October 20, 2024

Vol. 5, No. 42



The Early 1970s:

Kosher Kitchens

Jewish Encyclopedia:

Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh

Family Clubs:

Lang Cousins Club

Louise Silk: A Patchwork Life

The Gut Yontif Project

Shaare Torah parochet

Exhibits:

A Woman's Place

Calendar:

Oct. 27: Commemoration

Nov. 3: JRI-Poland

Nov. 10: Pittsburgh Jewish Book Festival



Community:

URA photographs

SHHS archives

"How We Got Here"

JCBA "Road-Trip"

Research Tools:

Newspapers, Cemeteries,

Memorial Plaques, Books,

Population Figures, Synagogues, Newsletter Archive,

Shul Records America

The Early 1970s:

Kosher Kitchens

Advertisement with illustration of a colonel and the words “Colonel Yankel is Coming to Prime Kosher”—August 6, 1970.

—Jewish Chronicle

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

“Colonel Yankel is Coming” announced ads in the Jewish Chronicle in 1970.

The grocery store Prime Kosher had placed the ads to announce a new product, Colonel Yankel’s “Israeli style fried chicken”—likely schnitzel. 

Prime Kosher had opened at 1916 Murray Ave. in summer 1967 “not only as a business but as part of a philosophy of life, to enable the Kosher home to have the finest and the best at a reasonable price,” as the company wrote in an early advertisement. Prime Kosher appears to have sought a stricter kosher certification than previous meat markets throughout Squirrel Hill at the time.

Prime Kosher started under the general rabbinical supervision of Rabbi Abraham Leifer of Congregation Ahavas Israel (better known as the Pittsburgher Rebbe) and under the regular supervision of mashgiach Rabbi Rachmiel Gradman. When the Leifer family relocated to Israel in 1970, rabbinic supervision was handed over to Rabbi Bernard Poupko and Rabbi Irvin Chinn.

The announcement of this switch hints at the growing complexity of the kosher meat industry at the time. While veal and lamb were still being slaughtered locally, all other meat was coming to Pittsburgh from “western packers.” 

Black and white photographs of [LEFT] Rabbi Harry Rottenberg and J.D. Titlbaum boiling utensils at the Emma Kaufmann Camp kitchen, and [RIGHT] Alan Herskowitz labeling a pot held by Rabbi Rottenberg as Y-IKC Executive Director Aurther Rotman and camper Pam Kaiser watch—July 13, 1972.

—Jewish Chronicle

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

The early 1970s saw an expansion of kosher operations throughout Pittsburgh, including new restaurants, the growth of Prime Kosher, and new institutional kitchens. These facilities required communal infrastructure. Every kosher facility needed a mashgiach, a trained and knowledgeable supervisor who would ensure products and operations were keeping kosher standards.  

B’nai B’rith Hillel (now Hillel-Jewish University Center) opened the Kosher Kitchen at its campus lounge at the Y-IKC building in Oakland in early 1970. The kitchen was created when four students—Marsha Kaufman, Rick Sternberg, Harry Korros, and Linda Perl—approached local officials about the need for a kosher alternative to the campus meal plan. It was later renamed the Hillel Dining Club and hosted a lunch spot called Café Tel Aviv.

The Jewish Community Center's Emma Kaufmann Camp accepted kosher supervision from the Rabbinical Board of Greater Pittsburgh in summer 1972. Rabbi Harry Rottenberg of Hillel Academy oversaw the conversion of the kitchen with mashgichim (kosher supervisors) J. D. Titlbaum and Pinchas Morgenstern. Alan Herskowitz was named the first mashgiach-in-residence.

Kosher Meals on Wheels started in mid-1972 out of the existing kosher kitchen at the Jewish Home for the Aged, which it still uses today. When the Bickur Cholim Convalescent and Nursing Home Wing opened at the Angleus in East Liberty in May 1973, it also boasted a separate kosher kitchen.

All year, the Rauh Jewish Archives is highlighting stories of Jewish life in Western Pennsylvania in the early 1970s. If you would like to donate a material from this time period, or any historic materials documenting Jewish life in this region, contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.

Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:

Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh

Black and white photograph of local participants in a Holocaust conference sponsored by the United Jewish Federation—1978. Pictured (standing, left to right) Alan Feldman, Jonathan Levine, Edna Jones, Henry Hausdorff, (seated) Bess Topolsky, Barbara Burstin, Alexander Orbach. The conference led to the formation of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh.

—Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Records [MSS 287]

The Rauh Jewish Archives recently published a finding aid and meeting minute index for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Records [MSS 287]. As part of that effort, we’re using this space for the next few weeks to summarize the history of the organization and its predecessors and projects.

Yom Hashoah v’HaGevurah emerged in Israel throughout the 1950s to commemorate the Holocaust. It was communally observed in Pittsburgh as early as April 1966 with a service at the Hebrew Institute. The 40th anniversary of Kristallnacht and the NBC television miniseries “Holocaust” in 1978 raised interest internationally for commemorating the Holocaust.

The United Jewish Federation board voted in January 1978 to allocate $6,000 for a Holocaust conference in Pittsburgh and then voted in mid-May to create a local Holocaust memorial. After several years of planning, the UJF approved a $150,000 allocation over two years to fund the initiative, which included a memorial and a center. Isaiah Kuperstein was hired in the latter part of 1980 as the first director of the new Holocaust Center of Greater Pittsburgh.

Family Clubs:

Lang Cousins Club

Notice of an early meeting of the Lang Cousins Club, listing officers—Dec. 25, 1959.

—American Jewish Outlook

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

Hyman and Mollie LANG had at least eight children: Albert, Esther, Hannah, Marion, Max, Robert, Sadie, and Tobias. Their descendants formed the Lang Cousins Club in late 1959 and continued meeting through early 1960, according to newspaper notices. Known surnames in the Lang Cousins Club include Berg, Chaplin, Lang, Mooney, and Sigal. Known meeting places for the club include Haymakers Road in Monroeville (Edward K. Berg residence) and Beechwood Boulevard (Lucille and Chappy Chaplin residence).

No known archival collections exist for the Lang Cousins Club. If you have information about the club or its members, please contact the archive.

Louise Silk: A Patchwork Life

The Gut Yontif Project: Sukkot

Our exhibit “Louise Silk: A Patchwork Life” is something relatively rare in Pittsburgh: a celebration of the career of a living, local artist. While we look back, we also want to look forward. And so, as part of the exhibit, the Rauh Jewish Archives is launching a four-part program series tied to upcoming Jewish holidays. It’s called “Gut Yontif!” We’ve invited a new generation of local Jewish artists to create holiday celebrations for the entire community. 

“Gut Yontif!” (a Yiddish greeting equivalent to "Happy Holiday") begins Sunday, October 20 at 5 p.m. when sculptor Oreen Cohen will build a pop-up sukkah at the Heinz History Center. Inside this warm and protective space, Cohen will host an interactive performance where the public can find community and catharsis at this complicated moment of grief, remembrance, and holiday joy.

The series will continue on Saturday night, December 28 with a fiery Chanukah celebration from Rosabel Rosalind, then on Thursday, February 13 with an intimate Tu B’shvat seder from Lydia Rosenberg, and finally on Wednesday, March 12 with an all-embracing Purim party from Olivia Devorah Tucker. 

The “Gut Yontif!” series is made possible thanks to a generous grant from the SteelTree Fund of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

Louise Silk: A Patchwork Life

Shaare Torah tapestries

Color photograph of the Shaare Torah Congregation beit midrash, featuring the four High Holiday sanctuary pieces designed by Louise Silk.

There is a prevailing custom this time of year to temporarily redecorate synagogues. The colorful tapestries normally used to cover the ark, the Torah scrolls, and the various tables throughout the sanctuary are replaced with special white versions. The arrival of these white coverings each fall heralds the start of a religious season devoted to simplicity, directness, and purity.

Louise Silk made the white coverings used during the High Holiday season in the weekday sanctuary of Shaare Torah Congregation in Squirrel Hill. The project includes four pieces: a parochet (curtain) for the ark, coverings for the amud (podium) where the prayer leader stands and the bima (platform) where the Torah is read, and a temporary covering for the Torah during readings. 

Louise machine-pieced these four pieces from white and gold diamonds, each with a distinctive tone and texture. The design is a traditional baby block pattern rearranged to become Stars of David, accented in gold thread.

As soon as Louise started incorporating Jewish themes into her quilts in the early 1990s, she began taking commissions from the Jewish community, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, the Jewish Association on Aging, Jewish Family & Community Service, Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh, Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh, and many synagogues. She has been one of the most prolific artists working within the local Jewish community and its spaces.

Color photograph of details of the High Holiday sanctuary pieces at Shaare Torah.

