2021 National History Day: Communication in History

Leopold (Leo) Shapiro was born in Paris, France, in 1907 and emigrated with his parents and brother, Jacques, to Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, when he was 8 years old. Shapiro began his career with the Boston Globe as a copy boy on the night shift. By 1928, Shapiro was reporting on education topics in Boston. Through much of his career, from the 1940s through the 1970s, Shapiro wrote about the Jewish community in Boston and abroad. Although he covered many other topics, most of the articles were about Israel, Jewish life in Boston and abroad, and the local Jewish community. Between 1946 and 1969, Shapiro wrote the column "Local Lines," which documented and publicized the activities of and programs within the Boston Jewish community. This collection contains newspaper articles written by Leo Shapiro from much of his 52-year career with the Boston Globe. The collection of articles contains works on education, politics, sports, civil right, Boston life, the arts, and the Jewish community in Boston, Israel, and abroad.

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This collection contains the educational and professional work of Hinda Sterling and Herb Selesnick—particularly the work they conducted for Sterling & Selesnick, Inc., their organizational consulting firm, and Stockworth, the comic strip they produced. Material related to their production of Stockworth include newspaper articles, comic strips, negatives, reports, and books. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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This collection contains the professional and personal papers of Rabbi Avraham Hirsch Freedman, who throughout his career served as rabbi at Congregation Adath Jeshurun (Ottawa, Canada), Durban United Hebrew Congregation (Durban, South Africa), and Congregation Beth Israel (Bangor, Maine), as well as those of his wife Hannah Schaiman Freedman. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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Albert I. Gordon was a Rabbi, author, and sociologist. Rabbi of Temple Israel of Washington Heights, New York (1929-1930), Adath Jeshurun in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1930-1946) and Temple Emanuel in Newton, Massachusetts (1949-1968), Rabbi Gordon also served as Executive Director of the United Synagogue of America (1946-1949) and wrote numerous articles and pamphlets, as well as the books Jews in Transition, Jews in Suburbia, Intermarriage, and The Nature of Conversion. Gordon also hosted a radio program in Minneapolis on WCCO for many years. This collection contains typescripts of Gordon's radio addresses; research, notes and interviews for his books, various sermons and speeches; correspondence, photographs, and materials from his synagogues. 

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This collection contains correspondence, flyers, newsletters, writings, speeches, position papers, and administrative records documenting the activities and work of the Boston Committee to Challenge Anti-Semitism, an organization founded in 1978 for both Jews and non-Jews to combat anti-Semitism and celebrate Jewish culture. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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This collection contains correspondence, addresses and speeches, newspaper clippings, and published material relating primarily to Ehrmann's activity in the national and Boston chapter of the American Jewish Committee (1935-1970). Of special interest is material on the relation of the Committee to the American Jewish Conference (1943-1948), the relationship of American Jewry to the State of Israel, and the attitude of the Committee to the establishment of Israel. Also contains genealogical material, in German and in English, between Ehrmann and his relatives in Poland immediately prior World War II, and in Italy immediately after the war. Also contains letters and reports sent by Mrs. Sara Rosenfeld Ehrmann (b. 1895) by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the United Jewish Appeal, dealing primarily with fund-raising matters. A report pertaining to the S.S. St. Louis is also included. 

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This collection contains records of the New England Region of the National Council for Jewish Women (NCJW), including annual reports, event programs, research studies, agendas, speeches, by-laws, bulletins, news clippings, a limited number of photographs, and correspondence to and from Beatrice Feingold, various field representatives, and other staff and members of the NCJW. There are also folders containing newsletters, speeches and programs from local chapters in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine. The New England Region was involved in fundraising and volunteering, specifically around children's causes and Israel. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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George and Sadie Kramer were active and dedicated members of the Zionist movement. Much of their work was done within their home community in Malden, Massachusetts, where they addressed issues facing the Jewish community both locally and globally, including advocacy for Palestine to become the Jewish homeland, organizing community events, and working with the United Jewish Appeal.  

