civil War and expanded greatly after World War I to accommodate the large number of Jewish solders returning from that conflict. Throughout the 20th century, the national organization included at least 12 posts throughout Western Pennsylvania. Our entry for the Jewish War Veterans of America includes materials from Pittsburgh Post No. 49, including its charter and copies of its newsletter from the late 1940s and early 1950s.

January 29:

JGS-Pittsburgh Presents: Judy G. Russell

Genealogy by its very nature is collaborative. We need to work together and share information with others, both relatives and non-relatives if we’re to succeed in filling out our family trees. But doing family research doesn’t mean giving up all semblances of personal privacy, nor is it a license to invade the privacy of others-family or not. All researchers need to follow the rules, both legal and ethical, when we share genealogical information. In her talk, "Share and Share Alike: The Rules of Genealogical Privacy," Judy G. Russell will provide legal and ethical guidelines for seeking genealogical information.

The program is Sunday, Jan. 29 from 1-2:30 p.m. ET It's free for JGS-Pittsburgh members and $5 for the general public. Please register online. 

All attendees are encouraged to log on 30 minutes early for a virtual open house. It’s an opportunity to share genealogy stories and make new friends.

This is a virtual program. It will be recorded, and the recording will be made available for JGS-Pittsburgh members who are current on their dues.

This program is possible through the support of the William M. Lowenstein Genealogical Research Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation.

Judy G. Russell, The Legal Genealogist®, is a genealogist with a law degree who provides expert guidance through the murky territory where law and family history intersect. An internationally known lecturer and award-winning writer, she holds credentials as a Certified Genealogist® and Certified Genealogical Lecturer℠ from the Board for Certification of Genealogists®.

Her blog is at www.legalgenealogist.com.

[Right] Gertrude Perles of Vienna. [Left] Hasele and Abe Levy of Pittsburgh.

—from A. Sanford Levy and Gertrude Deutsch Perles Papers [MFF 4883]

"The Letters: A Plea for Help"

In late October 1938, Abe and Hasele Levy of Pittsburgh received a letter from Gertrude Perles, a stranger in Vienna who was trying to escape the Nazis and come to the United States. “My husband and I are both Jews,” she wrote. “I am sure you know what is going on here and I need not give you a more precise explanation. It is growing worse every day. Our only hope is to emigrate to the U.S.A. Please, if you are able to send affidavits for me and my husband, for Heaven’s sake, do it, before it will be too late for us.”

Over the next few months, the Levys worked to help this Viennese couple through the challenges and pressures of the immigration process. Their correspondence is preserved in the A. Sanford Levy and Gertrude Deutsch Perles Papers [MFF 4883] held by the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center. The collection vividly shows the logistical and emotional challenges facing Jewish refugees as they navigated the immigration process.

Iris Samson of WQED recently produced a short documentary about the collection of letters titled The Letters: A Plea for Help. The moving 15-minute documentary places the eight-month correspondence into the larger context of the Anschluss, the Holocaust, and the start of World War II.

By now, you're probably expertly zipping around the new Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project platform. But if you still need a little help navigating its features and tools, you can view a virtual training workshop at the link below. Or, you can contact the archive or call 412-454-6406 with your questions.