A letter from a committee from Shearith Israel (here spelled "Sherath") congregation asking the KKBE Board of Trustees to use their synagogue for the "approaching holidays."
Black-and-white offset print reproduction depicting the Ninth of Av at the Nineteenth Street Synagogue, former location of Congregation Shearith Israel at the corner of 19th Street and 5th Avenue in New York. From the article "The Jews in New York" by Richard Wheatley, published in the January 1892 edition of The Century Magazine.
Black-and-white offset print reproduction of the interior of the Nineteenth Street Synagogue, former location of Congregation Shearith Israel at the corner of 19th Street and 5th Avenue in New York, on the occasion of its consecration. Published in the September 29, 1860, edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.
Black-and-white offset print reproduction of the interior of the Nineteenth Street Synagogue, former location of Congregation Shearith Israel at the corner of 19th Street and 5th Avenue in New York, on the occasion of its consecration. Published in the September 29, 1860, edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.
Map of the city of New York as it was in the years 1742-1744, including the first Mill Street Synagogue of Congregation Shearith Israel. Lithograph by George Hayward after an original drawing by David Grim. Published in D. T. Valentine's Manual of the corporation of the city of New York for 1854.
Meeting minutes not included in the minutes book discussing the amalgamation of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim and Shearith Israel, and finances related to synagogue repairs.
Meeting minutes volume kept by the Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Board of Trustees, 1857-1866. The entries in this volume concern all synagogue business, finances, membership, alterations regarding seating within the synagogue, the organ, and the choir. This volume also covers discussions regarding the amalgamation of the KKBE and Shearith Israel congregations in Charleston, S.C.
Meeting minutes volume kept by the Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Board of Trustees, 1866-1875. The entries in this volume concern all synagogue business, finances, membership, and plans of the amalgamation between the KKBE and Shearith Israel congregations. This volume also includes entries from 1863 regarding destruction caused in the midst of the Civil War.
A note on the state of the congregation's membership numbers, finances, and property as a result of "the ravages of war." The note discusses the beginnings of the union with the Shearith Israel congregation (spelled here as "Sherit"). This note was written in connection with the KKBE Meeting Minutes Book dated 1866-1875.
Postcard with a reproduction of a watercolor of the exterior of the Ballarat Hebrew Congregation. The watercolor is from an illuminated address presented by the Victorian Jewish Community to Sir Benjamin Benjamin, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, in honor of his Knighthood in 1889.
Postcard with a reproduction of a watercolor of the exterior of the former location of the Geelong Hebrew Congregation. The watercolor is from an illuminated address presented by the Victorian Jewish Community to Sir Benjamin Benjamin, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, in honor of his Knighthood in 1889.
Postcard with a reproduction of a watercolor of the exterior of the former location of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation on Bourke Street. The watercolor is from an illuminated address presented by the Victorian Jewish Community to Sir Benjamin Benjamin, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, in honor of his Knighthood in 1889.
Raymond Lifchez was born in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1932, to Jennie Burkom and Isaac Lifchez. He talks about his two older sisters and growing up in the capital city where his father ran Liberty Loan and Luggage on Main Street. Raymond did not feel very connected to the Jewish community in Columbia, although the Lifchezes were members of the Orthodox synagogue, House of Peace. After his mother, Jennie, died, Raymond, only nine years old, became very close to his neighbor Lula Belle Campbell, and they remained lifelong friends. As a teen, he began to notice instances of antisemitism and remembers feeling frightened by stories of Jews being rounded up by the Nazis in Europe. Raymond earned his architecture degree from the University of Florida and taught at Columbia University in New York City as a graduate student. He met his wife, Judith Lee Stronach, at Columbia; they married in 1967 and moved to California three years later. He joined the faculty at University of California, Berkeley, which, he notes, "was one of the first schools to really open its doors to the disabled." He describes his work in architectural accessibility. The interviewee discusses aspects of his spirituality, including the appeal of Sufism, his return to Judaism, and his attendance at a number of churches and synagogues. He offers his view of American Jews and how he sees himself in terms of his Jewish identity.