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This collection contains multiple radio addresses and speeches made by Rabbi Liebman on a variety of topics between 1940 and 1947. His topics included Zionism, Judaism, Dr. Chaim Weitzman, Rabbi Stephen Wise, United States Supreme Court Justices Louis Brandeis and Benjamin Cardozo, as well as matters relating to the positive impact of religion on mind and spirit. More on Rabbi Liebman can be found at the Temple Israel Archives in Boston. 

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This collection contains awards and honors, business records, meeting minutes, financial documents, correspondence, manuscripts, interview transcripts, and speeches documenting the lives of lawyer and philanthropist David R. Pokross and his wife Muriel K. Pokross. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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The Rabb Family and Stop & Shop Collection documents the Rabb family and its involvement in Stop & Shop from 1912 to 1989. The collection contains historical sketches, newspaper clippings, press releases, correspondence, memoranda, minutes, reports, advertisements, certificates, speeches, interviews, films, and photographs, and other miscellaneous materials. The materials in this collection focus partially on the family itself, including their lives, their careers, their participation in the Jewish community, and their philanthropic activities. The collection also contains a substantial amount of material relating to the history and business operations of Stop & Shop and its predecessor, the Economy Grocery Stores Company. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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Leo Levine was born Leizers Levins in Riga, Latvia, on September 30, 1907. He worked as a European war correspondent until the outbreak of World War II. After immigrating to Dorchester circa 1941, Levine wrote freelance newspaper columns about the war, including several that were published in St. John’s, Newfoundland’s The Telegram. Levine was also an artist. Leo Levine died in November 1980. The addendum contains materials about Leo Levine's wife, Sylvia Shlifer Levine, and their daughter, Helena Levine Ryan. Sylvia emigrated from Russia in 1913 with her family to escape the pogroms. A graduate of Radcliffe College, she wrote short stories and poems, many of which are included in this collection. Their daughter, Helena Levine Ryan, is a poet and piano teacher. Her work, as well as photographs of the Levine family and various published and unpublished memoirs, are included in this collection. Published materials have not been digitized; please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see those items. 

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Philip W. Lown was a businessman, philanthropist, and leading figure in the Jewish community. In 1926, he became a joint owner of the Pilgrim Shoe Company in Auburn, Maine, and later president of Penobscot Shoe Company and Lown Shoes Inc. Starting in 1937 and up until his death, Lown worked tirelessly on education endeavors. He served on such boards as the American Association for Jewish Education, the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundations, and the World Council on Jewish Education. He also founded the Lown School of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Graduate Center for Contemporary Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. This collection contains Lown’s autobiographical and biographical memoirs, writings, speeches, notes, personal correspondence, honors, photographs, and news clippings.

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The Milontaler family were second- and third- generation Jewish immigrants from Roxbury, Massachusetts. Louis Millionthaler immigrated from what was then Suwalki, Poland to the North End of Boston in the late 19th century. His son Maurice Milontaler was a shop owner and amateur writer who wrote a memoir about Jewish life in the North End. The majority of this collection includes Maurice Milontaler’s notes for his memoir, as well as the finished product. Photographs, correspondence and course notebooks from Harold Milontaler’s years at Harvard University are also included. 

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This collection contains the papers of the Schwartz family, with the bulk of materials being letters to and from family members in Austria and Hungary before and after World War II. It contains the original letters written in Yiddish, transcribed and translated versions of those letters, and two compilation books published in 2013 by Carroll Schwartz. These two books include extensive biographical information about the Schwartz and Newman families, photographs, maps, genealogical trees, and additional copies of the letters. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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Born in 1888 in Odessa, Sara (Buminowitz) Wernon Sloan immigrated to the United States at the age of ten with her mother and siblings. She became a garment worker and wrote of her experiences working in New York City. This collection contains typed manuscripts of her memoirs written in the 1970s and also includes related correspondence, in which various readers of the memoirs describe their impressions. 

