VIENNAJews & the City of

Music, 1870-1938AT YESHIVA UNIVERSITY MUSEUM

THROUGH JUNE 30, 2004

Winter/Spring 2004Volume 1

Chairman’s Report 2From the Partners’ Collections• YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 3• American Sephardi Federation 3• Leo Baeck Institute 4• American Jewish Historical Society 5• Yeshiva University Museum 11

Center Newswire 7Public Programs 10Gala Dinner 15Funding Highlights 16From the Executive Director 20

Contents

The Triumph andTragedy of

Joseph SchmidtSee page 4

They drove him out of Vienna. The tableau has

become a passion play of modernism’s rejec-

tion by a philistine cultural conservatism. It is

December 1907, and there is Gustav Mahler, the

uncompromising composer and conductor,

who after a decade-long tenure as director of

the Vienna Court Opera is boarding a train

headed for Paris, en route to his final exile in

New York. And there are two hundred of his

friends and artistic co-conspirators, some of

the city’s finest painters, writers, journalists,

and musicians, gathered mournfully at the sta-

tion platform that winter morning to see him

off. “You were, Gustav Mahler, while you lived,

hated and abused,” Oskar Fried, his protégé,

declared after Mahler’s death in 1911. Or, as the

painter Gustav Klimt whispered on the platform

that morning, “Vorbie.” It’s over.

Combining as it does the

image of the misunderstood artist

and the persecuted Jew, marking

the end of a cultural era and fore-

shadowing the greater persecu-

tions of the Nazi regime, it’s a

powerful scene. But it is also an

incomplete one. For what it

obscures is Mahler’s popularity

among the music-going Viennese public, his

acceptance by much of the city’s artistic and

cultural establishment. Mahler’s self-imposed

exile highlights his status as a perpetual out-

sider, yet it ignores his successful infiltration of

Vienna’s inner circles. What’s more, Mahler’s

experience was representative of that of Vien-

nese Jewish musicians generally. In fact, Jewish

continued on page 12

Heut is der

schöniste Tag

in meinem

Leben! (Today

is the Happiest

Day of My Life!)

Film Poster,

Vienna 1936.

Collection of

the Austrian

National

Library.

THE JEWISH EXPERIENCET H E L E G A C Y O F T H E PA S T F O R D E S I G N I N G T H E F U T U R E

2

Published by the Center for Jewish History

15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011212-294-8301 fax: 212-294-8302

Web site: www.cjh.orgB OA R D O F D I R E C TO R S

Bruce Slovin, ChairJoseph D. Becker, Vice Chairman

Kenneth J. Bialkin, Vice ChairmanErica Jesselson, Vice ChairmanJoseph Greenberger, Secretary

Michael A. BambergerNorman BelmonteGeorge Blumenthal

Eva B. CohnDavid Dangoor

Henry L. FeingoldMichael JesselsonSidney Lapidus

Leon LevyTheodore N. MirvisNancy T. PolevoyRobert RifkindDavid Solomon

B OA R D O F OV E R S E E R S

C E N T E R F O R J E W I S H H I STO RY

Peter A. Geffen, Executive DirectorIra Berkowitz, Chief Financial Officer

Tamara Moscowitz, Director of Public RelationsSandi Rubin, Acting Director of Development

Lynne Winters, Director of Program ProductionNatalia Indrimi, Program Curator

American Jewish Historical SocietyMichael Feldberg, Executive Director

American Sephardi FederationEsme Berg, Executive Director

Leo Baeck InstituteCarol Kahn Strauss, Executive Director

Yeshiva University MuseumSylvia A. Herskowitz, Director

YIVO Institute for Jewish ResearchCarl J. Rheins, Executive Director

Editor: Benjamin Soskis Contributing Editors: Randall C. Belnfante,

Michael Feldberg, Robert Friedman, Peter A. Geffen, Gabriel Goldstein,

Brad Sabin Hill, Bonnie-Dara Michaels,Tamara Moscowitz, Allan L. Nadler,

Natalia Indrimi, Bob Sink, Diane Spielmann, Ph.d, Lynne Winters

The Jewish Experience is made possible, inpart, with the generous support of the

Liman Foundation.Design: Flyleaf

Stanley I. BatkinJoseph D. Becker

Kenneth J. BialkinLeonard Blavatnik

George BlumenthalArturo Constantiner

Mark GoldmanHarvey M. Krueger

Sidney LapidusLeon Levy

Ira A. Lipman

Theodore N. MirvisJoseph H. ReichRobert RifkindStephen RosenbergArthur J. SambergBernard SelzBruce SlovinMary SmartEdward SteinbergJoseph S. SteinbergMichele Cohn Tocci

Roy Zuckerberg

ear Friends and Colleagues,This past fall has been a period of invigorating change, essential

physical expansion, and dynamic growthin programming for the Center for JewishHistory.

We are excited to welcome our new Executive Director, Peter A. Geffen, theFounder of The Abraham Joshua Heschel School in Manhattan, and a Jewish educatorand leader of uncommon distinction. Peter brings to the Center his passion for Jewishlife, his knowledge of Judaism and the Jewish community, and his personal dynamism.It is with good reason that we are confident that Peter will prove to be the ideal stew-ard for the Center as it enters the new year—a time that presents important challengesand unprecedented opportunities. At the same time, the Center’s Board and staff badea fond and grateful farewell to its outgoing Executive Director, Joshua Plaut. We areall grateful to Joshua for his service, his professionalism and diligence in leading theCenter through a defining period in its early history.

As the construction continues that will add six additional floors to our facilities,so the Center continues to incorporate new members into our institutional family, infulfillment of our unique mandate to be the most inclusive and visionary institutionin contemporary Jewish life. The most recent addition to our partners is the Associa-tion for Jewish Studies—the world’s largest and most prestigious learned society inthe field of Jewish Studies, with a membership of more than 1,500 professors.

Since its inception, the Center has been founded on a bedrock principle of Jewishunity, challenging the unfortunate tendencies toward divisiveness that have plagued thecontemporary Jewish community. Nothing Jewish is alien to the Center for Jewish His-tory as we continue to bring together Jewish institutions representing the entirespectrum of our historical experience, both religious and secular, Ashkenazic andSephardic, and including every variety of Jewish faith, ethnicity, and cultural expression.

After our promising beginnings and much hard work, the Center for Jewish Historyis now poised to fulfill its mission as the central address for Jewish research, scholarship,and communal education in North America. We are blessed with a visionary director, a tal-ented, energetic, and knowledgeable staff, the richest library and archival collections oftheir kind in the world, and state-of-the-art—and currently expanding!—facilities.

During the past year we have benefited enormously from the generous assistanceof some of New York’s leading city and federal officials. I am most grateful to Con-gressman Jerrold Nadler for his help in securing a federal appropriation to continuethe digitization of the Center’s collections. And it gives me particular pleasure tothank our very good friends from City Hall: Manhattan Borough President C. VirginiaFields and New York City Council Members Eva Moskowitz, Christine Quinn, and DavidWeprin, all of whom have been most helpful to our efforts in securing grants for theCenter’s Building Campaign. The value I attach to these civic leaders far transcends thefinancial remuneration as it reinforces my conviction that the continued growth of theCenter for Jewish History represents a unique and important contribution to our city’sunparalleled cultural life.

D

From theChairman

THE JEWISH EXPERIENCE

3

in celebrating the ninetiethbirthday of the greatest livingYiddish poet, AbrahamSutzkever. This anniversary in

the calendar of Yid-dish letters wasmarked publicly byYIVO at a com-memorative gath-ering and throughan exhibitiondocumentingSutzkever’s lifeand work, fromhis early “dis-covery” by theGerman-Jewishwriter JosephRoth, throughhis associa-tions withsuch literaryand artisticluminaries asChaim Grade,Itsik Manger,Isaac Bashe-vis Singer,and Marc

In 2003, the YIVOInstitute for JewishResearch joinedindividuals and

institutions around the world

From the Partners’ Collections

One of the most exciting events to occur at the Amer-ican Sephardi Federation library this summer was thearrival of the Henry V. Besso Memorial Library andArchives. Henry V. Besso was one of the most distin-

guished figures in the Sephardic world in the twentieth century,and the Federation is extremely grateful that the ASF library wasselected to be the depository for his library and archives.

Besso was born in Salonika, in northern Greece, in 1905,but after college and the death of his parents, he followed hisbrother across the Atlantic in pursuit of better prospects in NewYork City. He soon found employment in an import-export busi-ness, where his considerable professional success did little tosatisfy a craving for a continued education. While working as anassistant manager in charge of exports to Latin America, Spain,and the Philippines, Besso put himself through night school,earning a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from City College ofNew York in 1931 and a master’s degree from Columbia Universi-ty in 1934.

The Depression hit Besso’s business hard, and led to its clo-sure in 1936. Within a year, however, Besso found a position withthe government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). He

The Henry V. Besso Library and Archivesstarted out teaching French and Spanish in New York’s adult edu-cation program, and soon progressed to developing curricula andpedagogical strategies for other teachers. In 1940, Besso movedto Washington, DC, and took up a new position giving languagepreparation to Air Force and Naval officers for their overseas mis-sions in Europe. There, he completed the widely usedConversación: Spanish for the Army and Navy of the United States,a grammar and vocabulary book that furnished officers withsuch useful translations as Hombre al agua! (Man overboard!)and portaviones (aircraft carrier). This assignment led in turn toanother position as a research analyst and speechwriter for Voiceof America, a position he held for several decades. The transferto Washington also provided Besso with the opportunity to pur-sue one of his passions: mining the treasures of the Library ofCongress. His excavations led to the production of a wealth ofbibliographies, as well as the discovery of some 289 works ofJudeo-Spanish literature within the Library’s collections. TheseBesso published in 1963 as Ladino Books in the Library of Con-gress—A Bibliography, to this day considered one of the mostimportant bibliographic listings of Judeo-Spanish literature.

Chagall, to his published vol-umes of poetry from 1937 tothe present.

