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…
Death masks, molded from plaster in the first hours after death before the features have stiffened or atrophied, were used for centuries to preserve the appearance of nobility and other eminent persons as models for posthumous sculptures or painted portraits. In the 19th century,…
Convicted of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed 70 years ago on June 19, 1953, the first and only American civilians to face the death penalty for espionage. At the time, many…
