Memoir: Leon Arkus
Louis Little Papers
Congregation Kether Torah (Pictured)
Reaching Through Closed Gates
Calendar: Rosh Chodesh Elul; New Approaches to Endogamy
Community News: Jakob's Torah, 1950 Census, Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project
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Memoir:
"An Accidental Life"
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"An Accidental Life," by Leon Arkus. |
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Here is a classic Pittsburgh archetype, with plenty of examples down through the generations: A transplant arrives here unexpectedly, falls in love with Pittsburgh, and desperately wants the city to fulfill its potential.
Leon Arkus is a perfect example.
“I have always felt a deep affection for Pittsburgh, along with an anger that has often made me want to quit the area,” Arkus (1915-1999) wrote in his posthumous 2012 memoir An Accidental Life. “Here is a city of vitality, with a multitude of ethnic strengths, an incredibly beautiful natural setting—and always projecting a sense of becoming, of growing. But the ‘tank-town’ mentality…hit a sensitive nerve.”
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Arkus grew up in New York and New Jersey during the Depression and served a tour of duty in the Middle East in World War II before starting a career in the arts. At a turning point in his career in the mid-1950s, he accepted an offer to become assistant director at the Carnegie Museum of Art. He knew little about Pittsburgh but sensed an opportunity. He rose through the organization to become its fifth director in 1968. He was the first Jewish director of the museum and one of the first Jewish people nationally to hold such a position.
An Accidential Life is a collage. Arkus was working on his memoir at the time of his death. His widow Jane Callomon Arkus, with help from Seth Glick, later interspersed these written chapters with snippets taken from the two oral histories Arkus recorded with the National Council of Jewish Women-Pittsburgh Section, in 1978 and in 1992, as well as a rich set of appendices filled with assorted correspondence, interviews, and other ephemera from his life.
Arkus’ legacy at the Carnegie Museum of Art is expansion. He grew the permanent collection of the museum by 50 percent. He increased the physical size of the museum with the construction of the Sarah Scaife Gallery. He also enlarged the vision of the museum by pursuing contemporary greats through the Internationals while also making space for encouraging the local scene.
An open-minded and openhearted spirit runs through An Accidental Life. Arkus repeatedly downplays art history, artistic movements, and artistic reputations in favor of a pure, personal emotional response. “I’ve pointed out to our docents that they can’t really teach ‘art’—art history, yes—but not the experience of art. Instead, we can entice viewers with our own enthusiasms; many will respond. Some life-enhancing inner chord might be struck by what they’ve seen; and that perhaps is the essence of the experience.”
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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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New Collection:
Louis Little Papers [2019.0115]
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Louis Little holiday card, 1934
—from Louis Little Papers [2019.0115]
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Louis Little (c.1894-1956) was a prominent criminal lawyer in Pittsburgh. By his own colorful account, his clients were, “those on the wrong side of the tracks, or those looked down upon by reason of color, nationality or creed.”
Born in Pittsburgh to Jacob and Lizzie Little, Louis Little attended Forbes School and Central High School before graduating from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law at the age of 21, making him one of the youngest graduates of the school at that time. He was widely admired within the local Jewish community and became the namesake for the Louis Little Club in the late 1920s. Little never married and donated a considerable fortune to family, friends, associates, and communal organizations. He also donated his law offices at 523 Fifth Avenue to the Allegheny County Bar Association, although the organization chose to sell the building instead of use it. Little's estate later distributed $700,000 to 22 beneficiary organizations. The Louis Little Papers [2019.0115] include a copy of his last will and testament, his 1934 holiday card, and the first page of a 1928 letter written to family in Poland.
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Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:
Congregation Kether Torah
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Congregation Kether Torah circular, 1921.
—from Rice Family Papers [MFF 2072]
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It was founded in 1907 as “Anshe Volinia” and initially consisted of recent Jewish immigrants from Volhynia Gubernia in present-day Ukraine. It obtained a charter in 1914 as Congregation Kaiser Torah and expanded its membership beyond natives of Volinia. The congregation legally changed its name in 1923 to Congregation Kether Torah and is known today as Kesser Torah.