Abraham Sutzkever’sassociation with YIVO datesback to the years before theSecond World War, and hisassociation with YIVO’sfounder, Max Weinreich, tolong before that. In the late1930s, Sutzkever was a mem-ber of the YIVO Pro-aspirantur,devoting himself in particularto the study of Old Yiddish lit-erature under Weinreich’stutelage. Sutzkever’s researchat YIVO had a deep influenceon his poetic sensibilities.During this time he wrote anentire volume of poems in astylized “Old Yiddish,” themanuscript of which was lostduring the upheaval of the waryears, and he translated intomodern Yiddish ninety stanzasof the classic work of earlyYiddish literature, the Bove-bukh by Elye Bokher (EliasLevita). Written in Italy in the

early sixteenth century, theoriginal Yiddish epic was basedon an Italian version of anAnglo-French romance thathad been written before theage of Chaucer. A sole copy ofthe first edition of the Bove-bukh survived the centuries,and the text was studied by Weinreich, from whomSutzkever became familiarwith this early monument ofYiddish literature.

During the days of theVilna ghetto, Sutzkever wasenlisted by the Germans tosort books and papers in theYIVO building at 18 Wiwul-skiego Street, which had beenused as a German military bar-racks as well as a depot forconfiscated libraries and col-lections before their shipmentto Germany. Together with theYiddish poet Shmerke Kaczer-ginski and several otherscholars who formed the so-called Papir-brigade or “paper

continued on page 14

continued on page 6

Sutzkever, YIVO in Vilna, and Herzl’s Diary

Abraham Sutzkever, Amsterdam, 1947.

4

From the Partners’ Collections

The Triumph and Tragedy

of JosephSchmidt

“Es wird im Leben DirMehr Genommen alsGegeben!” (“In Life, Moreis Taken Than is Given”),the hit song from the last

Viennese film in which JosephSchmidt starred, neatly sums up thetriumph and tragedy of his fascinat-ing life. After enjoying a brief butbrilliant career during the inter-waryears as a world-renowned tenor, firstin Berlin and then in Vienna, Schmidtmet his untimely end in 1942, in aSwiss concentration camp for refugees,after a nine-year flight across Europe toelude the Nazis. Schmidt’s reputationsubsequently fell into oblivion, butsince a recent rediscovery, he is onceagain receiving something of the atten-tion he enjoyed in his prime. Selectionsfrom his correspondence and photograph-ic records are now housed in the LeoBaeck Institute’s archives.

Schmidt was born to an observantJewish couple in 1904 in the small town ofDavidney, near Czernowitz in the Bukowina. It became immedi-ately clear that Joschi, as he was then known, was different fromother children; while others would laugh or cry to express emo-tion, young Joseph sang. Soon he was known as “Singing Joschi,”who followed the gypsy musicians around town. Joschi’s talentswere quickly noticed by his teachers in the traditional Chederthat he attended, and it was their influence that helped convincehis father—like most observant Jews reluctant to endorse hisson’s vocal ambitions—to indulge Joschi’s talents. Encouraged byhis teachers and by his mother (who would remain his greatestsupporter throughout his short career), Joseph joined the localsynagogue’s children’s choir. His fame spread rapidly within theJewish community; by the age of fourteen, Joseph was singing inthe Czernowitz synagogue as well as performing in the children’stheater there. Yet by the time he was eighteen, despite many suc-cesses and even though his voice was recognized for its uniquetimbre, his career path would confront a major obstacle: Josephwas but five feet tall.

“Not short, but too short,” the conductor of the BerlinNational Opera once stated. Schmidt soon realized that his dreamof singing on the operatic stage, or even the opportunity to serve

as the Chief Cantor in a synagogue of a majorcity, was not to be. Described by all whoknew him as a fine man with an exquisitesense of humor, Schmidt was not deterred.He had been compared, after all, to thegreat Caruso, and through influential voiceinstructors he had built up an impressivenetwork of contacts. By 1925, Schmidt wason his way to Berlin to continue his train-ing. His connections there would prove tobe fateful.

His Song Goes ’Round the WorldIt was the beginning of the era of radio,a perfect medium for a brilliant voice ina body too small for the opera-housestage. In 1929, Schmidt was introducedto one of the pioneers of radio inBerlin, Cornelius Bronsgeest, but hewas not taken seriously. It wasunimaginable to Bronsgeest that anyvoice, let alone an impressive one,could emanate from a man of suchsmall physical stature. However,upon hearing Schmidt sing selec-tions from Verdi’s Il Trovatore, andsight-read for the first time difficultpassages from Mozart’s Idomeneo,Schmidt was hired on the spot.

Once broadcast on the radio,Schmidt saw his career take off.Records were sold far and wide,and between 1929 and 1933—when the Nazis came to power in

Germany—Schmidt enjoyed an unparalleled following as one ofthe nation’s most celebrated tenors. Ironically, although radio dis-guised Schmidt’s physical limitations to an audience that couldhear but not see him, and helped catapult the tenor to stardom,it also allowed the Nazis an opportunity to vilify the renownedsinger for invented physical abnormalities. The Nazis retouched hisphotos with grotesquely exaggerated Semitic physical character-istics and portrayed him as “a criminal type whose picture belongson every wanted poster.”

While the year 1933 signaled an end to freedom of expres-sion as Germans enjoyed it under the Weimar Republic, it alsomarked Joseph Schmidt’s debut as an actor in his first majorfilm, Ein Lied geht um die Welt (My Song Goes Round the World),filmed in Berlin. Fatefully, the film’s hit tune of the same namewould become Joseph Schmidt’s “signature” song as he began hisodyssey fleeing from the Nazis. A child of the Austro-HungarianEmpire, Schmidt’s natural destination after Berlin was Vienna,where he declared, “Finally in Vienna again! I cannot tell youhow thrilled I am to be home again.”

With the Viennese premiere of Ein Lied geht um die Welt,continued on page 6

Original Romanian Identity

Certificate issued to Joseph Schmidt by the Romanian

Consulate in 1940. Leo Baeck Archives.

5

How often haveyou heard some-one say aboutthe history ofJews in sports:

“It must be a short story.”When it comes to Jews in base-ball, this perception is, toborrow a phrase, way off base.Between 1871 and 2003, nofewer than 142 Jews playedmajor league baseball. Whilemost Americans are familiarwith immortals Hank Green-berg and Sandy Koufax, manyother Jewish players havebeen outstanding: pitcher KenHoltzman of the Chicago Cubsand Oakland Athletics wonmore games than Koufax andpitched two no-hitters; HarryDanning was a four-time All-Star catcher for the NewYork Giants; and in 2002,Shawn Green of the Los Ange-les Dodgers had the singlemost productive nine-inning

game at bat of any major lea-guer in history.

The next time someonechallenges you to defend theprowess of American Jewishballplayers, you can impressthem with the following sta-tistics. According to sportshistorian Martin Abramowitz,those 142 Jewish ballplayerscollected 22,246 hits, had a.265 batting average (threepercentage points higherthan all players combined),hit 2,032 home runs anddrove in 10,602 runs. Thehome run total amounts to0.9 percent of all home runsever hit. As Jews have repre-sented about 0.8 percent ofall players, they have actual-ly slugged more than theirfair share of homers. Jewsstruck out about eight per-cent more often than theywalked and violated theEighth Commandment—by

stealing bases—955 times.On the mound, Jews

compiled a record of 1,134wins and 1,114 losses, with810 complete games (164 ofthem shut-outs) and 11,632strikeouts. The fact that Jew-ish pitchers are twenty gamesover a .500 winning percent-age means that they pitchedslightly better than the entirenon-Jewish pitching corps(since by definition, thewon/lost record of all pitchersmust be an even .500). Jewshave thrown five of the 230no-hitters (three for Koufax,two for Holtzman), abouttwice as many as their “statis-tical fair share” would predict.Jewish pitchers’ collectiveearned run average (the num-ber of runs they allow overnine innings) is 3.66, a bitlower (in other words, better)than the 3.77 runs allowed byall Major Leaguers. In short,

Jews have more than held uptheir own on the baseball dia-mond, and in the case ofSandy Koufax, Hank Green-berg, and Shawn Green, haveexcelled.

The American JewishHistorical Society has made amajor commitment to inform-ing Americans about thesignificant role that Jews haveplayed in the quintessentialAmerican game. The Societyhas created the Archive ofAmerican Jews in Sports tocollect documentation on Jew-ish participation in Americanathletics and has created theworld’s most extensive website on the topic: www.jewsin-sports.org. To highlight theparticular role of Jewish play-ers in baseball, the Societyrecently published the firstcomprehensive set of tradingcards featuring those 142“American Jews in America’sGame.”

The Society obtained therights to print and distributethis limited-edition set ofcards from Jewish Major Lea-guers, Inc., whose founderMartin Abramowitz spent fouryears researching and produc-ing images, statistics, and textfor the cards. The Society thenapproached Major LeagueBaseball, Inc. and the MajorLeague Baseball Players Asso-ciation, along with the retiredplayers and their heirs, toobtain permission to use theircopyrights and images. MajorLeague Baseball and the Play-ers Association generouslyagreed to waive their usualroyalties for the use of theirlicensed insignia.

The final piece in the

From the Partners’ Collections

Beyond Koufax and Greenberg: The Major League Contribution of Jewish Ballplayers

Hank Greenberg. Courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society. continued on page 9

6

Schmidt’s career as a singer of popular and operatic songs con-tinued to blossom, and soon was extended by his appearance inother films, where his diminutive stature could be concealed.Acceptance in Vienna meant everything to Schmidt. As he stat-ed immediately after the glowing reviews of the Viennesepremiere, “My wish, my life’s dream has been fulfilled…. Do youknow what that means to a singer? Did you know that a concertsinger can consider himself successful only then, when he isacknowledged by the Viennese?”

Even though Schmidt’s song did indeed go round theworld—he would complete two more films in London, and per-form in Holland and Belgium, and at Carnegie Hall in 1937—hefailed in his attempts to emigrate beyond the perilous orbit of

Joseph Schmidtcontinued from page 4

Besso was not merelyfascinated by Spanish and lin-guistic studies; he was also amajor promoter of Sephardicstudies in general. Besso wasamong the young Sephardischolars and intellectuals whoin the 1930s convinced Colum-

bia University’s Hispanic Insti-tute to sponsor a SephardicStudies Group. As part of acadre of prominent scholarsthat included M. J. Benardete,Besso presided over a culturalresurgence for the AmericanSephardi community in the1960s. He was instrumental inestablishing the Committee forthe Advancement of SephardicStudies and Culture in 1963,

and helped found theAmerican Society ofSephardic Studies atYeshiva University in

rich in Spanish and Sephardicmaterials. According to anassessment made by Prof.Aviva Ben-Ur, an expert inSephardic studies at the Uni-versity of Massachusetts, thecollection contains approxi-mately twenty-nine linear feetof materials dealing with Spainand Spanish literature; thir-teen feet dealing with LatinAmerica; twenty-five feet ofworks on Judaism, Jewry, andIsrael; and fifty-eight feetdealing with Sephardic Stud-ies. Besso’s archival materialsfill seven four-drawer filingcabinets, and include corre-spondence, documents, andarticles dealing withSephardim, M. J. Benardete,the Sephardic press, and manu-scripts of Besso’s own writings.Besso worked throughout hislife to promote and to preserveSephardic heritage. The legacyof his library and archives willensure that this heritage willbe appreciated for many yearsto come.

