No. 45

Memoir: JCC Then and Now

Abraham Friedberg Papers [2021.0087]

Malbish Arumim Society

The cost of a synagogue; the man behind a nameplate

Calendar: Rodef Shalom Presents: Samuel Rosenberg, Painter; 18 Cheshvan Study; JGS Pittsburgh Presents: Emily Garber



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

Memoirs:

"The Jewish Community Center Then & Now"

"The Jewish Community Center Then & Now: 1895-1995."

As part of its centennial in 1995, the Jewish Community Center asked some of its longtime members to share memories about the organization. “The Jewish Community Center Then and Now” collects more than 45 short memoirs written by people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, many of whom could boast of having decades-long relationships with the JCC as well as with its two predecessors: the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House in the Hill District and the Young Men’s & Women’s Hebrew Association in Oakland.

Each writer was given one page. With such limited space, the memoirs are distilled to their essence. Reading the volume from start to finish provides a strong sense of the role of the Jewish Community Center in the community, as well as the broad trends of Jewish experience in this region across the 20th century: the move from the Hill District to the eastern neighborhoods of the city and a general rise from poverty into the middle class.

And yet, many memoirs also make space for one or two novelistic details.

Helen Simon Druskin writes that her brother “hooked up a car headlight to a battery to provide light in our home” during the power outages following the St. Patrick’s Day flood. Mary Baker Marks recalls buying cracked eggs from Slutsky’s grocery store at discount. “Today we would never think of eating a cracked egg!” she wrote. “Somehow, though, they never hurt us.” Lillian Oklin Rubin writes, “My brother Maishe belonged to the Valada Club, and our cupboards were full of Valada Basketball Club jerseys. He must have been the keeper of the goods. One cold Halloween, my girlfriend Ruth Friedman and I dressed in many of those jerseys to keep warm.” Burnet Weinsweig remembers hitting a traffic jam during a Uniontown AZA trip into Pittsburgh. The time for afternoon prayers arrived, and so the Rabbi chaperone pulled to the side of the road for an impromptu minyan. “With the Rabbi swaying back and forth,” he wrote, “the basketball team hiding behind the cars from the gazes of all the Christians passing by in their cars on Route 51, we prayed.”

No one would expect moments as small as these to be life defining. And yet, when it came time to recall the past, these are the details that emerged.

Each of these fleeting moments conveys something essential about the experience of coming of age as a Jewish child in this region in the unpolished early decades of the 20th century: the resourcefulness, the closeness, the sense of living a life distinct from society-at-large. What we remember always defines our experience, even when the makings of it initially seem trivial.

New Collection:

Abraham Friedberg Papers [2021.0087]

Abraham Friedberg immigrated to the United States from Lithuania in the early 20th century. Using business contacts from Germany, he entered the local tobacco industry. He eventually shifted into real estate and was based out of offices at 325 Third Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. His collection provides information about business networking techniques in the years surrounding World War I.

Of note are “letters of introduction” obtained by Abraham Friedberg, mostly dated September and October 1919. A similar letter was intended to ease his reintroduction into the German market in 1921.

Letter of introduction written by Judge Josiah Cohen on behalf of Abraham Friedberg, Sept. 13, 1919.

—from Abraham Friedberg Papers [2021.0087]

Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:

Malbish Arumim Society

Photograph showing members of the Malbish Arumim Society attending a meeting at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House, 1924.

—from Irene Kaufmann Settlement House Photographs [MSP 78]

The Malbish Arumim Society (Cloth the Naked Society) began in the early 1900s as the Mother’s Club of the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House.

The organization held social events to raise funds and collect goods for distribution locally, as well as overseas. Throughout World War I and its aftermath, the Malbish Arumim Society prepared shipments of used clothing to send to Jewish families in Europe from a facility at 21 Townsend St. In those years, its membership appears to have expanded to include men. Our entry for the Malbish Arumim Society includes a photograph of its membership in the 1920s and a collection of newspaper articles from the 1910s and 1920s.

The cost of a synagogue; the man behind a nameplate

(Left) Architectural rendering of the Poale Zedeck Congregation synagogue on Shady Avenue in Squirrel Hill (from Jewish Criterion, April 13, 1928); (right) Joel David Cohen was a leader in the Mizrachi movement in Pittsburgh and a longtime officer at Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Congregation (from Joel David Cohen Photographs [MFQ 279].

Every high holiday season, I am pleasantly ambuscaded with exceptionally specific questions about local Jewish history. Rarely do I have an answer ready, but often I know where to look. And so each year, I typically spend a few days post-holiday tracking down small bits of information.

This year, I thought I’d look for a few of those answers out in the open. 