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Myer Starr was born in Dmitrovka in the Ukraine, which was then part of Russia. As a child he was apprenticed to a tailor and later a bakery before he began work at a dry goods store at the age of 11. After his mother died, Starr and his younger brother crossed the border into Germany and then immigrated to the United States. Starr and his brother sailed on the "Kleist" into New York in February 1913. From there, they traveled to a sister's house in Malden, Massachusetts. Myer later married and had two sons, graduates of Harvard College and Tufts University. This collection contains his unpublished memoir. 

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This collection contains 19 letters written by author and immigration rights activist Mary Antin to educator and politician Alfred Seelye Roe. The letters began shortly after their initial meeting at a lecture Roe gave at Boston’s Park Street Church in 1898, and continued until 1900, after which their correspondence resumed after a 12-year hiatus. Antin’s letters detail her experiences as an immigrant in her newly adopted and much beloved America as she becomes a well-known author (Antin later published the book The Promised Land). Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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Nathan Isaacs became a Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati until 1918 and was Assistant Dean from 1916-1918. From 1918-1919 during World War I, he served in the Army as a Captain of Military Intelligence. After the war Nathan was the Ezra Ripley Thayer Teaching Fellow at Harvard University from 1919 to 1920. From 1920 to1923 he taught Law at the University of Pittsburgh, returning to Harvard University in 1923 as a lecturer for a year and then was a Professor of Business Law from 1924 until his death in 1941. This collection comprises the papers of the Davis and Isaacs families, the bulk of which dates from about 1900 to 1940. It includes mostly correspondence, travel diaries, and journals. While most of the material is written in English, some correspondence is written in Hebrew and German. 

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A U.S. attorney and community leader, Bernard L. Gorfinkle was born on October 29, 1889 to Harris and Sarah (Miliontaler) Gorfinkle in Boston, Massachusetts. Gorfinkle's military career began in 1913 when he enlisted in the Massachusetts cavalry and served at the Mexican border as a sergeant under General John J. Pershing. Upon the entrance of the U.S. into World War I, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the American Expeditionary Forces. He participated in seven major battles and was wounded twice at Verdun, and promoted on the battlefield from second lieutenant to Captain Judge Advocate in the 26th Yankee Division. After the armistice, he was assigned to the American Peace Commission as secretary and military aide to Bernard M. Baruch. He was appointed Secretary of the Raw Materials Section of the Supreme Economic Council and Paris representative of the Rhineland Commission. He was present at the signing of the Versailles Treaty in 1919 as a military aide to President Woodrow Wilson. This collection contains family and official U.S. Army correspondence, telegrams, and handwritten notes chronicling Bernard L. Gorfinkle's personal life and military career. 

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This collection contains the correspondence between two Jewish teenager pen pals Walter Weiner from Boston and Jenny Wilk from Antwerp, between the years 1938 and 1941. Jenny’s letters provide information about the increase of everyday antisemitism in Antwerp in the late 1930s. She tells Walter about her experiences with verbal insults from her Flemish peers and the rise of violent incidents against Jews in the city. When the war starts, she asks Walter to help her family plan their departure from Europe by tracing a relative who presumably lived in Brooklyn, New York. In his responses Walter encourages Jenny to maintain a positive attitude despite her worries and shares with her his observation of declining antisemitism in the United States. In her last letter, Jenny tells Walter of her escape to France and her experiences in a camp there, before deciding to return to Belgium. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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Abraham and Frieda Wolper were Jewish parents in Chelsea, Massachusetts. In 1949, the Wolpers submitted a petition with the school board about Christmas carols and displays of Christmas pageants in public schools. Criticism from Jews and non-Jews, including virulently anti-Semitic correspondence sent to the Wolpers, forced them to withdraw their petition. This collection contains letters sent to the Wolpers denouncing their petition. Many of the letters are anti-Semitic in nature, arguing that the Wolpers are anti-American and should go back to Russia. Newspaper clippings about the petition and letters to the School Board, including the one withdrawing the petition, are included. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry began in April 1964, with college students from Yeshiva University, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Columbia University and Queens College gathering to discuss the plight of Soviet Jews. The meeting was the starting point for a grassroots movement led by Jacob Birnbaum, a British man whose family escaped Nazi Germany, to put pressure on the United States government to condemn the Soviet government's treatment of Soviet Jewry. Numerous college students were engaged in the movement, including those in the New England area. Limited information is available on the New England movement's history, but it began sometime in the mid-1960s and was active in the community throughout the early and mid-1970s. Included in this collection are letters to and from government officials and Rabbis who supported the cause. 