Randall C. Belnfante is theLibrarian/Archivist for theAmerican Sephardi Federation

1967. He also served for a timeas the Executive Director ofthe American branch of theWorld Sephardi Federation, apredecessor to the currentAmerican Sephardi Federation.

One of Besso’s fascina-tions was with the status ofLadino, an ancient tongue thathad survived exile and duringthe twentieth century was sus-pended somewhere between aliving and a dead language.Similarly, Besso was keenlyaware of the precariousness ofSephardic culture; just as itseemed to be experiencing arenaissance within the acade-my, many young Sephardimwere themselves neglectingtheir own heritage. Bessonoted the irony of this situa-tion, and so, to bolsterSephardic identity, he becamea major supporter of theSephardic Brotherhood ofAmerica, and assisted in theestablishment of its Brother-hood Scholarship Fund. AsJoseph Papo explained in hislandmark work, Sephardim inTwentieth Century America,Besso did “his utmost to passon to others the fruits of hiserudition as well as his love forhis Sephardi heritage.”

Following his death in1933, Besso left behind alibrary and an archive thatfully reflected his passions,

Henry V. Bessocontinued from page 3

National Socialism. With the German annexation of Austria in1938, and as a result of the Evian Conference of that same year,Schmidt could find no refuge from the Nazis. His flight throughEurope took him to Belgium, Holland, and France, only to leadhim to the Girenbad concentration camp in Switzerland, whereon November 16, 1942, he died from a heart attack—sufferedwhile singing. Fate served up one final irony for Singing Joschi.Shortly after his death, an invitation to appear on the operaticstage—Schmidt’s lifelong and unfulfilled ambition—arrived inGirenbad. In life, more is taken than is given.

Diane R. Spielmann, Ph.D., is the Director of Public Services atthe Center for Jewish History and served previously as PublicServices Coordinator at the Leo Baeck Institute. This article waswritten in memory of her father, Elias Spielmann (1900–1985),whose favorite vocalist was Joseph Schmidt.

From the Henry V. Besso Library and Archives Collection, American

Sephardi Federation Library

7

Center Newswire

Founded in 1969, and with amembership topping 1,500,the Association for JewishStudies (AJS) is the leadinglearned society for Jewishstudies in North America. As aconstituent organization ofthe American Council ofLearned Societies, AJS repre-sents university faculty,graduate students, independ-ent scholars, teachers,librarians, and museum profes-sionals within the academiccommunity in the UnitedStates and Canada. Its majorscholarly publication, the AJSReview, presents importantarticles, essays and reviewsfrom scholars throughout theworld, and the association’snewsletter, AJS Perspectives,provides news and commen-

tary on issues and events inthe field of Jewish studies.

In September 2003, AJSmoved from its former homeon the campus of BrandeisUniversity to the Center forJewish History, beginning anexciting new chapter in theorganization’s history. AsJudith Baskin, incoming Presi-dent of the AJS, commented,“Our move to New York Citycomes at a time of growth andchange for the AJS. We wel-come the opportunity to bepart of a vibrant communitycommitted to the scholarlystudy and interpretation ofthe Jewish experience and weappreciate the warm welcomewe have been accorded by ourcolleagues at the Center forJewish History.”

Samberg Family Program Jane Rothstein was recently appointed Program Manager of the Samberg Family History Program. Rothstein received herundergraduate education at Brandeis University, her M.A. inAmerican History at Case Western Reserve University, and isnow at work on her doctoral dissertation while enrolled in ajoint program (History/Hebrew and Judaic Studies) at New York University.

The Samberg Family History Program, which is under theaegis of Center Genealogy Institute and the American JewishHistorical Society, is held during summer months for high schoolstudents interested in learning more about their family histories.The students receive an intensive two-week interdisciplinary

seminar, and are taught how toconduct research in the archivesand libraries at the Center andelsewhere in New York City. OnNovember 23, the first seven“graduates” showcased their proj-ects, which included familydocuments, photographs, Holo-caust testimony, and family lore.

Student Cheryl Geliebter,

at the Projects Presentation

Gathering for the

Samberg Family History

Program at the Center,

November 23, 2003.MA

RTY

HEI

TNER

December 26, 2003. Viewing the ASF’s archives: left to right: Ahmed

Aboul Gheit, Ambassador Permanent Representative of Egypt to the

United Nations; Mohamed T. El Farnawany, First Secretary; Anwar

Sulieman; Joseph Safra; Peter Geffen, Executive Director of the

Center for Jewish History; David Ribicoff, Trustee, American

Sephardi Federation; Randall Belifante, Librarian/Archivist, American

Sephardi Federation.

Dignitaries Visit the Center

SIM

ON

A A

RU

NEW CENTER AFFILIATE

Association for Jewish Studies

September 9, 2003. Steering Committee members meet: left to right,

Lawrence Rubin, Professor Jonathan D. Sarna, Richard Siegel, James

August, Robert S. Rifkind, Lawrence Pitterman, and Dr. Gary P. Zola.

Plans Begin: 350thAnniversary of JewishSettlers in North America

MA

RTY

HEI

TNER

November 18, 2003. Left to right: Daniel and Nina Libeskind with

Carol Kahn Strauss, Executive Director of the Leo Baeck Institute, at

LBI’s annual fundraising dinner.

Honoring Daniel Libeskind

8

Center Newswire

he Center GenealogyInstitute’s first directorand the founder of the

Samberg Family History Pro-gram, Rachel Fisher, movedback to her hometown ofPhiladelphia this past fall.Fisher’s successor is RobertFriedman, whose passion forgenealogy led him to the Insti-tute after a distinguishedcareer in public health. He wasamong the first group of CGIvolunteers in October 2000,and obtained a degree inLibrary and Information Science from Long Island University.

Last summer, Friedman attended the International Associ-ation of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) Conference inWashington, DC, at which Miriam Weiner, YIVO’s representativeon CGI’s Advisory Committee, received IAJGS’s Lifetime Achieve-ment Award for her pioneering work on Eastern European Jewishgenealogy.

Upcoming events at the Institute for spring 2004 include“Introduction to Jewish Genealogy,” a one-hour workshopexplaining how to conduct research through the use of oral his-tories, Web sites, and historical documents; and “Beyond theBasics,” the Jewish Genealogical Society’s one-day seminar. CGIserved more than 1,200 on-site visitors in 2003, an increase ofthree fifths over the previous year.

The CenterGenealogyInstitute (CGI)

T

Loevinson Family Tree, 1804. Cour-

tesy of the Leo Baeck Institute, NY.

he work funded by a $2 million grant from

the National Historical Publi-cations and RecordsCommission (NHPRC) contin-ues to generate substantialresults. The major activity isthe installation of the OnlinePublic Access Catalog (OPAC),which is scheduled to becomeavailable to users in spring2004. OPAC will allowresearchers to perform a singlesearch in our Web-based cata-log and to retrieve descriptionsof our archival, library, andmuseum holdings.

Additional NHPRC-fund-ed work is seeing immediateresults. Project staff membersare now using a new nationalstandard (Encoded ArchivalDescription, or EAD) to pres-ent archival information tothe public. As the NHPRCarchivists process a collection,they create a finding aid (anarrative description of thecollection and its contents)and encode it for display on

the Internet. We have alreadycompleted 64 EAD findingaids which can be viewed onthe Center’s website athttp://www.cjh.org/academ-ic/findingaids/.

Evidence suggests thatthese aids are already provid-ing an immediate boon toscholars worldwide. Forinstance, soon after postingonline the finding aid for theRaphael Lemkin Papers at theAmerican Jewish HistoricalSociety (Lemkin, a Polish-born Jew and crusader forhuman rights, coined theterm “genocide”), researchersfrom England, Switzerland,and Australia contacted theAJHS and requested docu-ments from the collection.The EAD finding aids wed theInternet’s technological innovations to the Center’sunique holdings of primarydocuments, and in so doingthese materials reach abroader audience than ever before.

CJH Gains an Online PublicAccess Catalog

T

The Lillian Goldman Reading Roomach month the Lillian Goldman Reading Room serves approximately400 people, representing a five percent increase in the annual numberof visitors. The academic community continues to be well represented

with faculty and students, from locations as diverse as Belgium, Germany,Israel, and Scotland making use of the library’s resources.

Last fall, the 2003 Graduate Seminar series was pleased to presentthe following guest lecturers, each of whom were CJH Fellows in 2002: Jes-sica Cooperman, Ph.D. candidate, New York University, presenting“Preaching Politics: The Jewish Military Chaplaincy in Germany and theU.S. During the Great War” (October); Joshua Perelman, Ph.D candidate,New York University, presenting “Choreographing Identity: ModernDance and American Jewish History, 1924-1964” (November); andMichaela Raggam-Blesch, Ph.D. candidate, Karl-Franz University, Graz,Austria, presenting “Constructing Jewish Identities between East andWest: Jewish Women in Turn-of-the-Century Vienna” (December).

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puzzle was filled by Fleer/Upper Deck, the renownedsports card manufacturer.Fleer’s CEO, Roger Grass,agreed to redesign, manufac-ture, and package the set forthe Society at cost. The pro-fessionals on Grass’s staffcreated a set whose qualityand art is equal to the finestcards ever produced.