November 9:

Rodef Shalom Congregation Presents: 

Samuel Rosenberg, Painter: A Vision of the Hill 1930

Rodef Shalom Congregation will host a public program on Samuel

Rosenberg, Painter: A Vision of the Hill 1930 with Barbara L. Jones, Curator

Emerita of The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, and Laurence A. Glasco, Ph.D. Ms. Jones, author of Portrait of a Painter, a study of Rosenberg, is joined by Dr. Glasco, a contributor to the book. The program begins at 7:00 P.M. on Wednesday, November 9 in Levy Hall at Rodef Shalom Congregation located at 4905 Fifth Avenue in Oakland. Their talk will include a discussion on Rosenberg’s Watermelon Market 1933 painting. A dessert reception follows the discussion, which is free and open to the public. Reservations are requested and can be made at 412.621.6566 x140 or at rodefshalom.org/rosenberg.

Barbara L. Jones, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art’s first Curator, joined the museum in October 1995, was promoted to Chief Curator in 2009, and was named Curator Emerita upon her retirement after 26 1⁄2 years in April, 2022. As a member of the Senior Management team, she had overall responsibility for the Museum’s permanent collection and exhibitions. With a concentration in the primary fields of nineteenth and twentieth century American art, she holds Masters degrees in both Art History and Museum Studies from Syracuse University and has a record of published research in American and regional art.

A member of American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Curators, she juries both national and regional art exhibitions and has lectured widely. With an exceptional museum team, she completed the redesign and reinstallation of all the renovated and expanded galleries of The New Westmoreland in 2015. Jones served as a member and Chair of the Historic Architectural Review Board for the City of Greensburg from 2007 ̶ 2019. She recently joined the Steering Committee of the Westmoreland Land Trust’s Carl A. Schwarz Memorial Nature and Art Park.

Laurence A. Glasco, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the History Department of the University of Pittsburgh. Since coming to the University in 1969, he has focused on African American history, both locally and globally. He has studied the history of Black Pittsburgh for the past decade. He researched and narrated a recent exhibition on slavery in early Pittsburgh, Free at Last?. Among Dr. Glasco’s numerous publications on the history of Black Pittsburgh are The 1940s:The Best of Times, August Wilson: Pittsburgh Places in His Life and Plays, and Teenie Harris: A Biography.

Glasco received the Pittsburgh Courier’s Men of Excellence award, the YWCA’s Racial Justice Award and TALK magazine’s Black History Merit Award. He works toward the preservation of historic Black sites in Pittsburgh as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and a member of the Young Preservationists Association. Several round-the-world voyages with the Semester at Sea program, and regular visits to Cuba, have helped Glasco place the story of Black Pittsburgh in a global perspective.

For more information, contact Mayda Roth, CFRE, Director of Development at 412.621.6566 x140 or via email at roth@rodefshalom.org.

November 12:

18 Cheshvan study

To commemorate the fourth yahrzeit of the October 27 attack, marking the day on the Hebrew calendar, the 10.27 Healing Partnership is holding a study session on Saturday, November 12 from 2:30-3:30 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill, in Levinson Hall rooms A and B.

The session includes three concurrent sessions: a class on the weekly Torah portion, a class on the daily page of Talmud, and and a discussion of the tribute objects left outside the Tree of Life synagogue building after the attack.

November 13:

JGS-Pittsburgh Presents: Emily Garber

Get on board for a guided tour through your family’s complex history! In this all-day hybrid seminar led by Emily Garber, you’ll learn where to start and how to explore your relatives’ lives. Discover clues about your family in the records they left behind. Train in the best research practices. Track your findings as you go. This course will set you up for future success in your Jewish family history journey. Seminar also includes an introductory session showing you how to find your Western Pennsylvania ancestors in the archives.

The program is Sunday, November 13 from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. For a complete schedule of the seminar, visit the Heinz History Center website.

It is a hybrid event, with options for in-person and online participation. It's free for JGS-Pittsburgh members, $10 for non-members joining online and $15 for non-members joining in person. Please register online. 

This is a hybrid program. Portions will be recorded, and the recordings 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.

An archaeologist by training (B.A., Vassar College; M.A., University of New Mexico), Emily Garber is a professional genealogy researcher, writer and speaker who specializes in Jewish genealogical research. She has researched both Eastern European and German Jewish communities and immigrants to the United States and Great Britain. She has toured family shtetlach (communities) and explored archives in Ukraine.

After retiring from her 30-plus year career in natural resources management, Emily earned a certificate from Boston University’s Genealogical Research program. She has spoken at nine International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conferences, as well as National Genealogical Society’s conferences, the New York State Family History Conference and the Utah Genealogical Society’s Summit of Excellence. She has presented talks and seminars throughout the United States, and in Israel and Poland. She coordinated two different weeklong seminars on Jewish genealogy at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. She has authored four articles published in Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy and, for a client, completed two privately published volumes chronicling the 300-year history of a German Jewish family. She writes a family history blog, The Extra Yad.

Emily serves on the board of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. She also chairs the Phoenix Jewish Genealogy Group and is on the board of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society. She served for about 10 years as one of the moderators of the JewishGen Discussion Group.

[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.