In this issue...
Announcing: the Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania

Spiegel Cousins Club

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspapers
Announcing:
If you visited our website this week, you probably noticed some changes. It looks the same as before, but it's got a new name and a different format.

For many years, we've had two websites. "A Tradition of Giving" told the story of Jewish philanthropy in Pittsburgh. "Generation to Generation" told the stories of Jewish families and small-town communities who had given records to the archive. The new website is called The Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania. Over time, it will combine all the information from those earlier projects into a single source for learning about your ancestors, your community, the topic of your research paper, or your personal interests.

The Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania will eventually have all the photographs, documents, oral histories, and videos from those previous sites (as well as the popular Western Pennsylvania Jewish Cemetery Project), but it will also have new tools, like maps, databases, research tools, and dynamic citations. It will include materials from our collections, as well as links to materials from repositories all over the world and online. As the encyclopedia grows over time, it will become increasingly vast and rich.

This redesign was underwritten by a grant from Carolyn Slayton and Seth Glick, who have been great supporters of the archive and its mission to collect and preserve the records of our community and to share them with the world.
(Above) Example of interactive bibliography with links to actual records.
(Below) Example of new dynamic mapping feature.
We are creating this resource in real time. In January, we'll be launching a two-year effort to move more than 100 entries from "A Tradition of Giving" to this new website. Each entry will be reviewed for accuracy and updated with additional resources we've discovered over the past decade. We'll be doing this work week by week and announcing new entries here in this newsletter.

We'll also be expanding the newsletter in other ways in the coming year. As you'll see starting in January, it will include new features and more ways to connect. We hope you'll join us and encourage others to subscribe as well.
Spiegel Cousins Club
Gavel used during meetings of the Spiegel Cousins Club, undated.
from Paula Sittsamer Riemer Papers and Photographs [2021.0003]
The siblings Bertha, Sura and Harry Spiegel all immigrated to the Pittsburgh area around 1901. They settled around West Mifflin and in Hazelwood.

They found jobs, and they married. They had kids, and then those kids had kids. By the time 57 years had passed, the family was big and spread all over.

Some lived in Oakland, some in Squirrel Hill, some in the South Hills, some in the small towns of Uniontown, Ellwood City, Beaver Falls, and California, Pa.

"It was this split in the physical proximity of the family that started the idea of a Club," a young Paula Sittsamer wrote for an assignment in 1976.

Her essay is one of the few accounts of Jewish family club life in Western Pennsylvania written by a member of one of those clubs. In the essay, she describes the origins and culture of the Spiegel Cousins Club and provides insights that explain trends seen among dozens of other family clubs.
Spiegel Cousins Club members at a family gathering in the 1960s.
—from Paula Sittsamer Riemer Papers and Photographs [2021.0003]
"The second generation Spiegels were the main instigators to the formation of the club," she writes. That was the case for other family clubs in the region.

In many cases, adult children started a club after the death of their parents, who were often the founding patriarch or matriarch of the American family.

The Spiegel Cousins Club was initially modeled after the Sherman-Podolsky Family Club. Like that club, the Spiegel Cousins Club intended to become a money-lending organization—raising funds to help cousins in need. That never came to pass. Instead, the club remained a social entity. It charge members $1 in dues at each meeting and used the funds to pay for refreshments.

The club met monthly, often using the Adath Israel synagogue—better known as the Ward Street Shul—in Oakland. They held special parties for Purim and Chanukah and hosted a model Seder for children around Passover time.
Family tree listing 124 members of the Spiegel Cousins Club, compiled by Murray Spiegel during the winter of 1974 and 1975.
The tree starts in Europe and includes five generations of American descendents.
—from Paula Sittsamer Riemer Papers and Photographs [2021.0003]
"This structure held up for around twelve years," she continues. "At the end of the sixties and early seventies, a great deal of the third generation members found better opportunities outside of Pittsburgh. This was also the time that the trend of leaving Pittsburgh to go to college started in my family. It seemed that those who moved were 'doers' of the group and their loss was really felt."

Those same forces seem to have influenced other family clubs. The newspaper notices decline through the 1960s and essentially disappear by the 1980s, aside from a few donation notices here and there.

By the mid-1970s, Spiegel Cousins Club members were living as far away as Tuscon and Ft. Lauderdale. The monthly meetings stopped, but the Spiegel Cousins Club still convened for holidays and special occasions. Instead of big parties, "we are busy reacquainting ourselves," she notes.

But she also noted that those "third-generation" kids missed the intimacy of the club and were taking steps to convene a "Junior Cousins Club."

She concludes by noting: "my generation has, in a sense, grown up together, because of the Club. It has made us aware of each other; has periodically brought us together; and most recently has made us aware of how much we mean to each other."
With that note, we conclude our year-long review of Jewish clubs in Western Pennsylvania. Next week, we'll offer some reflections. And the following week, we'll announce the subject of our community collecting initiative for 2022.

All this year, the Rauh Jewish Archives is highlighting stories of Jewish club life in Western Pennsylvania. If you would like to donate records of a local Jewish club, or just chat about clubs, contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.
Help the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project
The home page of the new Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project website, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University Libraries. The redesigned website is launching this month.
The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project is likely the most widely used resource for conducting research about Jewish history in this region.

Launched in 2007, and expanded over a period of years, it now includes digital reproductions of four English-language Jewish newspapers—The Jewish Criterion, The American Jewish Outlook, the Jewish Chronicle, and the Y Weekly. These searchable issues begin in 1895 and continue through 2010, creating an invaluable tool for studying Jewish history and Jewish genealogy.

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries created the website, using materials and resources from the Rauh Jewish Archives, Rodef Shalom Congregation, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. CMU recently announced plans to move the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project to a different online platform. As with any change, this one will require people to learn a new system: the site will look a little different and will act a little different than the one we have become accustomed to using for many years.

The new system will be an improvement in some ways. But as with any change, it will also create new quirks and shortcomings to navigate.

At this early stage in the transition, CMU is asking for help. They want you to try out the new site and to let them know what you think about it.

In the meantime, the existing site remains accessible. You can find it here.

These transitions can be exciting, and they can also be frustrating. The Rauh Jewish Archives is currently learning the new system, in order to help researchers make the switch over the coming months. We are always available to help you troubleshoot problems, and we hope to provide training workshops in the near future. You can contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.
Tell your friends!
[IMAGE: Marian Schreiber and employees at the Schreiber Trucking Company, c.1943—from Schreiber Family Papers and Photographs, MSS 846.]

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The Rauh Jewish Archives was founded on November 1, 1988 to collect, preserve, and make accessible the documentary history of Jews and Jewish communities of Western Pennsylvania. You can help the RJHPA continue its work by making a donation that will directly support the work being done in Western Pa.
Plan a Visit

Senator John Heinz History Center
1212 Smallman Street
Pittsburgh, Pa. 15222
412-454-6000

A proud affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the Senator John Heinz History Center is the largest history museum in Pennsylvania and presents American history with a Western Pennsylvania connection.