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The Student Coalition for Soviet Jewry (SCSJ) was founded in 1977 in response to the arrest of Anatoly B. Shcharansky. Thirteen students from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts went to Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress about the problems faced by Jews in the Soviet Union. The numbers of students involved continued to grow and expanded to include students from other colleges and universities in the United States. The Washington Lobby, which was held every February, provided opportunities for students to meet with members of Congress to educate them on the plight of Soviet Jews and urge them to get involved, either in letter writing campaigns or the adoption of Refuseniks (a term for Soviets who were denied the right to emigrate). Students also participated in silent vigils in front of the Soviet embassy and met with representatives of the Soviet Affairs desk at the State Department.  

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This collection contains correspondence documenting the life of Harry Spiro following his immigration from the shtetl of Butrimantz in Lithuania, first to Havana, Cuba and then to the United States. Included in the collection are materials relating to his family; Yiddish letters have been translated. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) was founded in New York City in the 1880s. The Boston office of HIAS was chartered in 1904 and operated autonomously from the national office in New York even after their merger in 1916. HIAS ensured that Jewish immigrants had access to holiday and religious services and kosher food; provided shelter and social services; and assisted immigrants with finding employment and schools. This collection contains the individual case files of immigrants who received assistance from the Boston office of HIAS, many of which included correspondence to and from government officials, immigration officials, and the refugees themselves.   

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Abraham Captain Ratshesky (1864-1943) was a banker by profession who founded the U.S. Trust Company with his brother Israel in 1895, and also served in a variety of political positions, including the Massachusetts State Senate from 1892-1895, delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1892, 1904, 1908, 1916, and 1924, Assistant Food Administrator for Massachusetts during World War I, and most importantly, United States Minister to Czechoslovakia from 1930-1932. In 1933, Ratshesky was honored with the Order of the White Lion First Class, Czechoslovakia’s highest honor. A noted philanthropist, Ratshesky was involved in relief efforts for the 1917 Halifax Disaster, the donation of the building used for the American Red Cross headquarters in Boston, and the 1925 “Pennies Campaign” to restore the U.S.S. Constitution. He also founded the A.C. Ratshesky Charity Foundation in 1916, still in operation. This collection contains reports on actions as U.S. Minister, diaries, correspondence, and a scrapbook documenting the even in Halifax and it’s aftermath with newspaper clippings, reports, and correspondence. 

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Active in the Zionist movement, in 1919 Stone was responsible for the passage of a resolution in the Massachusetts House of Representatives urging American Delegates to the Paris Peace Conference to support the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine. He was largely responsible for the passage of the Palestine Resolution by the Massachusetts Legislation on March 29, 1922, which in turn led to the Joint Resolution passed by the U.S. Congress later that year, favoring the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. This collection contains speeches, essays, correspondence, resolutions, and photographs documenting the professional, political, and personal life of Stone. Some material is in Hebrew, Yiddish, and German.   

