No. 38

Memoir: Aaron Levinson

Greenfield Family Papers and Photographs

Irene Kaufmann Settlement House [pictured]

Calendar: JGS Pittsburgh Presents: Libby Copeland on DNA



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

Memoir:

"If Only Right Now Could Be Forever"

"If Only Right Now Could Be Forever," by Aaron P. Levinson, 1987.

“If Only Right Now Could Be Forever” is a business memoir. It’s also a family memoir, and mostly it’s impossible to disentangle one from the other.

Levinson Steel Co. was one of the biggest family businesses in Western Pennsylvania. It began around 1902, when Israel “Jim” Levinson operated a scrap yard near his home at Pride and Locust Streets in the Hill District and rode around town in a horse-drawn wagon, looking for scrap metal. His sons Samuel and Abraham took over the business, along with their brothers Jacob and Emanuel. They chartered Levinson Steel Co. in 1926 and eventually opened a fabrication plant at 23rd and Josephine Streets in the South Side. 

The business grew tremendously in the 1930s and 1940s, thanks to smart purchasing decisions leading into World War II. Samuel’s son Aaron P. Levinson became president in 1950. He handed over the office in 1975 and retired from the company in 1984, on his 70th birthday. At one point, some 65 members of the Levinson family were stockholders of Levinson Steel Company and as many as 14 members of the family worked in management for the company.

Levinson Steel Co. plant, South Side, undated.

—from Levinson Steel Company Records [MSS 113]

Levinson Steel is an exceptional example of a situation common among Jewish families in this region and in other places all over the world. A business usually starts as a family enterprise out of necessity. That’s who’s available to help, and help for free. Some of these family businesses stayed small forever. Some dissolved, as markets changed or as children went into other fields.

But occasionally, these family businesses grew into major corporations. And sometimes, the family also grew, amassing cousins in all directions. 

The dynamics of a working in a large family-owned business is an underlying theme of “If Only Right Now Could Be Forever” and explicitly dissected in one chapter. Aaron P. Levinson bluntly presents many of the challenges of working with so much family for such a long time. But he ultimately endorses the model Levinson Steel created—a family enterprise with a lot of rules.

“While I have emphasized the problem areas in family companies, I have not yet mentioned the big plus—the one big advantage that family companies have over non-family companies—commitment and dedication,” he writes. “Family members often fight for their rights and their fair shares, but the company belongs to them and, with few exceptions, they do their jobs as though they’re in business for themselves. Levinson Steel would never have made the progress it did in the 1930s and 1940s had not my dad and his brothers knocked themselves out to make the company go, sometimes without pay. Saturdays and Sundays were no holidays to them if there was work to be done. They never for a minute entertained the idea of failure. The progress the company made during those years would have been unlikely in a non-family organization.” 

New Collection:

Greenfield Family Papers and Photographs [MSS 1255]

Photograph of Torah scroll dedication, Brownsville, Pa., 1964.

—from Greenfield Family Papers and Photographs [MSS 1255]

The Greenfield Family were leaders in the Jewish community of Brownsville, Pa. in Fayette County. I. Max Greenfield and his wife Celia Greenfield ran a grocery store in the coal patch town of Alison, Pa. His brother Harry Greenfield ran a store in Brownsville, Pa. The family was affiliated with Congregation O’Have Israel in Brownsville. The Greenfield Family Papers and Photographs contains letters, speeches, photographs, and newspaper clippings documenting the interior and exterior of the synagogue, various Jewish communal fundraising activities, and the relationship between rabbis and congregants. 

Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:

Irene Kaufmann Settlement House

Photograph showing cornerstone laying ceremony for the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House auditorium on Centre Avenue in the Hill District, 1928.

—from Irene Kaufmann Settlement House Photographs [MSP 78]

The Irene Kaufmann Settlement House was a Jewish community center providing cultural and civic programming in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. It emerged in the early 20th century out of the work of the Columbian Council of Jewish Women (now known as the National Council of Jewish Women-Pittsburgh Section). The organization started the Columbian School in early 1896 to provide education to the children of Jewish immigrant families. The school soon expanded to include services associated with the settlement house movement, including programming for adult populations in the neighborhood. The school rented rooms at 32 Townsend St. in the Hill District in 1897. 

In early 1900, the Columbian Council School incorporated as a distinct legal entity and purchased the former Slagle Mansion at 1835 Center Ave. The building was expanded in 1903 with the $10,000 Peacock Bath House, including a gymnasium, a 300-seat assembly hall, a swimming pool, and bathing facilities. With a $150,000 donation from Henry and Theresa Kaufmann, a new six-story building was dedicated in 1911, named the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House after a daughter who had died unexpectedly several years earlier. It was expanded in the late 1920s to include a large, modern auditorium for theatre productions as well as community gatherings.

October 6:

JGS-Pittsburgh Presents: Libby Copeland

[Left] Gertrude and Edwin Perles of Vienna. [Right] Hasele and Abe Levy of Pittsburgh.

—from A. Sanford Levy and Gertrude Deutsch Perles Papers [MFF 4883]

Libby Copeland will explore the extraordinary cultural phenomenon of home DNA testing, which is redefining family history. She will draw on her years of research for her book The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are (Abrams, 2020), which The Wall Street Journal calls “a fascinating account of lives dramatically affected by genetic sleuthing.” With close to 40 million people having been tested, a tipping point has been reached. Virtually all Americans are affected whether they have been tested or not, and millions have been impacted by significant revelations in their immediate families. The presentation will discuss the implications of home DNA testing for Jewish genealogy, as well as the challenges of genetic genealogy for Ashkenazim.

The program is Thursday, October 6 at 7:00 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.

Libby Copeland is an award-winning journalist and author who writes from New York about culture and science. As a freelance journalist, she writes for such media outlets as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic and Smithsonian Magazine. Her book, The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are, published by Abrams in 2020, explores the rapidly evolving phenomenon of home DNA testing, its implications for how we think about family and ourselves, and its ramifications for American culture broadly. The Wall Street Journal says it’s “a fascinating account of lives dramatically affected by genetic sleuthing.” The New York Times writes, “Before You Spit in That Vial, Read This Book.” The Washington Post says The Lost Family “reads like an Agatha Christie mystery” and “wrestles with some of the biggest questions in life: Who are we? What is family? Are we defined by nature, nurture or both?” It was named to The Guardian’s list of The Best Books of 2020.

[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.