Havurat Shalom records

Tweet

In the fall of 1968, Havurat Shalom Community Seminary, a center for new forms of Jewish worship and religious study, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its mission was to be “a still small voice,” and bring new energy to Jewish spiritual and communal life. Brandeis University’s Archives & Special Collections department now holds the Havurat Shalom records collection, which contains materials, created between 1968 and 1976, documenting the founding and early years of this groundbreaking institution.

Havurat Shalom was to be more than just an educational institution. While providing intensive courses in Jewish theology and Judaic studies, the Havurah also fostered a social community, merging intellectual and communal life. The belief was that such a fusion would nurture a deeper kind of spirituality not possible in other Jewish religious settings. Several community members even lived together.

Out of this rich community came the best-selling and influential Jewish Catalog (in Brandeis’s Library collection). Authored by members of Havurat Shalom and Brandeis alums, this do-it-yourself manual for Judaism was modelled on the counterculture bible The Whole Earth Catalog and dedicated as follows: “to an old rambling yellow house in Somerville, MA…to Havurat Shalom.”

The materials in the Havurat Shalom collection at Brandeis demonstrate the articulation of the Havurah’s founding values. Included are drafts of Havurat Shalom’s founding covenant, minuted future planning discussions, and promotional brochures. These documents underscore the extent to which the founding members believed in the Havurah’s extraordinary potential to revitalize Jewish life, to connect the traditions of Judaism and the needs of the present.

The collection also includes documents which demonstrate Havurat Shalom’s functions as a center of religious education. Course lists highlight the founders’ desire to ensure a diverse curriculum; class topics ranged from scripture and theology to Jewish culture and philosophy. Courses were offered not only to official students of the seminary but to members of the wider community as well, through Havurat Shalom’s House of Study for Adults.

Brandeis University and Havurat Shalom were linked from the Havurah’s embryonic stages. The Havurah's primary founder, Rabbi Art Green, earned his BA ('61) and PhD ('75) from Brandeis University. In addition, Rabbi Albert Axelrad—a longtime director of Brandeis Hillel—was intensely involved in the early efforts. Rabbi Axelrad communicated plans for Havurat Shalom to other Jewish institutions, helped seek the participation of scholars and theologians for its advisory committee, took part in fundraising efforts, and corresponded with potential students. As well, Brandeis alumni became some of the Havurah’s first members, and many Brandeis students spread the word, telling their friends at other universities of the Havurah’s impending creation, and helping to expand interest in the project.

The Havurat Shalom records collection sheds light on an important moment in American Jewish life, a pioneering moment of experimentation with new forms of worship and spirituality. It demonstrates the energy and enthusiasm that accompanied this experiment, as a younger generation of Jews strove to rethink religiosity in the context of the late 1960s. It is a significant addition to Brandeis’s Archives & Special Collections and complements a growing set of collections documenting modern Jewish life, including the Arthur Green papers, also housed here.

For more information, please see the Havurat Shalom records finding aid.


All are welcome to view these materials at Brandeis University’s Archives & Special Collections, M-F, 9am-5pm. Please contact us if you would like to arrange a visit.

by Sean Beebe, Doctoral Candidate, History Department, Brandeis University

Oscars at Brandeis!

Tweet

On March 4, 2018, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) presented the 90th annual Academy Awards ceremony. Our readers may know that the ceremony, which began in 1929, was first broadcast on the radio in 1930 and first televised in 1953. But it may surprise our readers to know that Brandeis is home to not one but two Oscars* trophies!

The first of these was awarded to screenwriter George Froeschel in 1943 for “Best Writing, Screenplay” for the movie Mrs. Miniver. The history behind this golden trophy is particularly interesting as Froeschel did not get the true award at the ceremony and had to wait until the end of WWII to receive his official statuette. Froeschel was not alone in this. All Academy Award winners between 1943 and 1945 were awarded a simple, painted, plaster Oscar instead of the usual metal man. This was as a result of a metal shortage during WWII. Each of the plaster statuettes was accompanied by a note stating that the recipient should return the plaster after the war in order to receive the usual metal oscar. Currently, the Froeschel Oscar is on loan to the Rose Art Museum, where it can be seen in the Mark Dion installation: The Undisciplined Collector. Froeschel left several of his prized possessions to Brandeis, including the Oscar, which we received in 1980.

