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jewish history

Tracing the Past: Deciphering Handwriting in Yiddish and Hebrew

By J.D. Arden, Reference Services Librarian, Genealogy Specialist, Center for Jewish History

Here at the
Center for Jewish History in the Ackman and Ziff Family
Genealogy Institute
, researchers in genealogy often
discover or bring in old postcards, letters, manuscripts or vital statistics
records. These old documents are notoriously difficult to read! Some are in
Yiddish,…

Shad Polier and the Civil Rights Movement

To commemorate the end of Black History Month, our new intern Poorvi Buller looked through an American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) collection of Shad Polier’s papers for quotes that are emblematic of this lawyer and activist’s commitment to protecting civil rights. Tomorrow, we will be tweeting these quotes out to remind all those in our community of the lasting significance of the civil rights movement, and…

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Kindertransport

As part of the Kindertransport movement, thousands of Jewish children from Central Europe were allowed to immigrate to Britain. There, most lived with host families throughout the war. Above is a list from 1934, matching refugee children with families in Britain.

Image: Courtesy of Leo Baeck Institute

The Center for Jewish History insists upon the most genuine of American and Jewish values: religious freedom, human…

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