Browsing tag

jewish history

When Herschel Became Harry: How to Find your Ancestors’ Original Names

By Moriah Amit, Senior
Reference Services Librarian, Genealogy Coordinator

Although the notion that our immigrant ancestors’ names were changed by clerks at Ellis Island has been debunked time and again by noted scholars in Jewish genealogy (see References below), this myth remains pervasive in the stories that American Jews tell about their family history. The truth, that most of our immigrant ancestors chose…

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“The Radical Jewish Movement Wants You!”— Counter Culture Collections at the American Jewish Historical Society

By Nicole Greenhouse, Archivist

The
American Jewish Historical Society and the Center for Jewish History are proud
to highlight the AJHS Counter Culture Collections, a set
of over 170 linear feet of 25 smaller collections documenting Jewish involvement
in left politics, the Jewish Renewal movement, the Peace movement, and Jewish
student activism in the 20th century.  Materials in…

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Reflections on Yom HaShoah

by Center for Jewish History President and CEO Joel J. Levy

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust
Remembrance Day, is a time to remember, to commemorate, and to honor all those
who died in the Holocaust, as well as the survivors who endured those very dark
and terrible years. Sadly, Jewish history is replete with many earlier
instances of anti-Semitism,…

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Echoes and Reflections at the Center for Jewish History

by James Nadel, Communications Outreach Associate

A month ago, the Center for Jewish History hosted “Echoes
and Reflections
,”  a traveling program for educational
professionals that focuses on Holocaust pedagogy. Echoes and Reflections was
originally co-designed by three of the world’s most significant Jewish
institutions: the Anti-Defamation League, Yad-Vashem (the Holocaust museum of Israel) and the…

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