JHC04. Immigration

Abstract Born in Kovno, Lithuania, Abraham Alpert immigrated to the United States, and in 1886 settled in Boston, Massachusetts. He learned English while attending night school and would later become an internationally known writer. Outside of his writing, he also rose to become a prominent Jewish figure and leader, not just in Boston but nationally, as well. One newspaper wrote that there was not a synagogue on the Atlantic Coast that had not heard Alpert talk. He helped organize the Boston branch...

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This collection contains personal documents belonging to Celia and Mauricio Dulfano, a Jewish scholarly couple who emigrated from Argentina to Israel and later to the United States. The collection consists primarily of official documents such as government-issued identity cards and academic certificates that detail their migratory life between the three countries as well as their professional success in the fields of social work and pulmonary medicine, respectively.

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This collection contains correspondence, photos, newspapers and clippings, manuscripts, and financial records documenting the life of Harry Spiro following his immigration from the shtetl of Butrimantz in Lithuania, first to Havana, Cuba and then to the United States. Included in the collection are materials relating to his family, his Zionist activism both in Cuba and in the United States, and his building supply business, Best Lumber.

Abstract The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) was founded in New York City in the 1880s by the Russian Jewish community of New York in response to the influx of Russian Jewish immigrants fleeing the pograms in the Pale of Settlement in Russia and Eastern Europe. In 1889, a shelter which was used to house many of the immigrants adopted the name “Hebrew Sheltering House Association.” This organization merged with HIAS in 1909 and by 1914, had branches operating in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and...

Abstract Contains the papers of the Society founded in 1938 by recent German speaking Jewish immigrants to Boston to assist their initial adjustment to the economic, cultural, spiritual, and social life of the American community and subsequently, to provide mutual assistance to its membership and aid to other immigrants.The collection consists of the Society's by-laws (1953, 1956, 1964); handwritten notes with the names of Officers and Directors (1949-1961), plans for cultural and social...

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This collection contains Meyer Pollack’s naturalization certificate, dated August 4, 1924, and an undated photograph of Meyer and his son Raymond.

Abstract Percy Brand was a violinist by profession and Holocaust survivor. Born in Liepaja, Latvia on April 2, 1908, he began playing violin at the age of ten. In 1941, when the Germans took control of Latvia and other Baltic countries, Brand was concertmaster of the Riga Latvian Symphony Orchestra. After the SS Einsatzgruppen units occupying Latvia killed his first wife and two children, Brand was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Playing the violin saved his life during the...