The backs of the cardsreward the reader with anumber of discoveries andsurprises. Max Rosenfeld, asecond-string outfielder forthe Brooklyn Dodgers, man-aged the 1946 Cuban Kings inHavana. Moe Franklin batted.439 in 1938, the highestaverage of any minor leagueplayer that year. After play-ing for the Red Sox in 1925and 1926, Simon Rosenthalenlisted in the United Statesmilitary at age forty, after hisseventeen-year-old son waskilled in a Marine invasion inthe South Pacific during

World War II. Rosenthal’s shipstruck a mine and he was par-alyzed for life, after which heworked with the disabled. Ikeand Harry Danning, bothcatchers, are one of six pairsof Jewish brothers whoplayed in the major leagues.Chick Starr is one of two Jew-ish major-leaguers whosefather was a rabbi. JimmyReese roomed with Babe Ruthon Yankee road trips in 1930and 1931, although accordingto Reese he spent more timein his hotel room with Ruth’sluggage than with the Babehimself.

Sets of the cards arestill available for a limitedperiod of time. Only 15,000regular sets and 1,000 spe-cially trimmed and boxedSilver Edition sets were print-ed. The sets are available onlyto those who become a“Sports Member” of the Amer-ican Jewish Historical Society.

Michael Feldberg is theExecutive Director of theAmerican Jewish HistoricalSociety

Beyond Koufax andGreenbergcontinued from page 5

Coming Events

The Fanya GottesfeldHeller BookstoreLocated in the lobby off the main entrance, the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Bookstore offers a rich collection of scholarly and contemporary works on Jewish history, culture, and language, as well as unique historical posters, silver Judaica, CDs, jewelry by Israeli artists, stationery, and cards — many of the items exclusive to the store. Telephone: 917-606-8220

The Constantiner Date Palm CaféAn intimate, quiet setting showcasing the artwork of New York artist Michele Oka Doner, the Café serves light fare for breakfast, lunch, and late after-noon snacks. Innovative glatt kosher cuisine includes a variety of specially prepared items moderately priced. Reservations for group tours visiting the Center can be made and catering services are also available. All products and food produced are under the supervision of Foremost Caterers. Telephone: 917-606-8210

Visit www.cjh.org for a complete schedule on public programs

MONDAY NIGHT FILM SERIES

“Lens on Canadian Jewry” Begins March 1“Expression and Exploration: Paths of Jewish Artists” Begins March 8

ART AND MUSIC

The Jews of Iran March 3A Tribute to George and Ira Gershwin: Celebrating 350 Years of Jewish Life in America March 25Vienna: Jews and the City of Music “Lieder, Tchotchkes and a Melodrama,”a concert co-sponsored with Mannes College of Music April 21

LECTURES AND SYMPOSIA

Dialogue Forum Series: Conversation with Rabbi William Berkowitz and Edgar Bronfman March 16The Jewishness of the New York Intellectuals March 30Commissioned Artists/Cultivating Public Spaces April 14

EXHIBITS

Vienna: Jews and the City of Music, 1870–1938 February 8 – June 30Luminous Manuscript Opens April 4Salon Paintings of the Leo Baeck Institute Through May 13Mining the Archives/Cultivating a Public Space April 4 – May 28Alfred Kantor: An Artist’s Diary of the Holocaust Through June 13Jewish Costumes in the Ottoman Empire: The Sephardim and The Turks — Living Together for 500 Years March 31 – May 15

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Public Programs

anging in themes and settings from Israel to Baghdad, from Iraq to Russia, the fall2003 season of events brought an international flavor to the Center.

A series of provocative, prize-winning documentary films, “Israel: Ideal and Reality,”challenged the audience to explore the hopes, dreams, and disappointments of current life inIsrael. Included were four short films made by Jewish and Arab teenagers, in which they exam-ined their efforts to explore their own identities and to bridge the cultural divide separatingthem. The American Sephardi Federation/Sephardic House presented the Eighth InternationalSephardic Film Festival, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research continued its cinematicexploration of Jewish communities around the world with films from Mexico and Argentina in itsprogram, “Lens on Latin America.”

The NYC Lit Fest, sponsored by Time Out New York, was the Center’s first participation inthe New York City Literary Roundtable’s citywide series of readings. Of the eleven events spon-sored by the Center and its partners, highlights were: “Amos Oz: Israel Through Its Literature,””The Poetry of Abraham Sutzkever,” “Iraqi Arts: Sami Michael,” and “Hebrew Jam: An Evening ofPoetry and Jazz.”

In conjunction with the two major exhibitions presented by the Yeshiva University Museum—“Remembrance: Russian Post-Modern Nostalgia”and “Homelands: Baghdad–Jerusalem–New York:Sculpture of Oded Halahmy”—visitors were treat-ed to gallery talks and concerts that celebratedand explored Russian and Iraqi culture.

● Iraqi-born writer Sami Michael

● “Hebrew Jam, An Evening of

Poetry and Jazz” ● Los Gauchos

Judios, “Lens on Latin America,”

YIVO ● Isaiah Sheffer, “Songs and

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● “As Seen By... Great American Photographers, from

the Time-Life Archives.” VJ Day in Times Square, 1945.

Alfred Eisenstadt, ©Time Inc. All rights reserved. AJHS

● Amos Oz, “Israel Through Its Literature,” YIVO ● They

Came to Pick me Up, 8th International Sephardic Film

Festival ● Guest curator Alexandre Gertsman leading a

gallery tour of the exhibit “Remembrance: Post-Modern

Nostalgia.” ● On Thin Ice, LBI ● “Israel: Identity and

Reality,” 66 Was a Good Year for Tourism

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In 2003, Yeshiva University Museum worked withmaster silversmith and conservator Ubaldo Vitalito restore this elaborately gilded Torah Crown.Vitali, a fourth generation silversmith with exten-

sive conservation experience in both Europe and the UnitedStates, has conserved silver objects from the collections of theMetropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts,Boston. He also recently conserved eighteenth-centuryTorah finials crafted by Myer Myers in Colonial-era NewYork. With a grant from the Lower Hudson Con-ference through the New York State Council onthe Arts, Yeshiva University Museum was ableto work with Vitali to return the dented anddiscolored Crown to its original majesty.

This elegant Torah Crown is a beautifulexample of Central-Eastern European Judaicacraftsmanship of the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth century. Following the Holocaust, thisCrown was presented to Yeshiva University by theJewish Cultural Reconstruction (JCR). JCR was organ-ized under the leadership of major scholars, such as SaloBaron and Hannah Arendt, to identify, return or find suitablenew homes for Jewish cultural and religious artifacts whichhad been looted by Nazis and whose original owners could notbe located or identified after the Holocaust. JCR distributedunclaimed Judaic artifacts to institutions in the United Statesand Israel. The origins of this Torah Crown can be identifiedbased on its silver hallmark, but the exact history of its man-ufacture, use and provenance will probably never be known.

This Torah Crown’s odyssey before, during and after WorldWar II reflects the turbulent history of Modern Europe. The YUM

A Crowning AchievementTorah Crown is a Holocaust survivor; it symbolizes the beautyand vitality of late nineteenth and early twentieth centuryAustro-Hungarian Jewish life, and suggests the destruction ofthese communities during the period of Nazi occupation. Wecan only speculate on how this Torah Crown was damaged:

was it the result of intentional Holocaust-era anti-Semit-ic vandalism and the pillaging of synagogues? Was it

perhaps dented years before the Holocaust as a resultof daily wear in its constant use to beautify the

Torah? Or perhaps this Crown was never actu-ally used ritually, and was stolen from aJudaica silversmith or looted from a storein Vienna or Budapest specializing in Jew-ish ritual items.

In Jewish tradition, a crown is oftenplaced upon the staves of a dressed torah scroll

as a symbol of the sovereignty and revered char-acter of the Scriptures. Silver crowns and otherceremonial objects serve to decorate and denote the

majesty of the Torah—the handwritten Pentateuchthat is the center of synagogue liturgical life and that is under-stood as the embodiment of the Jewish people’s spiritualcovenant. Torah crowns exemplify Judaic concepts of aestheticsand beautification within the People of the Book’s primarily tex-tual heritage. In the synagogue, the dressing of the torah scrollin fine textiles and silver furnishings provides a public, physicalexpression of the reverence for text expressed by Jews in privatedevotion through study, observance and piety.

Gabriel Goldstein and Bonni-Dara Michaels are on the curatorial staff at Yeshiva University Museum.

Above center: Torah Crown, Austria-Hungary, ca. 1886–1922. Silver: repoussé, chased and parcel gilt. Yeshiva University Museum. Gift of the Jewish

Cultural Reconstruction.

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participation in the musicallife of Vienna at the height ofthe city’s cultural prominencereveals both music’spower to divide and tounite, to support ethnic,national, and religiousparticularities and totranscend them.

That theme is nowbeing explored at theYeshiva University Muse-um, where the exhibit,Vienna: Jews and the Cityof Music, 1870–1938 is ondisplay through June 30.With a panoramic histori-cal scope, the exhibit usespiano scores, manuscripts,diary entries, photo-graphs, paintings, andaudio recordings torecount the Jewish partic-ipation in the flowering ofViennese musical culturein the second half of thenineteenth century, thedevelopment of mod-ernism and the rise ofpolitical and cultural anti-Semitism in the firstdecades of the twentieth, andthe ultimate fulfillment of theNazis’ vision of a Vienna with-out Jews—and without Jewishmusicians.

Jews and the City ofMusic originated at Vienna’sJewish Museum, and in manyways the show’s move to NewYork highlights some of theexhibit’s central themes. Bothcities have benefited from therole that arts and music havehad in creating a unifyingcivic culture amongst a cul-turally diverse population.Indeed, like New Yorkthroughout much of its histo-ry, Vienna in the second halfof the nineteenth centurywas a polyglot, multi-ethnicmetropolis, a city of immi-grants whose centripetal pullas the cultural, administra-

tive, and political hub of theHabsburg Empire drew inthousands of aspiring citizensfrom the peripheries. In fact,by 1890, nearly two thirds ofVienna’s population was madeup of non-natives (by com-

parison, today 36 percent ofNew York City residents wereborn abroad). And even morethan in New York, in fin-de-siècle Vienna, the integrativeforce was provided by aninvented, mythic public cul-ture, an idea of Vienna creat-ed and sustained in large partby the immigrants them-selves. This paradox helps toilluminate what Leon Bot-stein, the director and con-ductor of the AmericanSymphony Orchestra and theeditor of the fine cataloguewhich accompanies the exhib-it, calls “the tragedy and ironyof success”: Jewish musi-cians—outsiders—played aprominent role in defining theculture of the imperial center,from which they were ulti-mately excluded.

