Memoirs: Jim Haber
Celia Schuster Rofey
NCJW-Pittsburgh Section
Calendar: Brownsville reunion, Shaare Torah celebration, Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project workshop
Community News
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Memoirs:
“Background Music”
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"Background Music, Part One," by Jim Haber, 1972/1978. Image shows book cover. Book title is written in black on a musical staff against magenta background. |
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The title of Jim Haber’s memoir “Background Music” is a good metaphor for the way certain experiences can set the tone for life without influencing life directly.
In clear prose that bounces easily from subject to subject, Haber offers his take on the various forces that shaped his life. In the first part, written in 1972, he gives his impression of his ancestors and he drafts character sketches of specific relatives. He also dips briefly into the social world of German Jewry in McKeesport and Pittsburgh in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the second part, written in 1978, Haber widens his lens. He considers the ways his life intersected with global events. He describes the advent of electricity and radio, and his introductions to air travel and automobiles. He also reveals his small but meaningful connections to the Manhattan Project, the sinking of the Andrea Doria, and the plight of striking steelworkers in McKeesport.
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Next week: An Appeal
All year, the Rauh Jewish Archives is highlighting memoirs of Jewish life in Western Pennsylvania. If you would like to donate a memoir, or just chat about the stories you've read, contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.
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The grand-daughter of immigrants and daughter of factor workers, Celia Schuster graduated from Moorhead School, the Business High School of Pittsburgh, and Fifth Avenue High School in the 1930s. With her husband Leonard Rofey, she had three children, Rhoda, Marlene and Paula. The Rofey family lived on Dawson Court in Oakland but regularly visited family members on Dinwiddie Street in the Hill District. Leonard Rofey served in the U. S. Army during World War II.
The collection shows simple scenes of family life in these two neighborhoods, as well as glimpses into the lives of various branches and generations of the extended family.
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Rhoda and Marlene Rofey with their dog Tootsie visiting family on Devilliers St. in the Hill District in the early 1940s.
—Celia Schuster Rofey Papers and Photographs [MSS 1215]
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Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:
National Council of Jewish Women-Pittsburgh Section
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Menu from luncheon for the National Council of Jewish Women-Pittsburgh Section hosted and catered by the H. J. Heinz Co., 1929.
—from Richard E. Rauh Papers and Photographs [MSS 301]
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The National Council of Jewish Women-Pittsburgh Section (NCJW) was founded in May 1894, just a few months after the creation of the national body during the Jewish Women’s Congress at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
The Pittsburgh Section was among the first four local chapters. It was known until 1906 as the Columbian Council—against the wishes of the national organization. The NCJW-Pittsburgh initially favored a type of “preventative philanthropy” aimed at helping recent immigrants adapt to life in America. Throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, it evolved to undertake a variety of projects and advocacy initiatives designed to improve the lives of women and families and society as a whole.
At its height in the early 20th century, the National Council of Jewish Women also operated branches in many small towns throughout Western Pennsylvania, such as New Castle, Ambridge, and Bradford. It used this network to organize an ambitious educational initiative called the Southwestern District of Pennsylvania Jewish Religious Schools Program.
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Our entry for the National Council of Jewish Women-Pittsburgh Section includes links to the extensive archival holdings at the University of Pittsburgh, relevant individual collections at the Rauh Jewish Archives, as well as a detailed bibliography of secondary source materials about the organization. |
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The Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania brings together numerous online resources into a clearinghouse for conducting research about Jewish history in this region. As we migrate information to this new website, we’ll be announcing new entries and resources in this section of the newsletter. |
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Calendar: Past and Present |
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June 19:
Brownsville Jewish Community Reunion
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Group photograph of the students and teachers of the Ohave Israel Religious School in Brownsville, Pa., standing in front of the synagogue building, undated.
—Synagogue Documentation Project Photographs [MSP 317].
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The former Jewish community of Brownsville, Pa., is hosting a reunion.
In addition to celebrating the 115th anniversary of the founding of Congregation Ohave Israel in 1907, the reunion will include a rededication of the Ohave Israel Cemetery, which has recently been rediscovered, restored and documented by the Jewish Cemetery & Burial Association.
