In response to widespread antisemitic accusations that Jews had not fought in the Civil War, a group of Jewish Civil War veterans met in New York in 1896 to establish the Hebrew Union Veterans. The group eventually changed their name to the Jewish War Veterans (JWV) of the…
The Yiddish press in America got its start in the late 19th century. By the 1910s, publications were flourishing and represented a wide variety of Jewish religious and political perspectives. Newspapers served as critical sites of information, entertainment, and learning. They provided access to local and national news in…
Two days before Yom Kippur in 1928, a four-year-old girl named Barbara Griffiths wandered into the woods near her home in Massena, New York, a small town in St. Lawrence County along the Canadian border. After a day of fruitless searching by crews and volunteers, the New York State…
In January 1904, Henry Jonas of Butte, Montana, wrote to the Industrial Removal Office (IRO) in New York, asking for their help sending a man named A. Pickholz from New York in order to work in Butte’s booming copper mines,…
By Ella Jordan-Smith
Reference Services Librarian, Center for Jewish History
In 1900, eleven delegates representing seven major local unions in the Northeast convened to form the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union. All eleven of these delegates were Jewish men (the “ladies” in the organization’s name refers to the garments, not…