Howard Rieger commissioned Silk to make these pieces in memory of his late mother Goldie Rosenthal Rieger and his late wife Tina Susan Grossman Rieger. 

Tina Rieger is a hidden figure behind “Louise Silk: A Patchwork Life.” 

Tina oversaw the Rauh Jewish Archives (then the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Archives) for brief period in our early days in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

Tina was also one of Louise’s quilting students and a dear friend. In the final year of her life, Tina worked diligently on a final body of Jewish quilts, amid the rigors of chemotherapy treatments. Louise helped complete some of these pieces, leading to the posthumous exhibit “Seasons, The Fabric Art of Tina Rieger” at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill in June 2007. 

“A lot of Tina’s work was a speaking of her soul,” Louise said at the time. 

The arrival of these tapestries at Shaare Torah each year is like a quilted yizkor, the holiday memorial prayer that integrates remembrance into the joy of the season. This sense of love and connection is echoed in a golden inscription at the top of the parochet reading "Ani l'dodi v'dodi li," a phrase from Songs of Songs meaning, "I am beloved's and my beloved is mine."

"Louise Silk: A Patchwork Life" will be on display in the Barensfeld Gallery on the fifth floor of the Heinz History Center through April 6, 2025.

Exhibit:

A Woman's Place: How Women Shaped Pittsburgh

“How Mrs. Enoch Rauh ushered in the year 1913 — on Dec. 31st 1912.”

—from Richard E. Rauh Papers [MSS 301]

From pioneering investigative journalism to leading their country to Olympic gold, Western Pennsylvania women have made an immeasurable impact in America, but too often, their stories have been overlooked.

The Heinz History Center is taking an unprecedented deep dive into the lives of these fierce and unflappable women who helped change the world inside a major new exhibition, A Woman’s Place: How Women Shaped Pittsburgh.

Take an interactive, thematic journey through Western Pennsylvania women’s history from the early 1800s to modern day that will showcase the stories of entrepreneurs and activists, artists and athletes, scientists and inventors, and changemakers and barrier breakers. Through more than 250 artifacts, immersive experiences, and striking archival images, A Woman’s Place will reveal how women have made Pittsburgh and the world a better place.  

Oct. 27:

Commemoration

Nov. 3:

JGS Pittsburgh Presents:

Finding your Eastern European Family on JRI-Poland.org

Come learn to use the JRI-Poland.org database effectively to find data about your family. See it within the context of the town and Jewish community in which your family lived if they lived in the current or former territories of Poland. These include over 1900 towns represented on the JRI-Poland website for places once in Poland and possibly in Ukraine, Germany, Belarus, or Lithuania today. If your family said they were from “Russia” or “Galicia” or “Austria-Hungary” or “Prussia”, chances are that there is something in the JRI-Poland database waiting for you to discover!

The program is Sunday, November 3 from 1-3 p.m. ET. This is an online program, occurring exclusively on Zoom. The program will be recorded, and the recording will be made available to current JGS-Pittsburgh members. 

“Finding your Eastern European Family on JRI-Poland.org” with Robinn Magid is a collaboration between the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh and the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center. Please register online. The program is free for JGS-Pittsburgh members and $5 for the general public. To become a member of the JGS-Pittsburgh and receive a free membership code for this program, please visit its website.

This program is possible through the generous support of the William M. Lowenstein Genealogical Research Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation.

Robinn Magid is the assistant director of JRI-Poland.org and the project manager of the NextGen project to rebuild their website and database of more than 6 million records. She has been volunteering for JRI-Poland for almost 30 years and speaks about Polish Jewish research frequently. Robinn has chaired two landmark International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) conferences: the 2018 Warsaw Conference and the 2020 Virtual Conference. She is a recipient of the IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award and received a medal from the mayor of her grandmother’s birthplace (Lublin, Poland) for her contributions to furthering culture in this city of 340,000 people on the occasion of the town’s 700th birthday.

Nov. 10-13:

Pittsburgh Jewish Book Festival

Community

Urban Redevelopment Authority Archives

The City of Pittsburgh Archives has launched a new digital archive containing thousands of photographs and documents spanning more than two centuries. Of particular interest to local Jewish history is a collection of more than 2,000 photographs of properties in the lower Hill District taken by the Urban Redevelopment Authority in the late 1950s prior to demolitions in the area. 