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William Marcus was born Wolf Shevitz on June 14, 1892 in Bialostock, Russia to Abraham and Sarah Shevitz. Wolf came to the United States on the Lusitania in 1910 via Liverpool, England and worked as a garment cutter until he enlisted in the United States Army. According to family history, he enlisted under the name William Marcus so that his family would not discover he joined the Army. Marcus was the name of his uncle in New York. During his time in the Army, William was stationed at Camp Dix in New Jersey and then transferred to England, and later France. He and his fiancé Minnie Feldman exchanged frequent letters and postcards while William was abroad, along with a few telegrams, photographs, and even an envelope of rose petals. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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Rabbi David Alpert was born in Boston in 1900. A graduate of Boston University College of Liberal Arts, Harvard Divinity School and the Jewish Institute of Religion, Alpert was the first Boston born Rabbi and the youngest to be appointed to his own congregation. After serving in World War I, at the age of 24, Alpert was appointed Rabbi of Congregation Beth Hasholom in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. By the 1930s he was living in the Boston area, where he was involved in Jewish chaplaincy at local hospitals, mental health institutions, and in 1947, the State Department. Among those institutions served by Alpert were Boston City Hospital, Jewish Memorial Hospital, Wrenthem State School, Walter E. Fernald State School, Worcester State Hospital, Foxborough State Hospital, and Grafton State Hospital. A prolific writer, Alpert had numerous articles published in local Jewish newspapers. This collection includes numerous diaries written by DBA from the 1940s to early 1980s. Please email us if you would like to make an appointment to see this collection. 

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Adolphus Strassman was born on March 7, 1848 in Ungvár, Hungary, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He arrived with his family in New York on July 7, 1857 and eventually settled in Fall River, Massachusetts. On November 23, 1863, Strassman enrolled in the Union Army. The regiment was headquartered at Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, until May 1864, when it moved to the New Bern, North Carolina, and remained there until July 1865. Adolphus Strassman’s diary was written while the regiment was at New Bern.

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Samuel H. Gurvitz was born in Boston and graduated from Boston English High School in 1921 and Suffolk Law School in 1926. A resident of Newton, Massachusetts, he owned the New England Millwork Distributors in Dorchester for 30 years and practiced law privately. This collection contains schedules and notes from Gurvitz's trips to Palestine (1934 and 1936); Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw (1939); and Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and Paris (1939.) The European trips, sponsored by the American Joint Distribution Committee, focused on visiting camps for illegal refugees and Jewish towns. His notes discuss the political and emotional mood in Europe at this time due to the impact of Nazi Germany. The notes are a firsthand account of what was happening to Jews in Europe just prior to World War II.  

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Lina Hecht founded the Hecht House in 1889 as the Hebrew Industrial School in the North End of Boston. The school's primary purpose was to educate young female immigrants in a trade (particularly sewing) so that they could provide for themselves in their new country. In 1936, Hecht Neighborhood House moved to Dorchester. At this point it operated as a community center for children and adults, and included a Nursery School, as well as programs for school children, high school students, young adults, and adults. Numerous reports are within this collection: annual reports; club reports; and evaluations. 

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The Louisa May Alcott Club was established in November of 1895 at 9 Rochester Street in Boston, Massachusetts. It operated as a self-governing club with 11-17 year old girls. A constitution was set in place that ensured the girls would each pay five cents a week towards the club, but only while they were working. The participating girls were all immigrants or children of immigrants, and classes were held at the building to teach the girls English, cooking and sewing. In 1896/1897 the club moved to a building at 17 Oswego Street. This collection includes a typescript of a description of the club, written by someone with the initials M.M.R. 

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Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) of Boston, Massachusetts is the oldest federated Jewish philanthropic organization in the United States. The current incarnation of CJP was formed in 1960, when two separate federated philanthropies – the Combined Jewish Appeal and Associated Jewish Philanthropies – merged to create a single organization dedicated to serving the needs of Boston’s Jewish community. CJP’s records contain the history of several other organizations, from the forerunners of the current Federation to the Jewish institutions supported by CJP. Their beginnings can be traced to the founding of the United Hebrew Benevolent Association (UHBA) in 1864 at the Pleasant Street Synagogue (now Temple Israel).   

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Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) of Boston, Massachusetts is the oldest federated Jewish philanthropic organization in the United States. The current incarnation of CJP was formed in 1960, when two separate federated philanthropies – the Combined Jewish Appeal and Associated Jewish Philanthropies – merged to create a single organization dedicated to serving the needs of Boston’s Jewish community. CJP’s records contain the history of several other organizations, from the forerunners of the current Federation to the Jewish institutions supported by CJP. Their beginnings can be traced to the founding of the United Hebrew Benevolent Association (UHBA) in 1864 at the Pleasant Street Synagogue (now Temple Israel).   

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