Archival
Collections
Jewish History and
Life
Adler, Bertha Marx
Scrapbook, 1888-1889
(AR 373)
Bertha Marx Adler was
the daughter of Birmingham merchant Samuel Marx, one of
the founders of Temple Emanu-El. In 1892 she married
Samuel M. Adler, a Birmingham businessman and investor.
This scrapbook is an atlas that Bertha Marx, then a
young woman, converted to a scrapbook by pasting items
over the pages. The scrapbook primarily contains
programs from Birmingham theater productions, but also
contains a few programs from Birmingham High School and
an order of service from the 1889 dedication of Temple
Emanu-El.
Size: 1 volume
Adler, Jeanne
Scrapbook, 1912
(AR 486)
Jeanne Adler was the
daughter of Samuel and Bertha Marx Adler and resided on
Highland Avenue in Birmingham. This scrapbook, entitled
“The Girl Graduate: Her Own Book,” contains
clippings, photographs, notes from classmates and other
memorabilia relating to Adler’s senior year at
Birmingham High School.
Size: 1 volume
Akenhead, Linda and Barbara
Mitchell
Survey of Six Historic Religious
Structures in Birmingham
(AR 758)
Photographs and printed
material documenting the history and architecture of
six downtown Birmingham religious structures: Cathedral
Church of the Advent (Episcopal), First Baptist Church,
First Presbyterian Church, First United Methodist
Church, St. Paul’s Catholic Church and Temple
Emanu-El.
Size: 2 boxes
Bluttman, Adolf
Photograph Album, 1913-1914 and
1944
(AR 1669)
Adolf Bluttman was a
Birmingham tailor. He and his wife Rebecca lived on
Birmingham’s Southside. This album contains
snapshots and studio portraits. The snapshots show
downtown Birmingham, a football game at Rickwood Field,
and people swimming in a lake. Most of the images show
individuals at home or work, or engaged in leisure
activities. Some photographs show individuals in New
York City.
Size: 1 volume
Cohn Family
Papers
(AR 1916)
The papers include
correspondence, photographs, clippings and other
material relating to this Birmingham family.
Size: 4 boxes
Coordinating Bureau of Jewish
Women’s Organizations of Birmingham
Records, 1957-2003
(AR 1803)
This collection includes
the organization’s constitution and by-laws,
correspondence, minutes of meetings and other material.
Size: 2 boxes
Cowett, Mark
Research Files on Rabbi Morris
Newfield
(AR 1035)
This collection contain
research files collected by Cowett during the writing
of his book Birmingham’s Rabbi: Morris Newfield
and Alabama, 1895-1940.
Size: 2 boxes
Elovitch, Mark
Research Material on Birmingham
Jewish History
(AR 781)
Elovitz is an attorney
who served for a time as rabbi of Temple Beth-El in
Birmingham, Alabama. In 1973 Elovitz earned a Ph.D.
from New York University with his dissertation “A
History of the Jews of Birmingham, 1871-1971.” He
later adapted his dissertation into the book A Century
of Jewish Life in Dixie: The Birmingham Experience
(University of Alabama Press, 1974). The research files
contain both primary and secondary sources including
newspaper and magazine clippings, oral history
interviews, correspondence, and organizational and
institutional publications, handwritten research notes,
drafts of the dissertation text, and a final draft of
the text which was published by the University of
Alabama Press. This material covers the years
1872-1977, but a majority of it comes from the period
between 1920 and 1970.
Size: 3 boxes
Erdreich, Bloch and Proskauer
Families
Papers, 1870-1987
(AR 997)
The collection contains
family correspondence, financial papers, scrapbooks,
newspaper clippings, and photographs relating to the
personal, business, and civic affairs of the Erdreich,
Bloch and Proskauer families. The collection also
contains material relating to the Marx and Schuster
families.
Size: 3 reels microfilm
Grafman, Milton L.
Papers, 1907 – 1995
(AR 1758)
Milton L. Grafman was
born in 1907, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in
Pittsburgh. He graduated from the University of
Cincinnati, earned a Doctor of Divinity Degree from
Hebrew Union College, and was ordained in 1933 as rabbi
of Temple Adath Israel in Lexington, Kentucky. Grafman
came to Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham in 1941. He was
active in the civic and community life of Birmingham.
Grafman was a founder of the organization Spastic Aid
of Alabama and helped establish the Institute for
Christian Clergy, an organization established to
promote understanding and cooperation between Jewish
and Christian ministers. Grafman was one of the eight
white clergymen that Martin Luther King, Jr. famously
replied to in his “Letter from Birmingham
Jail.” Though a racial moderate, Grafman was
grouped with racial reactionaries and received death
threats and hate mail for the rest of his life. Grafman
retired from Temple Emanu-El in 1975and died in 1995,
in Birmingham. This collection contains files kept by
Grafman during his tenure as rabbi at Temple Emanu-El,
including copies of The Serviceman, a newsletter
published by Grafman for members of the Temple Emanu-El
congregation serving in World War II. Funeral sermon
files contain biographical information on members of
the congregation who died during Grafman’s
tenure. Subject files contain correspondence, clippings
and other material relating to Jewish life,
particularly in Alabama. Office files consist of
correspondence, clippings, photographs and other items
concerning civil rights controversies of the 1960s and
1970s, the nation of Israel, the administration of
Temple Emanu-El, and Jewish education, organizations,
and practices.
Size: 8 boxes
Hanson, Bette Lee
Oral History Tapes and
Photographic Slides
(AR 929)
The interviews in this
collection were conducted by Bette Hanson. The
interview subjects are Vera Foster, whose husband Dr.
Luther Foster served as President of Tuskegee Institute
beginning in 1941; Ida Kohlmeyer, a prominent New
Orleans painter; and Dorah Sterne,a Birmingham resident
and social activist.
Size: 1 box
Hirsch, Florette Cohn
Papers
(AR 1788)
Florette Cohn Hirsch was
born in Shreveport, Louisiana and moved to Birmingham
with her family at the age of three. She attended
Phillips High School, joined Camp Mary Munger as a
music counselor in 1928 and then attended
Birmingham-Southern College. She received a teaching
certificate and taught music at Birmingham city schools
for seventeen years, where she was instrumental in
raising money for the music departments. During World
War II, Hirsch aided and raised money for the war
effort and after the war she raised relief funds for
Jewish survivors. Hirsch was a member of the
Birmingham Music Club, served as Children's Choir
Director at Temple Emanuel, worked on behalf of the
Birmingham Civic Opera, the Birmingham Civic Symphony,
and the Alabama Symphony, as well as supported
Birmingham-Southern College's Fine Arts department.
This collection contains a paper, newspaper
articles, letters, and awards.
Size: 1 box
Knesseth Israel Congregation
Cemetery Records, 1908-1948
(AR 968)
This cemetery record
contains a listing of burials by lot number, maps and
an alphabetical index to names.
Size: 1 box