The Vienna featured in theexhibit is a city in flux, onegrappling with unsettlingarchitectural and demographicchanges. In 1857, the walls of

the inner city weretorn down to makeway for an ambitiousproject of urbanrenewal: the cre-ation of the Ring-strasse, a monumen-tal curved boulevardthat arched its waythrough the heart ofthe city. At the sametime, Vienna wit-nessed a huge surgeof immigration, dou-bling its populationfrom 600,000 in1857 to 1.3 millionin 1890. Amongthese newcomerswere thousands ofnon-German speak-ing Jews from theeastern parts of theEmpire, from Galicia,Hungary, Moravia,and Bukowina. Atthe time of the con-struction of the Ring-

strasse, Jews made up littlemore than 3 percent of Vien-na’s population, but by theturn of the century, they madeup more than 8 percent, num-bering some 150,000 residents,constituting the third largestJewish population in Europe.

These Ostjuden, with their Yid-dish accents and their strangefolkways, shared with Vienna’sother immigrants and moreestablished residents the expe-rience of encountering anunfamiliar, awkwardly mod-ernizing city. In response, theViennese, even the recentlyarrived, developed a nostalgiafor a lost, pre-modern metrop-olis—Alt Wien, old Vienna—aplace of artisan shops and

romantic ideals. At the sametime, the city’s Jewish immi-grants embraced thecosmopolitan image of Vienna,a city in whose culture theycould dissolve their ownprovincial habits. Musicbridged these two visions ofcivic identity, one looking tothe past and the other towardthe future. As Botstein writesin the exhibit’s catalogue,“The strongest cultural linkbetween a homogenous pastand a heterogeneous presentin Vienna was to be found inthe world of music.” Music pro-vided a means of acculturationinto a new Vienna that alsorecognized a continuity withthe traditions of Alt Wien.

For some of the city’sprominent Jewish musicians,this process of acculturationultimately led to conversion.For instance, in order to securehis appointment to the CourtOpera, Mahler converted toCatholicism in 1897, while thefollowing year, at the age of23, Arnold Schoenberg con-verted to Protestantism. Butconversion was actually ararely exercised option forJews in Vienna; in fact, by1900, less than .005 percent ofthe city’s Jewish populationhad converted. In part, thiscan be explained by the factthat most Viennese of the timeconsidered Judaism not a reli-gious or theological system ofbeliefs, but an indelible fact ofbirth, a permanent racial char-acteristic that could not becast aside, and so conversiondid not necessarily lead to animprovement in social status.

But the low rate of con-version can also be attributedto the success of many Jews inreconciling their religious andcultural commitments. Thiswas certainly true in the mid-dle decades of the nineteenthcentury. One of the most dis-tinguished Jewish figures ofthose years was Salomon Sulz-er (featured prominently in

Vienna: Jews & the City of Musiccontinued from page 1

Silhouettes of Gustav Mahler conducting. Poster,

ca. 1898. Osterreichisches Theatermuseum (Austrian

Theater Museum).

Ostjuden, Music and Acculturation

The Anxieties of Modern Vienna

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the exhibit), who served ashead cantor of Vienna’s firstsynagogue from 1826 to 1881.Sulzer’s reputation extendedfar outside the shul’s walls; healso taught singing at theVienna Conservatoire and wasadmired by many of the city’smost important composers.Notably, Sulzer helped con-vince Franz Schubert tocompose choral music for thesynagogue service. (Beethovenseriously considered a similarrequest, and even studiedHebrew liturgy, before eventu-ally turning it down.)

The compatibility of Jewish andmusical identities extendedinto the twentieth century aswell. Heinrich Schenker, one ofVienna’s leading music theoristsof the prewar years, remainedan observant Jew his entire life.And as the exhibit makes clear,Schoenberg, even after his con-version, never lost his sense ofJewishness, maintaining a pre-occupation with Jewish themesthat deeply effected his work.While in Paris in 1933, Schoen-berg reconverted back toJudaism, his religious identityreconfirmed by his encountersthe year before with Berlin’s“swastika-swaggerers and pog-romists.” (The exhibit displaysthe certificate of the reconver-sion ceremony, which Marc Cha-gall signed as a witness).

Not only did music allowJews to transcend their lin-guistic, ethnic and religiousparticularities, it also providedJews with access to Vienna’scosmopolitan civic culture andto positions of leadership andinfluence within the city’smany musical associations andclubs. And so Jews enthusias-tically turned to music,engaging in nearly everyaspect of musical life. Duringthe last decades of the nine-teenth century and the firstdecades of the twentieth, Jews

acquired musical instruction atrates approximately threetimes higher than that of non-Jews. At Vienna’s musicconservatories, Jews oftenmade up nearly a third of allstudents, and at many of themost prominent musical ven-ues, constituted more thanhalf of the audience. Jews dis-tinguished themselves in everyelement of musical productionand consumption, from musicjournalism and academic musi-cology to concert promotion.In 1928, a leading operettacomposer commented thatamong his peers, only he andone other contemporary wereChristian; all the rest wereJews, and the same was true ofthe operetta singers, actors,and directors. Despite thefacile anti-Semitic associationof Jews with a “decadent mod-ernism,” Jews occupied nearlyevery position along the spec-trum of aesthetic sensibilitythat defined cultural life intwentieth-century Vienna. Ifthe ranks of Jewish modernistsincluded not only Schoenbergbut also Alexander Zemlinskyand Anton Webern, the city’sleading musicologist, GuidoAdler, as well as the conductorBruno Walter, were skeptical ofmodernism. In fact, thevibrancy of Jewish musical lifein Vienna can be measured bythe lack of cultural homogene-ity within the community, andby the intensity of the inter-ethnic battles over musicalaesthetics.

These battles were ofcourse not merely about taste,but also about the best way tosecure the Jews’ place in Vien-nese society. Controversiesover innovation and tradition-alism hinged on music’s role asthe foundation of Jews’ civicidentity. Yet for many of thecity’s non-Jewish inhabitants,this variegated, vehementJewish commitment to musicallife represented not the tri-umph of acculturation and the

cosmopolitan ideal but a com-mandeering of traditionalViennese culture by an alienforce. The fact that outsiderswere defining the culturalcharacter of the imperial centeronly revealed the corruption ofthe center by a bourgeois lib-eralism. Richard Wagner, forinstance, used the associationof Jews with the city’s vibrantcultural life to compose a morbid, anti-Semitic fantasy.When, in 1881, one of theVienna’s main concert halls,the Ringtheater, burned down,killing 900 audience members,nearly half of whom were Jews,Wagner suggested that thetheater be rebuilt, that Got-thold Lessing’s play Nathan theWise be performed—which hesuspected would attract manyJewish patrons—and that thetheater be once more burnt tothe ground, so that even moreJews could be killed.

It is important to note that therise of political anti-Semitismin Vienna—marked by theelection of the ChristianSocialist Karl Lueger to mayorin 1897—was a response toprecisely the same insecuritiesand dislocations which causedthe Jews to turn to music. Theinterwar years witnessed agrowing suspicion of thevirtues of economic and polit-ical liberalism, principlesassociated with Jews, and ananxiety about Vienna’s dimin-ished status in Europeanaffairs. This intensified a nostalgia for old Vienna, thecity that was the home ofGluck, Mozart, Haydn, andBeethoven, gave birth to Schu-bert, and that had once beenfree of the pernicious Jewishartistic and political influence.A Wagnerian cultural anti-Semitism—in which Jews wereassociated with an abstract,modernist, manipulativeengagement with music—soon

became allied with the grow-ing political anti-Semitism.Music, politics and racebecame inextricably inter-twined, so that a defense ofBrahms, who was considered tobe a philo-Semite, was seen asa political act in support of lib-eralism, and many non-Jewishcomposers who championedmodernism were simplyassumed to be Jewish liberals,and persecuted as such.

Yet even with the stormclouds of religious hatred gath-ering on the horizon, Botsteinreminds us, “In Vienna reac-tionary politics and progressiveaesthetics flourished side byside.” Nor did Viennese Jewsnecessarily recognize the political implications of theirmusical affiliations. Ironically,prominent Jewish musiciansnumbered among the mostardent supporters of the com-poser Anton Bruckner, whocame to embody the tradition-alist, anti-liberal, anti-Semiticstrain in Viennese music andpolitics. And there were somany Jewish members of the city’s Wagner Society that a rival association, free of Jews, was created — withBruckner as its honorary presi-dent—in 1890.

Perhaps it was VienneseJews’ familiarity with theintensity and vitriol of cultur-al politics in the city thatblinded them to the fanaticalhatred that lurked behind theattacks on Jewish musicians.But they could not remainblind for long. Soon after theAnschluss in March 1938, Jew-ish musicians were bannedfrom performing in the city.The Nazis made special effortsto “Aryanize” Viennese culture,organizing concerts featuringanti-modernist, Christian com-posers, and even falsified bap-tismal records for JohannStrauss’s great-grandfather,who was suspected of beingJewish. Works of Jewish musi-

continued on page 18

Music and Hate: Politicaland Cultural Anti-Semitism

The Vehement Jewish Commitment to Musical Life

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brigade,” Sutzkever smuggledthousands of valuable booksand documents out of thebuilding, preventing their pil-lage or destruction during thewar. The YIVO building wasentirely destroyed by artilleryfire in 1944, and whatevertreasures were hidden by thebrigade in the attic were lostforever, but many of theunique books and materialsrescued by Sutzkever survivedthe war and the ghetto. Even-tually these were restored tothe reestablished YIVO in NewYork in 1947.

The literary and histori-cal manuscripts hidden andpreserved at that time nowcomprise the Sutzkever-Kacz-erginski Collection in the YIVOarchives. These materials wereused by Lucy Dawidowiczwhile writing her extraordi-nary 1989 memoir, From ThatPlace and Time, whichdescribes YIVO and Yiddishintellectual life in Vilna justbefore the outbreak of war.(The materials rescued by

Sutzkever are not to be con-fused with other books andmanuscripts from YIVO andthe Strashun library whichwere confiscated by the Nazis,transported to Germany, andrediscovered after the war bythe American army in a ware-house near Frankfurt.)

