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…
Above, a boy stands before the oldest surviving synagogue building in New York City, located at 172 Norfolk Street. What was then a neighborhood fixture brimming with debates about Jewish identity and rite has, like many other Lower East Side synagogues, since faced…
The YIVO collections include a photo album that the Jewish aid organization OSE-Morocco had sent to the United States in September 1956 [see below]. Neatly pinned and accurately labeled, the images reveal the panorama of health care activities…
In the late spring of 1955, West London Synagogue’s Stern Hall hummed with a flurry of voices in various languages. Over one hundred representatives of Jewish communities and organizations, originating from twenty countries, huddled behind long rows of tables in the smoke-filled conference…
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…