The reunion will be June 19, 2022 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Nemacolin’s Castle Courtyard, 136 Front St. in Brownsville, Pa. To RSVP, or to learn more about the event, please contact Danny Greenfield or Norma Ryan.
As part of the reunion, work is underway to properly document the history of former Jewish community of Brownsville. If you have memories or materials of Jewish life in the community, email the Archive or call 412-454-6406.
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June 23:
Rabbi and Rebbetzin Wasserman Celebration
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Rabbi Daniel Wasserman and Rebbetzin Judy Wasserman came to Pittsburgh in early 1997 to lead Shaare Torah Congregation.
As they prepare to leave Pittsburgh for Israel this summer, Shaare Torah is hosting a weekend of learning, prayer and community in their honor.
The Rauh Jewish Archives will be kicking off the weekend on the evening of Thursday, June 23 with a historical perspective about Shaare Torah Congregation. The talk will consider previous moments of transition and renewal at the congregation over the past century, such as the creation of the Pittsburgh Hebrew School and the introduction of bat mitzvah rituals.
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[Left] Cover of program for Shaare Torah Congregation's 117th annual banquet, featuring the installation of Rabbi Daniel Wasserman, March 1997. |
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June 26:
How to Use the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project
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The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project is a free, online collection of English-language newspapers covering the Jewish population of Western Pennsylvania from 1895 to 2010. Carnegie Mellon University hosts the website and recently moved it to a new online platform. To help researchers with this transition, the Rauh Jewish Archives, the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle are providing a free online workshop to help researchers use the website. We’ll introduce the website, review its basic features and functions, and offer tips and techniques for conducting research. We’ll also be collecting questions and suggestions.
This vritual program is on Sun., June 26 at 1:00 p.m. ET. Please register online. The program will be recorded and made available online.
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Now Open:
“Pittsburgh’s John Kane:
The Life & Art of an American Workman”
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"Crossing the Junction," John Kane |
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The Carnegie Institute surprised the art world in 1927 when it accepted a painting called “Scene from the Scottish Highlands” into its annual International Exhibition of Paintings. The exhibit, now called the Carnegie International, was one of the longest-running and most important surveys of American contemporary painting, a showcase of world-famous painters.
The artist was John Kane, a 67-year-old immigrant laborer in Pittsburgh with no formal art training but an artistic eye and approach all his own. Through the exposure from the exhibit, Kane gained international recognition in the final years of his life. Today, his work can be found in some of the most prestigious art museums in America, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Art Institute of Chicago.
The local art world has revisited Kane many times since his death in 1934, but there has never been a thorough historical examination of his life. The new Heinz History Center exhibit “Pittsburgh’s John Kane: The Life & Art of an American Workman” is the first to consider how Kane’s life and world influenced his art. Grounded in scholarship from Louise Lippincott and Maxwell King's new book “American Workman: The Life and Art of John Kane,” the exhibit asks: How did an immigrant worker roaming around Western Pennsylvania at the turn of the century become an artist of national acclaim?
“Pittsburgh’s John Kane” includes 37 paintings by Kane from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Carnegie Museum of Art, American Folk Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, the Phillips Collection, and others collections. The exhibit also includes rarely seen archival objects, including a collection of silver gelatin photographs Kane took as painting studies. An immersive walk-through of Kane’s final painting—“Crossing the Junction”—will allow visitors to travel through a Pittsburgh landscape as Kane did and explore his artistic process.
The exhibit is now open and runs through the rest of the year.
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The 1950 Census is now online.
You can access the census data using the link below. As additional research tools become the coming weeks and months, we'll share them here.
If you would like help using these records, please contact the Archive.
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Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project |
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The home page of the new Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project website, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University Libraries. The redesigned website is launching this month. |
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By now, you're probably expertly zipping around the new Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project platform. But if you still need a little help navigating the features and tools of the website, the Rauh Jewish Archives recently contributed a brief explanatory article to the Jewish Chronicle. It provides some basic tips and techniques for conducting research using the new site.
We plan to provide a live virtual training workshop in the near future to review the website and its functionalities. Until then, we are here to help you troubleshoot problems. You can contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.
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[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. |
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