Much could be written abouteach book and manuscript res-cued by Sutzkever, but twoitems in particular deserve men-

tion. The second volumeof YIVO’s Shriftn farpsikhologye un pedagogik(Studies in Psychologyand Education), writtenby Polish and East Euro-pean scholars in the1930s, was one of thelast Yiddish books everto be printed in Vilnaon the eve of the catas-trophe. Already set intype in 1939, the vol-ume was issued in 1940in independent Lithua-nia, shortly before itsSoviet annexation inJune of that year andthe subsequent Nazi

onslaught. Due to the extremepaper shortage, only fortycopies were printed, only twoof which survived. One ofthese copies was rescued per-sonally by Sutzkever, who sentit—with his hand-inscribedaccount of its history—to NewYork in 1946 to be part of thereconstituted YIVO. (The YIVOscholars in New York, includ-ing several of the survivingcontributors, were not evenaware that the volume hadbeen printed.)

Of the numerous manu-scripts saved by Sutzkever andKaczerginski—by such authorsas S. Ansky, Nathan Birnbaum,Ayzik Meir Dick, Itzik Manger,Mendele Moykher Sforim, andSholem Aleichem—one hasspecial resonance this year.Among the great archivaltreasures in YIVO’s prewar col-lection is the literary diarykept by Theodor Herzl, thefounder of modern Zionism, inhis youth. This was acquired atauction in 1938 by Max Wein-reich, who recognized itscultural and historical signifi-cance and made every effort tosecure it for YIVO’s archive; it

is even said that Weinreichforewent an eye operation inorder to make the purchase.The year 2004 marks the hun-dredth anniversary of Herzl’sdeath. The overlapping ofSutzkever’s ninetieth birthdaywith this centenary reflectsthe relationship betweenHerzl, the political visionary,and Sutzkever, the poet whorescued his words from obliv-ion. In a celebrated poem “Diblayerne platen fun Romsdrukeray” (“The leaden platesof Romm’s printing house”),Sutzkever recounted theunlikely fate of the printingpress—once the intellectualpride of Lithuanian Jewry, nowmelted into bullets—on whichthe most famous edition of theTalmud was printed. Readers ofYiddish will forever appreciateSutzkever’s inspirational genius,which was nurtured in theVilna of his youth, so rich inbooks and booklore, and sotransfigured by violence andtragedy. Future generations ofstudents and scholars workingat the New York YIVO will beindebted to Sutzkever’s heroicrescue of cultural treasuresfrom the Vilna YIVO when EastEuropean Jewish civilizationwas on the brink of destruc-tion. At the Center for JewishHistory, these YIVO treasureswill enrich the study of Yiddish literature and of Euro-pean Jewish history for manyanniversaries to come.

Brad Sabin Hill is Dean of theLibrary and Senior ResearchLibrarian at YIVO Institute forJewish Research.

YIVO in Vilnacontinued from page 3

Title page of Shriftn far

Psikhologye un Pedagogik

(Vilnus: YIVO, 1940), of

which only two copies exist.

A leaf from the literary diary of Theodor Herzl, preserved in the YIVO archive

What Sutzkever Saved

Gala Dinner

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The Second Annual Board of Overseers and Board ofDirectors Gala Dinner was held on the evening of Decem-ber 10, 2003, at the Center for Jewish History. The gala,a major fundraising event for the Center, helps supportvital services to the Center’s five partners and ensuresthat the collections are preserved and accessible to all.This year, a portion of the proceeds raised at the eventwere designated for the Building Campaign—specifical-ly the addition of six new floors slated to open thisspring. Under the dynamic leadership of Board ChairmanBruce Slovin, the gala raised $700,000, an increase ofseventy-five percent over the previous year.

More than two hundred guests enjoyed a festiveevening, which began with a reception on the Selma L.Batkin Mezzanine. Patrons were invited to join guided

tours through the Center’s treasures: theLillian Goldman Reading Room, theGenealogy Institute, the Strashun Room(YIVO Institute for Jewish Research’s rarebook room). They also viewed the sixth-floor archival “stacks” of books andmanuscripts.

A highlight of the evening was thepresentation of the Sandra P. and Freder-ick P. Rose Young Historian Award to Dr.Rebecca Korbin by Peter A. Geffen, theCenter’s new Executive Director, and by

Nancy T. Polevoy, a Trustee of the American Jewish His-torical Society. The award recognizes Dr. Korbin for herdoctoral dissertation, Shifting Diasporas: Mass Migrationand the Remaking of East European Jewry. The Center forJewish History is proud to administer this prestigiousaward and to count the Frederick P. and Sandra P. RoseFoundation among its generous supporters.

Entertainment was provided by the world-renowned Klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer, whosegroup David Krakauer’s Klezmer Madness! (with specialguest DJ Socalled) performed in the Leo and Julia Forch-heimer Auditorium. A candlelight dinner followed the performance in the Paul S. and Sylvia SteinbergGreat Hall.

● Patrons dining in the Paul S. and Sylvia

Steinberg Great Hall ● David Krakauer

performing with Klezmer Madness!

● Board Chair Bruce Slovin; Peter A.

Geffen, Executive Director of the Center

● Kenneth Bialkin, Board member and

Michael Feldberg, Executive Director of

American Jewish Historical Society

● Board members, Joseph D. Becker and

Leon Levy ● Joseph S. Steinberg, Board

member enjoying the performance

● Dr. Rebecca Korbin, winner of the

Sandra P. and Frederick P. Rose Young

Historian Award

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Treasures From the ArchivesA generous gift from Mary Smart, a member of the Board of Over-seers, will allow the Center to publicize informative andstimulating essays that highlight its “Treasures From theArchives,” a bimonthly feature in the Forward. In a series ofessays, Jewish scholars Ken Libo and Michael Skakun highlightselections from the magnificent collections of the Center’s fivepartners, drawing the public’s attention to the vast resourcesavailable at the Center.

Great Debates SeriesPhilanthropists Roger Hertog and Michael Steinhardt haverecently supported the creation of the Center for Jewish Histo-ry’s “Great Debates” series, to commence in the second half of2004. These debates, designed to bring issues of great impor-tance and moment to the attention of Jewish students andyoung professionals—the next generation of Jewish opinion-makers—will play a critical role in the Center’s ability to reachyounger Jews and will be a meaningful addition to the Center’sexisting programs.

Digitization of Equipment and Archival PreservationThe United States Congress recently made an appropriation of$328,000 for digitization equipment and archival preservationprojects for the Center’s partners. Sponsored by the office of Congressman Jerrold Nadler of the 8th Congressional District ofNew York and designated by the House Subcommittee on Trans-portation, Treasury and Independent Agencies, the grant willenable the Center’s partners to expand capabilities to digitizethe documents, photographs, artifacts and recordings in itsarchives and to makethem accessible online.

Building Campaign:Raisin’ the Roof On September 29,2003, the CJH commu-nity hosted “Raisin’the Roof,” a ground-breaking ceremony,attended by morethan 150 notables, tocommemorate theaddition of six newfloors to the Centerin order to accommodate its growing collections. During the cer-emony, the Center’s Board Chairman Bruce Slovin thanked andhonored Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields and NewYork City Council Member Eva Moskowitz. Their immediate recog-nition of the Center’s importance upon its opening in 2000 andtheir continued and determined support to date have beeninstrumental in securing a $400,000 grant from the ManhattanBorough President’s Office and a $2.5 million grant from the New

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The Center for Jewish History thanks the many individuals,foundations, corporations, and government agencies whose gen-erosity enabled the Center to thrive in 2003. (A listing of donorsof $10,000 or more can be found on page 18.) The followingdescriptions gratefully acknowledge the new gifts and grantsthat will enhance, preserve, and expand the collections of theCenter’s five partners.

Special Gifts and Grants

Gruss Lipper Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland from1900 to 1950 for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research At the initiative of the Center and in partnership with the YIVOInstitute for Jewish Research, a grant of nearly $700,000 wasdesignated by the Gruss Lipper Foundation to create the Gruss

Lipper Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland from 1900 to1950. The archive will make YIVO’s unique and irreplaceable col-lection more accessible to thousands of potential new usersaround the world.

The Digital Archive will include a Web site, and will beaccompanied by an illustrated sourcebook. Both will incorporatedigitized images of documents from the YIVO collection, will fur-nish background information on the documents, and provideguides to facilitate retrieval. Exhibitions, workshops, confer-ences, and lectures on Jewish history in Poland will be presentedin conjunction with the Digital Archive’s launch.

A full description of the Gruss Lipper Digital Archive onJewish Life in Poland will appear in a forthcoming issue of YIVONews/Yedies. The Center’s Board of Directors and the Board ofOverseers would like to take this opportunity to extend their sin-cerest and deepest gratitude to Joanna Lipper, a Trustee of theFoundation, for her leadership, enthusiasm, and commitment tomaking this grant possible.

Funding Highlights

Celebrated Yiddish actresses

Ida Kaminska and Diana

Blumenfeld, Warsaw, Poland,

1922. At right, a group of

students at summer camp of

the Vilna Youth Teacher’s Seminary; Pushkarnye, Poland, 1922. (YIVO Archives)

Left to right, Congressman Jerrold Nadler,

Bruce Slovin, Chairman; and David Weprin,

New York City Council Member, Chair, Finance

Committee at Raisin’ the Roof.

17

York City Department of Design and Construction. The Centeralso received a $300,000 grant from Empire State DevelopmentCorporation.

Also on hand for the occasion were many friends and sup-porters of the Center, as well as of Fields and Moskowitz, amongthem Congressman Jerrold Nadler and Congresswoman CarolynMaloney; New York City Councilman and chair of the FinanceCommittee David Weprin; and Assemblywomen Debra Glick andLiz Krueger. We would like to thank everyone who helped “raisethe roof” at this historic occasion.

Title page of Afike Maginim (Vilna, 1909), commentaries on rabbinical law

by Sutzkever’s grandfather R. Shabtai Feinberg of Mikhaylishok.

Preserving Our Legacy: Patrons of the LibraryThe library and archival collections of the partners have quicklybecome major attractions for students and scholars interested inthe exploration of post-Diasporic Jewish history. In order to helppreserve the richness of these collections, the Center and itspartners recently launched a Patrons of the Library campaign.Patrons will support the essential and ongoing tasks of preserv-ing and cataloging the partners’ collections, and will ensuregreater online accessibility to the collections for the scholarlycommunity worldwide.

The benefits of becoming a Patron include aninvitation to an annual lunch, special library updates,a guided tour of the rare book collections, and a visitto the Center’s Preservation Lab, where documents aretreated and restored for posterity. The initial phase ofthe campaign raised $65,000. (A list of Patrons appearson page 18).

