The end of the club era
The era of Jewish youth clubs in Pittsburgh lasted about 60 years, starting in the decade before World War I and gradually fading away in the early 1970s.

That didn't mean that Jewish children stopped meeting in groups, only that the structure of their social lives changed. What disappeared were named clubs with officers, newsletters, and advisors, as well as the larger intramural system where clubs could meet at the Y-IKC and compete again one another.

In talking with people who grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1960s, and participated in the youth clubs, three theories emerged to explain this change.

The first was the spirit of the times. The 1960s were a decade of increased social awareness. As teenagers were becoming concerned about war, civil rights, and the environment, the affairs of clubs started to feel irrelevant.

The second was concern from parents. A club is designed to promote a sense of belonging. But the other side of "belonging" is "exclusion." The process of rushing fraternities and sororities excited some teens and left others feeling hurt and resentful, leading to changes in the official Y-IKC club structure.

The third was physical space. Congregation Beth Shalom added a gymnasium onto its synagogue in 1970, creating an alternative to the Y-IKC gym. Some believe that this inaugurated the era of synagogue-based youth activities in Pittsburgh. Organizations like NFTY, USY and NCSY gained prominence in the region, continuing to the present. Additionally, the Y-IKC in the East End closed in 1973, after only a few years of operation, making it harder for Jewish teens in the East End to congregate outside of synagogue or public school.

The truth is probably some combination of all three theories, as well as other factors. If you have thoughts to add to this story, please get in touch.

In the next few weeks, we'll look at local Jewish youth clubs based within national organizations. And then we'll start looking at Jewish clubs for adults.

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. 


[IMAGE: The opening paragraph of Lester Weiss' "Teen Scene" column from the June 11, 1971 issue of the Y Weekly, in which he laments the decline in youth club activities.]
June 13: JGS Pittsburgh Presents: Randy Schoenberg
Geni is an online genealogy platform seeking to build the definitive online family tree. Using the basic free service at Geni.com, users add and invite their close relatives to join their family tree. All Geni users can share photos, videos, and documents with their families. Geni’s Pro subscription service allows users to find matching trees and merge those into the single world family tree, which currently contains over 100 million living users and their ancestors. Additional pay services include enhanced research tools and premium support. Geni welcomes casual genealogists and experts who wish to discover new relatives and stay in touch with family.

In this talk, Randy Schoenberg will provide insights into using the Geni platform to make connections and conduct genealogical research.

The program is on Sunday, June 27 at 1 p.m. It is free for JGS-Pittsburgh members and $5 for the general public. Please register online.
E. Randol “Randy” Schoenberg is a volunteer curator on Geni, and one of Geni’s most active users, managing about 235,000 profiles. He has authored several articles for the journal Avotaynu pertaining to Geni and collaborative genealogy. He is a board member of JewishGen and the Co-Founder of JewishGen’s Austria-Czech Special Interest Group. He founded and moderates the Jewish Genealogy Portal group on Facebook. He is the author of the “Beginner’s Guide to Austrian-Jewish Genealogy” and the co-author of “Getting Started with Czech-Jewish Genealogy.” He has attended and spoken at numerous genealogy conferences, including the IAJGS Conference on Jewish Genealogy in 1998, 2008, 2010-2020. Professionally, he is an attorney and past President of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. Schoenberg is the winner of numerous awards in the field of litigation, notably having represented Maria Altmann in “Republic of Austria v. Altmann,” resulting in the successful return of five Gustav Klimt paintings as depicted in the film Woman in Gold starring Helen Mirren. Mr. Schoenberg graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and a certificate in European Cultural Studies and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Southern California. He maintains a blog at http://schoenblog.com.

This program is made possible by support from the William M. Lowenstein Genealogical Research Endowment Fund at the Jewish Community Foundation.
On the other side of English
Rabbi Wolf Leiter knew the results of war firsthand. He was a prodigy with a long rabbinic lineage who came to the United States in the early 1920s, following the upheavals in European Jewry during World War I.

Upon his arrival here in 1923, the Criterion reported, “During the war Rabbi Leiter was very active in bringing relief to the suffering men and women of Austria and Poland. Immediately after the cessation of arms he was appointed by the Jewish communities of Holland to visit the war-stricken countries and bring over the poor and under-fed children of Austria to Holland; he was also organizer of the Society for the Support of Stricken Rabbis and Scholars in Europe.”
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[IMAGE: Marian Schreiber and employees at the Schreiber Trucking Company, c.1943—Schreiber Family Papers and Photographs, MSS 846.]
The Rauh Jewish History Program & 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.
Plan a Visit

Senator John Heinz History Center
1212 Smallman Street
Pittsburgh, Pa. 15222
412-454-6000
A proud affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the Senator John Heinz History Center is the largest history museum in Pennsylvania and presents American history with a Western Pennsylvania connection.