The second Oscar in Brandeis’s possession was awarded to Victor Young, a prolific American composer. Having been nominated twenty-two times for Academy Awards he finally won a posthumous Oscar in 1956 for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture for Paramount’s Around the World in 80 Days. This award (along with Young’s Golden Globe (1952) and Primetime Emmy (1955), which Brandeis also holds) is a shining accompaniment to his wonderful collection of scores, his personal library of LPs, awards and memorabilia, sheet music, press clippings, correspondence, and photographs. For more information, peruse the finding aid and Spotlight for the Victor Young collection. The Victor Young collection was donated by Jacques Biroteau and Mrs. Rita Young in 1957.

The Oscars are among our more well-known items because of their strong presence in popular culture; visitors are often invited to try holding them and to make an acceptance speech of their own. The statuettes are quite heavy and weigh in at eight and a half pounds. While the Oscars in Special Collections are made of britannium, since 2016 the statuettes have been constructed with a solid bronze core and are plated in 24-karat gold.

*Official Name: Academy Award® of Merit

description by Surella Evanor Seelig, Outreach and Special Projects Archivist
photos by Mike Lovett for Brandeis University

Judaica materials in Special Collections

Tweet

The Brandeis University Library houses a major Judaica research collection. We have extensive holdings in subjects as diverse as Bible, rabbinics, Jewish philosophy and mysticism, and Hebrew and Yiddish literatures. Our Jewish history collection extends from ancient times through the Middle Ages to modern times, including Israel, the Holocaust and American Jewry. Books in the stacks are supplemented by microform and electronic databases. In addition, we have a number of rare (or unique) fine books, documents and objects in the University Archives and Special Collections. Our spotlight this month is devoted to these special materials.

Below is a tiny sampling of our rare books in the subject areas of hagadot, prayer books, rabbinics, Bible commentaries, Hebrew grammar, philosophy and history:

• Seder Hagadah shel Pesah (Venice, 1629), following the Roman ritual tradition, with a translation into Spanish.
• The multi-volume mahzor for the holidays Sha’ar Bat Rabim (Venice 1711-1715).
• Levi ben Gershon (Gersonides), 1288-1344: Perush al ha-Torah (Venice, 1547)
• Maimonides, 1135- 1204: Sefer ha-Mitsvot (Venice, 1550)
• Maimonides: Hilkhot Bikurim (Leiden, 1702)
• Levi ben Gershon: Milhamot ha-Shem (Riva di Trento, 1560)
• David Kimhi, circa 1160-cica 1235: Sefer ha-shorashim (Venice, 1529)
• David Gans, 1541-1613: Tsemah David (Frankurt am Main, 1692)

Other rare works include Josephus’s De Antiquatibus ac de Bello Judaico (Venice, 1499) and Orden de Oraciones de los Cinquo Ayunos del Anyo (Amsterdam, 1618) (the latter is a collection of prayers for five Jewish fast days). As well, we hold a copy of David Ben-Gurion’s Israel: a Personal History (1971), containing the following inscription: “To Brandeis University, founded in the year of Israel’s rebirth” – signed by D. Ben-Gurion on March 12, 1971.

We also own some wonderful facsimiles of medieval illuminated (decorated with color illustrations) manuscripts. Several are hagadot and prayer books. One of these reproductions is called the Rothschild Miscellany. Its 948 pages contain seventy religious and secular works. The illustrations are stunning, and holding a physical copy that exactly recreates every physical aspect of the original is a special experience, quite different from online viewing.

Jewish life in Europe is represented in many of our special collections. We own the manuscript of the Book of Records and Accounts of the Jewish Community in Venice (1735-1792). This is an excellent source of information on the daily activities of some of Venice’s Jews. The Leon Lipschutz collection of Dreyfusiana and French Judaica is a rich and fascinating collection which documents the Dreyfus Affair in turn-of-the-century France, and also contains varied documents relating to the lives and work of Jews in France from the Revolutionary period to the mid-twentieth century. Some of the materials in the Lipschutz collection are closely related to those found in the Consistoire Central Isra矇lite de France collection. Containing seven linear feet of French Consistory materials and two linear feet of international Judaica, the Consistoire collection provides a sweeping view of the French and worldwide Jewish communities from the mid-eighteenth through the first third of the twentieth century.