Have a Seat Endowing a seat in thebeautiful Leo S. and JuliaForchheimer Auditoriumoffers a donor a wonder-ful opportunity to createa lasting tribute to aloved one, and to partici-pate personally in theCenter’s growth. The 247-seat auditorium is thesetting for the Center’s extensive programs of film, con-certs, theater, lectures, and literary events. One of thearchitectural highlights of the Center, it was designedby the nationally prominent firm of Beyer Blinder Belle.

For information on gift opportunities, or toreceive an annual report, please call the Center’s Devel-opment Office at 917-606-8281.

Leo S. and Julia Forchheimer

Auditorium

Become a Friend of the CenterSupport the Center for Jewish History with a gift of $36 or more,and you will become a Friend of the Center and be eligible for thefollowing benefits:

• TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A 10% DISCOUNT AT THE FANYA GOTTESFELD HELLER BOOKSTORE.

• ENJOY A 10% DISCOUNT IN THE CONSTANTINER DATEPALM CAFÉ.

• RECEIVE A 15% DISCOUNT ON THE PRICE OF YOUR TICKETFOR CENTER SPONSORED EVENTS, FILMS, CONCERTS, AND LECTURES.

For further information call the Development Office, 917-606-8281. Please show your support and become a Friend of the Center.

18

FOUNDERSS. DANIEL ABRAHAM, DR. EDWARD L. STEINBERG—

HEALTHY FOODS OF AMERICA, LLCANONYMOUS

ANTIQUA FOUNDATION

EMILY AND LEN BLAVATNIK

ESTATE OF SOPHIE BOOKHALTER, M.D.LEO AND JULIA FORCHHEIMER FOUNDATION

LILLIAN GOLDMAN CHARITABLE TRUST

KATHERINE AND CLIFFORD H. GOLDSMITH

THE JESSELSON FAMILY

THE KRESGE FOUNDATION

RONALD S. LAUDER

BARBARA AND IRA A. LIPMAN AND SONS

NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL—GIFFORD MILLER, SPEAKER

NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF

CULTURAL AFFAIRS

NEW YORK STATE—GOVERNOR GEORGE

E. PATAKI

NEW YORK STATE—ASSEMBLY SPEAKER

SHELDON SILVER

NEW YORK STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT,LIBRARY AID PROGRAM

RONALD O. PERELMAN

BETTY AND WALTER L. POPPER

RELIANCE GROUP HOLDINGS, INC.INGEBORG AND IRA LEON RENNERT—

THE KEREN RUTH FOUNDATION

ANN AND MARCUS ROSENBERG

THE SLOVIN FAMILY

THE SMART FAMILY FOUNDATION

JOSEPH S. AND DIANE H. STEINBERG

THE WINNICK FAMILY FOUNDATION

SPONSORSSTANLEY I. BATKIN

JOAN AND JOSEPH F. CULLMAN 3RD

DIANE AND MARK GOLDMAN

HORACE W. GOLDSMITH FOUNDATION

THE GOTTESMAN FUND

GRUSS-LIPPER FOUNDATION

THE SAMBERG FAMILY FOUNDATION

THE SKIRBALL FOUNDATION

TISCH FOUNDATION

THEODORE AND RENEE WEILER FOUNDATION

PATRONSANONYMOUS

JUDY AND RONALD BARON

JAYNE AND HARVEY BEKER

ROBERT M. BEREN FOUNDATION

THE DAVID BERG FOUNDATION

BIALKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION—ANN AND KENNETH J. BIALKIN

GEORGE AND MARION BLUMENTHAL

ABRAHAM AND RACHEL BORNSTEIN

BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN—C. VIRGINIA

FIELDS, MANHATTAN BOROUGH PRESIDENT

LILI AND JON BOSSE

LOTTE AND LUDWIG BRAVMANN

THE ELI AND EDYTHE L. BROAD FOUNDATION

THE CONSTANTINER FAMILY

MR. AND MRS. J. MORTON DAVIS

DONALDSON, LUFKIN & JENRETTE

MICHAEL AND KIRK DOUGLAS

THE DAVID GEFFEN FOUNDATION

GEORGICA ADVISORS LLCWILLIAM B. GINSBERG

NATHAN AND LOUISE GOLDSMITH

FOUNDATION

JACK B. GRUBMAN

FANYA GOTTESFELD HELLER

SUSAN AND ROGER HERTOG

INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY

SERVICES

MR. AND MRS. PAUL KAGAN

LEAH AND MICHAEL KARFUNKEL

SIMA AND NATHAN KATZ AND FAMILY

BARCLAY KNAPP

MR. AND MRS. HENRY R. KRAVIS

CONSTANCE AND HARVEY KRUEGER

SIDNEY AND RUTH LAPIDUS

MR. AND MRS. THOMAS H. LEE

LEON LEVY

GEORGE L. LINDEMANN

THE MARCUS FOUNDATION

MARK FAMILY FOUNDATION

CRAIG AND SUSAN MCCAW FOUNDATION

LEO AND BETTY MELAMED

EDWARD AND SANDRA MEYER FOUNDATION

DEL AND BEATRICE P. MINTZ FAMILY

CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

RUTH AND THEODORE N. MIRVIS

NEW YORK STATE - SENATOR ROY M. GOODMAN

NUSACH VILNE, INC.SUSAN AND ALAN PATRICOF

ANNE AND MARTY PERETZ

CAROL F. AND JOSEPH H. REICH

JUDITH AND BURTON P. RESNICK

THE MARC RICH FOUNDATION

RIGHTEOUS PERSONS FOUNDATION—STEVEN SPIELBERG

STEPHEN ROSENBERG—GREYSTONE & CO.LOUISE AND GABRIEL ROSENFELD,

HARRIET AND STEVEN PASSERMAN

DR. AND MRS. LINDSAY A. ROSENWALD

THE MORRIS AND ALMA SCHAPIRO FUND

S. H. AND HELEN R. SCHEUER FAMILY

FOUNDATION

FREDERIC M. SEEGAL

THE SELZ FOUNDATION

THE SHELDON H. SOLOW FOUNDATION

DAVID AND CINDY STONE—FREEDMAN &STONE LAW FIRM

ROBYNN N. AND ROBERT M. SUSSMAN

HELENE AND MORRIS TALANSKY

WACHTELL, LIPTON, ROSEN & KATZ

DR. SAMUEL D. WAKSAL

FRANCES AND LAURENCE A. WEINSTEIN

GENEVIEVE AND JUSTIN WYNER

BARBARA AND ROY J. ZUCKERBERG

BUILDERSJOSEPH ALEXANDER FOUNDATION

DWAYNE O. ANDREAS—ARCHER DANIELS

MIDLAND FOUNDATION

ANONYMOUS

BEATE AND JOSEPH D. BECKER

ANTHONY S. BELINKOFF

HALINA AND SAMSON BITENSKY

ANA AND IVAN BOESKY

CITIBANK

ROSALIND DEVON

VALERIE AND CHARLES DIKER

ERNST & YOUNG LLPMR. AND MRS. BARRY FEIRSTEIN

RICHARD AND RHODA GOLDMAN FUND

ARNOLD AND ARLENE GOLDSTEIN

THE SIDNEY KIMMEL FOUNDATION

GERALD AND MONA LEVINE

THE LIMAN FOUNDATION

MERRILL LYNCH & CO., INC.LOIS AND RICHARD MILLER

ARLEEN AND ROBERT S. RIFKIND

THE FREDERICK P. AND SANDRA P. ROSE

FOUNDATION

MAY AND SAMUEL RUDIN FAMILY

FOUNDATION, INC.SAVE AMERICA’S TREASURES

I.B. SPITZ

SHARON AND FRED STEIN

JUDY AND MICHAEL STEINHARDT

JANE AND STUART WEITZMAN

DAPHNA AND RICHARD ZIMAN

GUARDIANSMR. AND MRS. SAMUEL AARONS

WILLIAM AND KAREN ACKMAN

MR. AND MRS. MERV ADELSON

ARTHUR S. AINSBERG

MARJORIE AND NORMAN E. ALEXANDER

ANONYMOUS

MARCIA AND EUGENE APPLEBAUM

BANK OF AMERICA

SANFORD L. BATKIN

BEAR, STEARNS & CO., INC.VIVIAN AND NORMAN BELMONTE

JACK AND MARILYN BELZ

THE BENDHEIM FOUNDATION

TRACEY AND BRUCE BERKOWITZ

MEYER BERMAN FOUNDATION

BEYER BLINDER BELLE

THE BLOOMFIELD FAMILY

BOGATIN FAMILY FOUNDATION

RALPH H. BOOTH IIBOVIS LEND LEASE LMB, INC.DASSA AND BRILL—MARLENE BRILL

ETHEL BRODSKY

CALIFORNIA FEDERAL BANK

PATRICIA AND JAMES CAYNE

CENTER SHEET METAL, INC.—VICTOR GANY

CHASE MANHATTAN CORPORATION

CAREN AND ARTURO CONSTANTINER

CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON

ELLA CWIK-LIDSKY

IDE AND DAVID DANGOOR

Sharing Our CommitmentThe Center for Jewish History proudly recognizes the following donors of $10,000 or more fortheir generous gifts and grants that help further its mission to preserve the Jewish past, protect the present, and secure the future. This roster represents individuals, foundations, cor-porations, and government agencies, who have generously contributed to the Center.

cians were eliminated fromuniversity syllabuses. SAtroopers broke the fingers ofone of the city’s most promis-ing Jewish concert pianists,Adolph Baller. Hundreds ofJewish musicians were forcedinto exile; many were sent toconcentration camps, theirmusic silenced.

Were the Jews of Viennabetrayed by their commitmentto music’s universal, transcen-dent power? Did music encour-age a tragic naïveté amongthem? One of the virtues ofVienna: Jews and the City ofMusic is that it does not supplyanswers to those questions,but merely points to theirinadequacy. The tactile,human artifacts of lived expe-rience—the scribbled diaryentries and candid photo-graphs—remind us that his-torical inevitability isintelligible only in the pasttense. We are reminded thatmusic did indeed lead to anincredible degree of socialprominence for Jews in Vien-na, and that music’s power tounite or divide is a functionless of tonality or compositionthan of the character andintentions of the individualmusician and his audience.This, suggests Botstein, is per-haps the ultimate lesson of theexhibit. Music’s meaning, heexplains, “is completed by itscommunity of listeners.” Inother words, we should neverforget that the Jews of Viennawere not betrayed by theirmusic. They were betrayed bytheir fellow men.