Squirrel Hill Historical Society Archives

Squirrel Hill Historical Society has added a collection of 60 historic images of Squirrel Hill to the Historic Pittsburgh website. The collection contains selected images from three organizations: the Squirrel Hill Historical Society, Squirrel Hill Urban  Coalition, and Mary S. Brown Memorial-Ames United Methodist Church. The photographs document many aspects of life in Squirrel Hill, including many beloved businesses from the 1990s that no longer exist.

From the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh

"How We Got Here"

Each family is unique. 

Each family has its own traditions, its own spirit, and its own dynamics. 

Despite all these differences, every Jewish family in Western Pennsylvania has at least one thing in common: They all have a story about how they got here.

Perhaps your family sailed in steerage across the Atlanti in the 19th century.

Or perhaps your family drove the Pennsylvania Turnpike in a station wagon in the 1960s to work for the universities and hospitals during Renaissance.

Or perhaps your arrival into one of the many Jewish communities of Western Pennsylvania involves marriage, or conversion, or a surprising DNA discovery.

Each of these stories is special, and each contributes to the larger story of our community. To collect and honor these origin stories, the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh is launching a new initiative called “How We Got Here.” To participate, just write a short account explaining how you or your ancestors came to settle in Western Pennsylvania. All stories are welcome.

Stories will be eligible for inclusion in the JGS-Pittsburgh’s monthly newsletter Z’chor and also for preservation in the Rauh Jewish Archives. For more information about this initiative, or to contribute, contact Eric Lidji.

From the Jewish Cemetery & Burial Association

"Road Trip: The Jewish Cemeteries of Western Pennsylvania"

The Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh has released a new documentary showcasing Jewish cemeteries in Western Pennsylvania.

“Road Trip: The Jewish Cemeteries of Western Pennsylvania” is a one-hour tour of the many cemetery properties overseen by the JCBA, as well as an overview of the organization’s ongoing work to care for these sacred burial grounds. The video is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate these special Jewish cultural sites in our region. The video includes many historic photographs and documents from the collections of the Rauh Jewish Archives. 

Research Tools

The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project contains digitized, searchable copies of four local English-language Jewish newspapers between 1895 and 2010. It is a valuable tool for researching almost any topic about Jewish history in Western Pennsylvania. For a primer on using the website, watch our video.

Western Pennsylvania Jewish Cemetery Project

The Rauh Jewish Archives launched the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Cemetery Project in 1998 to preserve burial records from Jewish cemeteries across the region. Over a period of fifteen years, the information was compiled into a searchable, online database containing approximately 50,000 burial records from 78 Jewish cemeteries throughout the region.

Western Pennsylvania Yahrzeit Plaques Project

The Rauh Jewish Archives launched the Western Pennsylvania Yahrzeit Plaques Project in 2020. The goal was to create a comprehensive collection of burial records from memorial boards at synagogues across the region. Volunteers are currently transcribing these boards and records are being added monthly to our online database. The database currently contains more than 2,700 listings.

Rauh Jewish Archives Bibliography

University of Pittsburgh librarian and Rauh Jewish Archives volunteer Laurie Cohen created this comprehensive bibliography of the Rauh Jewish Archives library holdings from 1988 through 2018. It lists nearly 350 volumes arranged by type and then by subject. This a great tool to use early in your research process, as you’re surveying available resources on a given subject.

Jewish Population Estimates

Looking to figure out how many Jews lived in a certain part of Western Pennsylvania at a certain moment in time? This bibliography includes more than 30 estimates of the Jewish population of Pittsburgh and small-towns throughout the region, conducted between 1852 and 2017.

Synagogues

A database of buildings throughout Western Pennsylvania known to have hosted Jewish worship services. Includes links to photographs and citations with original source material. Database currently includes 90 locations from 2 institutions

Rauh Jewish Archives Newsletter

The Rauh Jewish Archives has been publishing a weekly newsletter since 2020. The newsletter contains a variety of articles about local Jewish history, including much original research not found anywhere else. You can find and read every issue—more than 150!— in our new index.

Shul Records America

Online finding aid from JewishGen listing congregational archival collections held at publicly accessible repositories across the United States. Includes 63 listings from the Rauh Jewish Archives, as well as other repositories with Western Pennsylvania congregational records.

The Rauh Jewish Archives was founded on November 1, 1988 to collect and preserve the documentary history of Jewish life in Western Pennsylvania and to make it available to the world through research assistance, programing, exhibits, publications, and partnerships.

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