Although not well documented, the congregation was colloquially known as “the rag-picker’s shul” because many of its early members were involved in the scrap industry, including the Rice Brothers, the Linder Brothers, and Jacob Fibus.
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Our entry for Congregation Kether Torah includes photographs of its synagogues as well as two of its most prominent auxiliaries, documentation of its effort to finance its first synagogue in the Hill District in the 1920s, its silver anniversary book from 1935, and assorted newspaper articles. |
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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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Reaching Through Closed Gates |
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In March 1922, circulars appeared all over the city with a life-saving opportunity. No known copies exist, but an advertisement in the Jewish Criterion also presented the offer.
“Aid Your Own Relatives and Friends,” the advertisement announced. “Bring us whatever clothes, shoes, material and food you desire to send to your beloved, needy ones, and we will pack and ship them for you. Delivery guaranteed to consignee in any town in Soviet Russia, Ukrania [sic], Latvia, Poland, and other parts of Europe.”
What a relief this must have been. It was less than a year since President Harding had signed the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921. The law instituted immigration quotas based on country of origin. It severely curtailed immigration from many parts of Europe with large Jewish populations, including all the regions named in the advertisement.
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Russian-American Package Forwarding Company advertisement.
—from Jewish Criterion, April 28, 1922, Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project
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August 28:
Our Deuteronomies
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(Left) "Background Music," by Jim Haber
(Right) "Roses in December," by Florence Berman Karp
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The 10.27 Healing Partnership is holding its fourth annual Rosh Chodesh Elul program on Sunday, August 28, from 2-4 p.m. at its suite on the top floor of the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill, at 5738 Forbes Ave.
This reflective and meditative event is an opportunity to awaken, prepare, and become grounded as you head into the reflective time of autumn and the High Holidays. It includes meditation practitioners, reiki-infused sound baths, expressive drum circles, speakers who will connect you with Jewish learning, and a communal shofar blowing on the steps of Sixth Presbyterian Church.
As part of the free event, the Rauh Jewish Archives will be presenting "Our Deuteronomies," connecting recent Torah readings to local Jewish memoirs.
Deuteronomy is arguably the first Jewish memoir. As the Jewish people prepared to enter the Promised Land without him, Moses delivered a public review of the legal, moral and narrative framework of the Torah. Deuteronomy is always the backdrop to the weeks leading into the High Holidays, and therefore it has long been a source of guidance for anyone seeking personal improvement. We’ll read through Deuteronomy for lessons for how to craft our own stories, using memoirs from the Rauh Jewish Archives to show how ancient techniques organically manifest in the stories of everyday people.
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August 31:
JGS Pittsburgh Presents: Caitlin Hollander
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In the world of Jewish genealogy, endogamy is often presented in the context of DNA as a hindrance one must work around to find any real matches. Documents containing duplicate surnames often pose stumbling blocks to aspiring genealogists. In her talk "For the Love of Cousins: Endogamy as a Tool for Jewish Genealogy," genealogist Caitlin Hollander explores the other side of endogamy: how our ancestors' familial ties can be used as a genealogical tool to break through brick walls and work around missing records, as well as the religious and historical contexts in which the branches of our family trees became so very tangled.
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.
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Caitlin Hollander is a New York-based genealogist specializing in Ashkenazi Jewish genealogy in the United States and Europe, Holocaust records and documentation, as well as forensic genealogy for high-value estates and assisting clients in citizenship reclamation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology with a minor in history from Florida International University, as well as academic certificates in Jewish studies and Holocaust and genocide studies. With her business partner, Michael Waas, she co-founded Hollander-Waas Jewish Heritage services, a full-service genealogy and family history firm. Hollander-Waas specializes in Jewish genealogy and provides a customized full-service heritage preservation and genealogy service. Her citizenship reclamation work has been featured in Family Tree Magazine, The Times of Israel, and the South Florida Sun Sentinel, among other publications.
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From the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh:
Jakob's Torah: An International Journey
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In its newest digital exhibit, the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh tells the story of Jakob's Torah, which made its way from Germany to Shanghai to San Francisco and New York during and after the War before coming to Western Pennsylvania. It is now on display at the Holocaust Center's new exhibition space at the Jennie King Mellon Library on the campus of Chatham University. |
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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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