Vienna: Jews and The City of Musiccontinued from page 13

Benjamin Soskis is completing a graduate degree in Americanreligious history at ColumbiaUniversity.

Center for Jewish History

19

CAROL AND EARLE I. MACK

MACKENZIE PARTNERS, INC.BERNARD L. AND RUTH MADOFF

FOUNDATION

SALLY AND ABE MAGID

JOSEPH MALEH

LAUREL AND JOEL MARCUS

MR. AND MRS. PETER W. MAY

THE MAYROCK FOUNDATION

DRS. ERNEST AND ERIKA MICHAEL

ABBY AND HOWARD MILSTEIN

MORGAN STANLEY & CO.AGAHAJAN NASSIMI AND FAMILY

THE FAMILY OF EUGENE AND MURIEL AND

MAYER D. NELSON

THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY

BERNARD AND TOBY NUSSBAUM

PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND, WHARTON & GARRISON

DORIS L. AND MARTIN D. PAYSON

ARTHUR AND MARILYN PENN

CHARITABLE TRUST

MR. AND MRS. NORMAN H. PESSIN

PHILIP MORRIS COMPANIES INC.DAVID AND CINDY PINTER

ROSA AND DAVID POLEN

NANCY AND MARTIN POLEVOY

YVONNE AND LESLIE POLLACK FAMILY

FOUNDATION

GERI AND LESTER POLLACK

FANNY PORTNOY

PUMPKIN TRUST—CAROL F. REICH

BESSY L. PUPKO

R & J CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION

ANNA AND MARTIN J. RABINOWITZ

JAMES AND SUSAN RATNER

PHILANTHROPIC FUND

ANITA AND YALE ROE

THE FAMILY OF EDWARD AND DORIS

ROSENTHAL

JACK AND ELIZABETH ROSENTHAL

SHAREN NANCY ROZEN

THE HARVEY AND PHYLLIS SANDLER

FOUNDATION

CAROL AND LAWRENCE SAPER

ALLYNE AND FRED SCHWARTZ

IRENE AND BERNARD SCHWARTZ

JOSEPH E. SEAGRAM & SONS, INC.ELLEN AND ROBERT SHASHA

SIMPSON THACHER & BARTLETT

SKADDEN, ARPS, SLATE, MEAGHER & FLOM LLC

ALAN B. SLIFKA FOUNDATION

SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA

JERRY I. SPEYER AND KATHERINE G. FARLEY

MEI AND RONALD STANTON

ANITA AND STUART SUBOTNICK

LYNN AND SY SYMS

LYNNE AND MICKEY TARNOPOL

THOMAS WEISEL PARTNERS

ALICE M. AND THOMAS J. TISCH

TRIARC COMPANIES—NELSON PELTZ AND

PETER MAY

SIMA AND RUBIN WAGNER

WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES

PETER A. WEINBERG

ERNST AND PUTTI WIMPFHEIMER—ERNA STIEBEL MEMORIAL FUND

DALE AND RAFAEL ZAKLAD

HOPE AND SIMON ZIFF

THE ZISES FAMILY

LIST COMPLETE AS OF 12/31/03

PATRONS OF THE LIBRARYEVE ABRAMS

MARGARET AND JAY G. AXELROD

STANLEY I. BATKIN

THE ELI AND EDYTHE L. BROAD

FOUNDATION

CAROL GENDLER

DAVID GERBER AND CAROLYN KORSMEYER

FRED GOULD

LORELEI AND BENJAMIN HAMMERMAN

DOLORES KREISMAN

CONSTANCE AND HARVEY KRUEGER

BETTY POPPER

ARLEEN AND ROBERT S. RIFKIND

CAROL AND LAWRENCE SAPER

JOANNE AND STUART SCHAPIRO

JOAN G. AND RICHARD J. SCHEUER

THE SELZ FOUNDATION

ALAN B. SLIFKA FOUNDATION

MANFRED SONDHEIMER

SHARON AND FRED STEIN

JUDY AND EDWARD L. STEINBERG

THE WINNICK FAMILY FOUNDATION

LOIS ZENKEL

LIST COMPLETE AS OF 12/31/03

CENTER HOURS

Monday–Thursday 9am–5:30pm

Friday 9am–2pm

Sunday 11am–5pm

PARTNERS

American Jewish Historical Society(AJHS)www.ajhs.org 212-294-6160

American Sephardi Federation (ASF)www.asfonline.org 212-294-8350

Leo Baeck Institute (LBI)www.lbi.org 212-744-6400

Yeshiva University Museum (YUM)www.yumuseum.org 212-294-8330

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research(YIVO)www.yivoinstitute.org 212-246-6080

LILLIAN GOLDMAN READING ROOM

Monday–Thursday 9:30am–5:15pm

Friday By appointment only

CONSTANTINER DATE PALM CAFÉ

Monday–Thursday 9am–4:30pm

Sunday 11am–4:30pm

FANYA GOTTESFELD HELLER BOOKSTORE

Monday–Thursday 10:30am–6pm

Sunday 10:30am–5pm

(Also open on select evenings; call in advance.)

GENERAL TELEPHONE NUMBERS

Box Office 917-606-8200

Reading Room 917-606-8217

Genealogy Institute 212-294-8324

General Information 212-294-8301

Group Tours 917-606-8226

AFFILIATES

American Society for Jewish Music212-294-8328

Association for Jewish Studies917-606-8249

Austrian Heritage 212-294-8409

Centro Culturale Primo Levi917-606-8202

Gomez Mill House 212-294-8329

Jewish Genealogical Society of New York212-294-8326

Yemenite Jewish Federation of America 212-294-8327

ESTHER AND ROBERT DAVIDOFF

ANTHONY DEFELICE—WILLIS

THE PHILIP DEVON FAMILY FOUNDATION

BERNICE AND DONALD DRAPKIN

E. M. WARBURG, PINCUS & CO., LLCHENRY, KAMRAN AND FREDERICK

ELGHANAYAN

MARTIN I. ELIAS

GAIL AND ALFRED ENGELBERG

CLAIRE AND JOSEPH H. FLOM

FOREST ELECTRIC CORPORATION

DAVID GERBER AND CAROLYN KORSMEYER

ROBERT T. AND LINDA W. GOAD

GOLDMAN, SACHS & CO.REBECCA AND LAURENCE GRAFSTEIN

EUGENE AND EMILY GRANT FAMILY

FOUNDATION

CLIFF GREENBERG

LORELEI AND BENJAMIN HAMMERMAN

JAMES HARMON

ELLEN AND DAVID S. HIRSCH

ADA AND JIM HORWICH

HSBC BANK USAPAUL T. JONES IIGERSHON KEKST

KNIGHT TRADING GROUP, INC.JANET AND JOHN KORNREICH

KPMG LLPHILARY BALLON AND ORIN KRAMER

LAQUILA CONSTRUCTION

THE FAMILY OF LOLLY AND JULIAN LAVITT

LEHMAN BROTHERS

EILEEN AND PETER M. LEHRER

DENNIS LEIBOWITZ

ABBY AND MITCH LEIGH FOUNDATION

LIBERTY MARBLE, INC.KENNETH AND EVELYN LIPPER FOUNDATION

(all facilities closed Saturdays)

Visit www.cjh.org for a schedule of exhibitions and events.

From the Executive Director

have a friend who liveson French Hill in

northeast Jerusalem, andeach day he commutes towork in Abu Tor, on the oppo-site, southwest end of thecity. Winding around the wallsof the Old City, he says that hetravels three thousand yearsevery morning! Although mynew daily journey is chrono-logically shorter, I feel thesame way. Walking throughthe Center for Jewish Historyis an excursion through thehills and valleys of the Dias-pora Jewish experience. It is aplace filled with tragedies andtriumphs, with suffering andcelebration, displaying thebreadth of a universal humanexperience along with theunique story of the Jewishpeople. Its walls contain avast territory of culture,scholarship, and history, andit is a pleasure, and an educa-tion, to traverse it each day.

I am honored to havebeen selected to lead this dis-tinguished institution at this

critical juncture in its history.The building is brimming withthe creativity and competenceof those who dedicate them-selves to the preservation andpresentation of the collectionsof the American Jewish Histor-ical Society, the AmericanSephardi Federation, the LeoBaeck Institute, Yeshiva Uni-versity Museum, and the YIVOInstitute for Jewish Research.Their archives are impressive.Yet we must guard against thestereotype that history is com-posed of dry dates and facts,while its humanistic energy—the faces and stories andpassions that make up thepast—lies untapped.

“Our goal should be tomake it possible for every Jew-ish person, child or adult, tobe exposed to the mystery andromance of Jewish history,”challenged Professor IsidoreTwersky. The Center for JewishHistory is poised to take upthis challenge, and to bring itsunique resources and scholar-ship to the North American

Jewish community andbeyond. We will do thisthrough massive improve-ments to the collections’online accessibility; throughhigh-quality digitization ofphotos, documents, and arti-facts; through the presenta-tion and publication of worksof young scholars; andthrough videoconference pre-sentations of the Center’ssuperb program of lectures,music, art, and theatre to com-munities across the country.

Our plans for the com-memoration of the 350thanniversary of Jewish settle-ment in North America willbegin in April 2005 and createat the Center the single largestexhibition of the AmericanJewish experience ever assem-bled and presented to the pub-lic. Next spring the Center willbe a place of unparalleledvitality and excitement.

These bold programs andinitiatives, of course, requirefunding. The Center needshelp from all of its friends so it

can continue to take up thechallenges of preserving itsinvaluable collections andmaking them available forgenerations to come, in orderto share the journey of theDiaspora Jewish experiencewith the broadest possibleaudience. Therefore, I urge youto make the most generouscontribution you can to theCenter for Jewish History inthe attached envelope.

I look forward to wel-coming you to our wonderfulfacility and to sharing withyou our plans for futuregrowth and development inthe coming issues of The Jew-ish Experience.

I

Nonprofit Org.US Postage

PAIDNew York, NY

Permit #04568

15 West 16th StreetNew York, NY 10011www.cjh.org

Peter A. Geffen

Save the Date: Sunday, April 4, 2004Luminous Manuscript Opens to the Public