No. 47

Memoir: "Memories of Donora"

Mirow Family Papers and Photographs [MSS 1240]

Jewish National Fund

Calendar: JGS Pittsburgh Presents: Vivian Kahn



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

Memoirs:

"Memories of Donora"

The faculty and student body of the Ohav Sholom Congregation Sunday School in Donora, during the tenure of Rabbi Benjamin Krohn, c1954.

—from Ohav Sholom Congregation (Donora, Pa.) Photographs [MSQ 16]

Prior to his death in late 2021, Sidney Mishkin regularly attended morning services at his synagogue in Indianapolis. During those services, he would invite his fellow worshipers to recite the traditional mourner’s kaddish on behalf of those deceased souls who had no one to recite it on their behalf.

“I began this practice so that I could say the memorial prayer for the adult Jewish people of Donora whom I knew as I grew up, all of whom (and many of their children, unfortunately) are long since deceased,” Mishkin wrote in his 2018 book Memories of Donora: Growing Up Jewish in a Western Pennsylvania Steel Town. From that introduction, Mishkin strolls through the Donora of his memories, pointing out the characters who have long since passed. Here are the grocers Mr. Lichtenstein and Mr. Ackerman, and the butcher Mr. Mermelstein. Here is the teacher Mrs. Baer. Here are Mr. and Mrs. Meyerson, who would invite him over for cake after Saturday morning services.

The entire book is a kaddish, of sorts. It is an act of memory taking the form of a declaration of praise. Mishkin was born in 1937 and married in 1962. His book recalls his memories of Donora during the intervening years, the 1940s and 1950s. He describes a fragile civic bond that united the children of that era. The Great Depression was over, the local U.S. Steel plants were running, and the urgency of World War II created a point of common cause.

Mishkin was compelled to write his memoir after returning to his hometown in 2017 and visiting the Donora Historical Society and Smog Museum. “I saw many artifacts and photos of the Donora I knew. Unlike my recollections, those objects are tangible. Waves of emotion and memories enveloped me. I felt as though I was home again in Donora for a few hours.”

"Memories of Donora," 2018.

The elegiac tone of the book never slips into illusion. Mishkin is candid about the stains of that time: the corporal punishment by rabbis, the petty communal fights, the casual antisemitism threatening Jewish businesses, the explicit racial segregation, and a local economy where economic health and physical health were often opposed. He was only nine or ten in October 1948, when the Donora Smog became national news. He remembers walking to synagogue that Friday night “in what seemed like a fog.” 

“My Donora was not a utopia, to be sure. We had our problems,” he writes in an epilogue. “But there was a vibrancy about the town that left a lasting impression on me.”

New Collection:

Mirow Family Papers and Photographs [MSS 1240]

Photograph of the Mirow family jewelry store located in downtown New Castle, Pa.

—from Mirow Family Papers and Photographs [MSS 1240]

Janet Mirow (1912-2002) and Joseph Mirow (1911-1975) were active members of the Jewish community of New Castle, Pa. from their arrival in the city until their respective deaths. They immigrated to New Castle, Pa. from Poland in May 1938. They became members of Tifereth Israel Congregation and operated Mirow's Jewelry Store downtown. Joseph was president of Tifereth Israel Congregation as well as its Men's Club. He was the first chairman of the New Castle Israel Bond Committee and was honored by the organization at its 25th anniversary dinner. He was also active in the New Castle chapters of B'nai B'rith, the Zionist Organization of America, and the Jewish War Veterans. Janet was a member of the Tifereth Israel Congregation Sisterhood. She was also treasurer of the Jewish Ladies Relief and a life member of Hadassah. In 1975, the Mirow family donated a 250-year-old Torah scroll to Tifereth Israel Congregation. The Mirow Family Papers and Photographs document the professional, religious, and social lives of the family in New Castle through clippings, photographs, and documents.

Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:

Jewish National Fund-Pittsburgh Council

Jewish National Fund tree certificate issued to members of the Jewish community of Canonsburg, Pa., c1916.

—from Arnold Cushner Research Collection (MSS 1114)

The Jewish National Fund-Pittsburgh Council was established in 1925 as a central entity for Zionist fundraising in the tri-state region around Pittsburgh. The council emerged from more than two decades of efforts to unite the many small Zionist organizations in the region into common cause. The first major initiative of the JNF-Pittsburgh Council came in 1926, when it was given the proceeds of the sale of the Zionist Institute building in the Hill District. The JNF used the funds to establish the “Pittsburgh Nachla” in the Valley of Jezreel. 

December 11:

JGS-Pittsburgh Presents: Vivian Kahn

This talk by internationally renowned genealogist Vivian Kahn will reference records from the vast area that was formerly part of Hungary, which includes present-day Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, northern Serbia, northwestern Romania, and Sub-Carpathian Ukraine. Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to hear from someone who has been instrumental in obtaining many of these records! With almost 2 million records already on-line and more added regularly, the JewishGen Hungary Database is one of the best resources for researching Hungarian Jewish families.

There are, however, a wide variety of websites that are less familiar to many researchers and can help you grow your family trees. This presentation will highlight what’s available from JewishGen and identify other less familiar on-line resources that can help you to expand your Hungarian research horizons.

Although many of them are in Hungarian, armed with a list of basic genealogical terms and an understanding of the site design and contents you can search these resources even if you don’t understand Hungarian. Vivian Kahn will review some of these websites, describe what they offer and provide tips on how to use them even if you don’t know a word of Hungarian.

The program is Sunday, Dec. 11 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.

Vivian Kahn is JewishGen’s Hungarian SIG Director. She has presented workshops on Jewish genealogy and, especially, Hungarian Jewish family research at IAJGS annual conferences, for Jewish genealogy societies, and in Sighet, Romania, during a May 2015 gathering of Sighet descendants. Since beginning research on her own family from greater Hungary more than 25 years ago, she has identified and used a wide range of archival, print, and on-line resources to research families from Hungary, Moravia, Slovakia, Romania, and Galicia and has made research trips to Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. Vivian has also written several articles on Hungarian Jewish family research that appeared in the print and on-line versions of Avotaynu and in other Jewish genealogy publications. Vivian was recognized as JewishGen’s Volunteer of the Year in 2021. Vivian is an urban planning and development consultant and teaches planning classes for University of California extension programs. She lives in Sonoma County, California.

[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.