The American Jewish community is also well-represented in Special Collections Judaica materials. The Leo Frank trial collection is one of the highlights. Frank’s trial and lynching led to the formation of the Anti-Defamation League. The papers of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, owned jointly with the American Jewish Historical Society, reflect Wise’s life as a leading Reform rabbi and leader of the American Zionist movement.

Our rare books relating to the American Jewish community include a number of volumes by Isaac Leeser, a nineteenth-century Jewish author and communal leader. Other highlights are Isaac Mayer Wise’s Tefilot Bene Yeshurun: Minhag Amerika (1870) and David Einhorn’s Book of Prayers for Israelitish Congregations (1872).

Among a large collection of the personal and professional papers of Justice Louis D. Brandeis are many materials relating to Justice Brandeis’s Zionist work. Of particular interest in this collection is something which looks on the outside like a very well-decorated Scroll of Esther, which is actually a “thank you” scroll presented by the community of Jerusalem to Justice Brandeis when he visited the city in 1919. Brandeis was a leader of the American Zionist movement, and the Jerusalem city leaders had this scroll created in fancy Biblical Hebrew in order to show its appreciation of his activities on behalf of Zionism.

A major focus in our collections is Jewish feminism. Included in this category are the papers of Aviva Cantor, E.M. Broner, Maayan, Marcia Freedman, and the feminist magazine Lilith. The magazine’s archive is a treasure trove of information on decades of Jewish feminist activity and creativity. We continue to seek additional feminist collections.

The Holocaust is also well represented in Special Collections. The Helmut Hirsch collection documents the life and work of Hirsch, a young German Jewish artist murdered in 1937 for his anti-Nazi activities. His archive includes his correspondence, notebooks, diaries and artwork. The Jewish Resistance collection contains propaganda material, individual testimonies, newsletters and other documents pertaining to Jewish resistance movements during World War II. One particularly fascinating German antifascist pamphlet from 1933 is disguised as an owner’s manual for an Electrolux vacuum cleaner. The Theresienstadt concentration camp documents consists of 200 daily bulletins of the “Jewish Self-Administration” of the camp. While the man who collected these documents did not survive, his wife and daughter lived to donate this collection to Brandeis. The Spitzer family papers tell the story of a Czech Jewish family from before, during, and after World War II. The collection documents the fullness of their lives in Europe before the Holocaust claimed many members of the family and follows the survivors’ travels to the Boston area.

Some of our more unusual collections include a large Yiddish sheet music collection and The Bernice and Henry Tumen collection. The Tumen collection includes 177 Jewish religious and ceremonial objects, most of which date to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It includes everything from a Scroll of Esther and Havdalah spice boxes to amulets and Kiddush cups. Many significant items from this collection are on permanent display on the mezzanine level of Goldfarb Library.

In University Archives, we are fortunate to house a number of collections related to the history of Brandeis University itself, including the NEJS faculty papers of Alexander Altmann, Marvin Fox, Nahum Glatzer, Benjamin Halpern, Leon Jick and Marshall Sklare. We also house the papers of former chaplain Albert Axelrad. We own a historical collection of the papers of Brandeis Hillel, as well as papers of President Abram Sachar, from his activities and correspondence related to National Hillel.

This is but a sample of our wonderful rare (some unique) Judaica materials. You are invited to look online at the University Archives and Special Collections page on the Library website, as well as to search for individual book titles in our online catalog. These materials are open to all and we welcome all visitors and questions. Enjoy!

Written by Jim Rosenbloom, Judaica Librarian (rosenblo@brandeis.edu).

Marcia Freedman papers

Tweet

The Marcia Freedman papers represent a fascinating addition to the growing Jewish Feminist Collections at Brandeis University. Recently acquired, processed, and now available in the University’s Special Collections, the collection consists of approximately 2.75 linear feet of materials pertaining to Freedman’s life and work as an American-Israeli activist and feminist. While the collection materials range in date from 1968 to 2016, the bulk of the materials relate to Freedman’s time spent in Israel during the 1970s, as well as her return there in the late 1990s.

Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1938, Freedman earned a BA from Bennington College and an MA from the City College of New York.(1) In 1967, while pursuing a PhD in philosophy, she moved with her family to Israel, just after the Six-Day War. In the early 1970s, Freedman taught philosophy at Haifa University and a course on women in western philosophy at Oranim College. After a brief return to the United States in 1971, she brought her burgeoning interest in and experience with American feminism to Israel.(2)

As one of the leaders of the feminist movement in Israel, and as the first openly gay person elected to the Knesset (Israel’s national legislature), Freedman fought many uphill battles advocating for women’s rights at a time when men in the Knesset did not take women or women’s issues seriously. During her tenure in the Knesset from 1973 to 1977, Freedman worked tirelessly to bring feminist consciousness to the forefront of Israel’s parliament. Among her many accomplishments, she worked to reform Israel’s restrictive abortion laws, she opened the first battered women’s shelter in Israel, and she co-founded the (now-defunct) Women’s Party. In 1981, Freedman returned to the United States where she continued to raise awareness of Israel and feminist issues. Between 1997 to 2002, she embarked on another series of extended stays in Israel, after which she became the founding president of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, the American Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace. This collection follows these different stages of the life and work of an important figure in Jewish feminist history. A wide range of materials is represented in her papers, including newspaper clippings, lecture notes, research files, correspondence, writings by Freedman (of personal, scholarly, and activist nature), and several incomplete (yet intriguing!) manuscripts and typescripts.

Among the many highlights of this amazing collection are the numerous notes, letters, and telegrams Freedman received upon her election to the Knesset in 1973 as a member of the nascent Citizens’ Rights Movement--words of praise and congratulations for her breaking of the gender barrier in Israel’s historically patriarchal government body. As well, there is a series of newspaper clippings related to Freedman’s involvement in the founding of the Jewish feminist movement in Israel, her work as a member of the Knesset, and her role as a co-founder of the Women’s Party (1977) in Israel. Also included in this collection are myriad reviews of her memoir Exile in the Promised Land – these are well worth a read as the book seems to have had quite the impact on its readers.

In addition, the collection contains Freedman’s thoughtfully organized typewritten email correspondence about the political climate and women’s peace movement in Israel from 1997 to 2002; her personal journal with commentaries on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jewish feminism; and more than 20 years of transcribed conversations with her support/discussion group for aging women, the Wandering Menstruals. In reading through the many articles and papers Freedman wrote on sexism, feminism, Israel, philosophy, and other topics, researchers can easily gain a better understanding of the evolution and development of Freedman’s feminist and activist ideology, from its earliest stages through her active political career and beyond.

Among some of the other interesting materials in this collection is an incomplete typescript of a play Freedman was developing called “Cybele”, which seems to have been written with a contemporary, humorous feminist perspective on the topic of Cybele, the Anatolian mother of the Gods. Included as well are incomplete manuscripts Freedman wrote on various topics, including a book about her time in Israel from 1997 to 2002; a book entitled The Lady of the Wild Things: A Study in Religion, Sex and Power; and one entitled “Shiva,” which includes notes and comments by Esther Broner. Though these are incomplete, their contents nevertheless shed light on the roles that Judaism, feminism, peace, and Israel have played in Freedman’s life and work.

There are, of course, many other materials in the Marcia Freedman papers which are not mentioned in detail here, including research files from her many speaking engagements in the early 2000s, information about the organization for which she served as founding president, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, and numerous audiovisual and born-digital materials. Needless to say, this collection is but a small testament to the trailblazing life and career of an American-Isreaeli Jewish feminist and activist named Marcia Freedman.
Come to Brandeis University’s Department of Archives & Special Collections to learn more about Marcia Freedman and our growing Jewish Feminist Collections.

Notes:
(1) Knesset.gov
(2) Ajpeacearchive.org

For more details, the collection finding aid can be accessed here.

description by Jeff Hayes, MLIS candidate at the University of Alabama and Archives & Special Collections intern.