All year, the Rauh Jewish Archives has been looking at Jewish clubs.
So far, we've been focusing on youth clubs created between 1910 and 1945. If you look through the Jewish Criterion from the years between the wars, you will find the activities of at least 300 of these clubs recorded in its pages.
These clubs were part of intramural leagues overseen by three institutions in the Hill District and Oakland: the Hebrew Institute, the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House, and the Young Men's & Women's Hebrew Association.
Those leagues were created to combat delinquency. Clubs kept kids busy after school, and they gave kids a sense of meaning, purpose, and belonging.
They found that meaning, in large part, through documents. Even as young men, the boys in the Sumer Somerman Club inherently understood the power of documents. Committing something to paper can be an attempt at "history."
Clubs were encouraged to document their activities. They had elections. They held meetings. They took minutes. They published newspapers. They organized dances, performed in plays, and hosted speakers, and they publicized these events with advertisements, fliers, and programs.
Over the years, most of these records were lost or destroyed. Today, in the Archive, we only have documentation for about a dozen of the youth clubs from that era, and so those are stories we are now able to tell in detail.
In our next issue, we'll begin looking at the Jewish youth fraternities and sororities in Squirrel Hill and East End from the 1940s through the 1970s.
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.