Richard Gergel, born in 1954 in Columbia, South Carolina, is joined in this interview by his wife, Belinda Friedman Gergel. He is the youngest of three children of Meri Friedman and Melvin Gergel, who owned a number of stores in the capital city. Richard provides background on his immigrant grandparents and how they came to the United States. His paternal grandfather, Joseph Gergel, was from Ukraine; he married Jean Fingerhut of Toronto, Canada. Before running Gergel?s Men?s Shop on Main Street in Columbia, Joseph peddled and operated a store on Assembly Street. The interviewee explains how his maternal grandparents, Rebecca Dreiziak/Dreiszek and Sam Friedman, ended up in his hometown after raising Meri and her sisters in Kingstree, South Carolina. Richard describes growing up in Columbia and talks about the merchants who lined Main Street, most of them Jewish and many related to the Friedmans. He attended Keenan High School and served as the student body president in 1970?71, the year the school transitioned from a junior high to a high school and became fully integrated. ?I was very committed to this issue of making school desegregation work.? Regarding antisemitism in Columbia, Richard remembers ?isolated episodes in my childhood, but they were so unusual that they actually stood out because that was not the norm. Jews were generally very accepted.? However, he does cite instances of antisemitism in earlier decades reported to him by his father. Richard notes ?there was no institution more important to my family than the Tree of Life Congregation,? and recalls studying with Rabbi Gruber in preparation for his bar mitzvah at the Reform synagogue. He discusses his family?s involvement on the boards of the congregation and the Columbia Hebrew Benevolent Society. After earning his law degree at Duke University, Richard returned to Columbia to work in private practice; in 2009 he was nominated to the United States District Court for South Carolina by the Obama administration. The interviewee recounts how, about a decade ago, he learned of Gergel relatives living in Russia. When his grandfather Joseph and Joseph?s three brothers, Isidore, Max, and Gustave, came to Columbia, they left behind four brothers and a sister in Ukraine. The separated branches of the family confirmed their connection when both were able to produce the same family photo, taken on the occasion of Isidore Gergel?s visit home after immigrating to America. Note: see also interviews with Melvin Gergel?s sister, Shirley Gergel Ness, January 21, 2016, Mss. 1035-449 and Meri Friedman Gergel and her sister Rae Friedman Berry, July 17, 1997, Mss. 1035-154.
In this second of a two-part interview, Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg describes her career after graduating from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She first took a job as music director at WPTF radio in Raleigh, North Carolina. When she and her husband, Ira Rosenberg, moved to Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1960s, she went to work at WKTM radio, owned by her cousin Ansley Cohen, selling advertising spots, and doing whatever else was needed. Anita notes that working at WKTM was exciting because it was FM, which "was coming into its own," and it was "Charleston's first rock station." After a few years, she went into "the advertising agency world" and was active in the local professional association, Advertising Federation of Charleston, and the national association, American Advertising Federation, which recognized her work with their Silver Medal Award. One of her clients was Pearlstine Distributors, who hired her to run its marketing and advertising department. Anita talks about other jobs she held and the various types of work she did in advertising. "Just every different avenue of this profession has been fun and interesting, and very rewarding to do." In Charleston, the interviewee has been involved in numerous Jewish and non-Jewish community organizations and events as part of her professional work and her personal commitment to giving back. She recounts how she met her husband, Ira, the son of Bessie Lipschutz and Alan Rosenberg. "Two different worlds met each other." Ira's parents, Orthodox Jews from New York, raised him in Richmond, Virginia. Anita grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, in a Reform temple. Anita and Ira's three children are David, Virginia, and Mindelle. Anita discusses how and why she and Ira were able to adopt Virginia in 1967 as an infant. The Rosenberg family belonged to Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE), Charleston's Reform synagogue. The interviewee talks about her children and grandchildren. Her son, David, and his wife, Marcie, are members of the relatively new Modern Orthodox Dor Tikvah in Charleston. Anita and Ira started keeping kosher years ago?something they did not do while raising their children?to accommodate family members who are kosher. Anita considers how practices have changed at KKBE: they have their first female rabbi and their first gay rabbi; the revised prayer books have English and Hebrew with transliterations and translations; the cantor's role has expanded and is more inclusive. She says, "Conservative and Reform are moving closer to each other in today's world," and adds "from a historical point of view, the ancestors were Sephardic Orthodox Jews who settled here. That's my beginnings. So I don't feel like this is so strange, it's just a part of who I am." Anita briefly covers a number of other topics, including KKBE's past rabbis; its present-day choir; how the influx of people from other states has changed the congregation; the current status of Charleston's Jewish congregations and how/why they get along so well; her opinion about the presence of Chabad in the area; Jewish-gentile relations; and her thoughts on the Temple Sinai Jewish History Center in her hometown of Sumter. In a postscript to this interview, Anita recalls Alfreda LaBoard of Johns Island, the African-American woman who "was our nursie" from the time the Rosenberg kids were small. "She raised my children. I could never have done all the things that I did in the community, as well as Ira and I both busy with our careers, if it hadn't been for Alfreda." Comments and corrections made by the interviewee during proofing have been added to the transcript. For part one of this interview, see Mss. 1035-554. For related interviews, see Anita's interviews with her husband Ira Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-452 and Mss. 1035-461, and with her son, David Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-175. Also see a 1995 interview with her mother, Virginia Moise Rosefield, Mss. 1035-007.
