It’s really not that surprising that Cincinnati’s German Jews have dominated all previous histories of the city’s Jewish community.. Members of the much larger population of Cincinnati Jews who come from an Eastern European background have rightfully complained about this bias, but there is no denying the compelling quality of Cincinnati’s mid-19th-century Jewish community and its descendants.
Cincinnati’s German Jews created the first central successful national organizations of American Jewish life. They had a huge impact on the cultural and civic life of Cincinnati. And, through many in-marriages, they all seem to be related to each other. Their family names quickly become familiar -- seeming to offer a coherent narrative of Jewish communal development – They easily seduce the historian who can trace the swath they cut through religious and municipal social reform and then even visit them in the Walnut Hills United Jewish Cemetery where so many rest in close and eternal proximity.
Much of my book, like those of my predecessors, will inevitably follow the character and achievements of this community, but I hope also to offer more than just the standard patronizing/patronized historical narrative about the complex relationship of the German and Eastern European (“Russian”) communities.
As the clever celebratory but racist couplet cited in my last post suggested, Cincinnati’s German Jews could play integral roles in every significant social/political reform movement in Cincinnati, but still not escape the prejudices of their times. It turns out that their propensity for clever skits and songs (referred to as “stunts”) over the holiday season (more later on the question of “Christmas”) can offer insight into the German/Russian relationship as well.
Set, apparently, to the tune of “Second Hand Rose,” one new year’s song (sorry, I don’t know the year, but it seems to have been written by Robert M. Senior during the 1920s), portrayed the fortunes of a girl whose Russian father had struggled in America until WWI-related prosperity enabled the family to move uptown to Reading Road in Cincinnati’s largely Jewish neighborhood of Avondale:
“Now I’ve got Reading Road clothes – Reading Road beaux
That’s why they call me – ‘Reading Road Rose”
Rose apparently attracts so much attention that they’ve had to bring in “a new traffic cop” to Avondale, but she’s still not satisfied, because “slightly north” of where she stands
“Lives a smarty set
And they don’t invite me – don’t invite me –yet.”
But don’t worry, she suggests,
“Don’t for a minute suppose, despite my Reading Road nose,
I’ll always be a Reading Road Rose”
With a (German-Jewish) doctor ready to take care of her troublesome facial extremity, she feels prepared to take on the snootier set, to make her mark not only in Avondale, but among the grand and gracious houses and community occupying the streets known as Rose Hill:
“I’ll bridge or dance or wear my new golfing pants
There isn’t a demand I won’t fulfill –
I’ll be coy – or I’ll be chilly, I’ll be sober or gay,
For where there is a will, I’m sure there’s always a way,
Once the crowd knows about this Reading Road Rose,
She’ll be Rosey – of Rose Hill.”
The large family group that gathered together on Rose Hill to enjoy this song, many of whom had devoted countless hours to improving the lot of Cincinnati’s immigrant Jews, clearly felt miles above the social climbing aspirations of Reading Road Rose, but she was also clearly a threat to them. More on this threat and another song ….. in my next post .
Source: Senior Family Papers, Ms. Coll. 139, uncatalogued Box 1, American Jewish Archives.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Ah, history ....
In my last post, I tried to share something of the remarkable efforts of communal activist Setty Kuhn in addressing the needs of her community, ranging across musical, educational, religious, international, and racial concerns.
But ah, history. As much as I admire Setty, it is impossible to simply ignore the troubling social attitudes and certainties -- inherent in her life and that of her community -- that come too starkly into view from our early 21st-century perspective. We are forced to censure those we would admire, with the all too certain awareness that we too, in all our earnestness and/or cynicism, will be brought up short by those who someday may look back at us.
Setty lived in a broad world that spanned continents and communities, but her intimate world was a very narrow one. This world consisted almost entirely of Cincinnati’s German Jewish elite – and she was related by blood or marriage to many of its most prominent members. She was even the founder of the country club that came to define the parameters of this community. It was a community defined both by its love of Christmas and its shared devotion to communal betterment.
Setty Kuhn particularly was recognized for addressing the needs of those less fortunate. As one Cincinnati columnist observed, although she always lived amidst privilege, she chose to use those privileges in the interests of a better world. In pursuing her special passion – housing reform – she became instrumental in the passage of municipal, state, and national legislation to address the growing decay of America’s inner cities and its impact upon the least fortunate.
But yesterday’s cutting edge reforms can become the cramped and destructive forces of today. “Slum eradication” as a way to improve neighborhoods often meant the replacement of human scaled neighborhoods with soulless housing projects that did little to foster opportunity and bred much of the destructive behavior they were meant to prevent. It would be hard to argue that Cincinnati’s housing projects did much to advance the fortunes of the African American population they were intended to serve. An easier argument would be that they worked well in keeping that community segregated and marginalized, while opening space for more of the kind of downtown industrial expansion desired by the municipality.
Setty Kuhn worked harder and with more effectiveness for the broader community (across class, religious, and racial lines) than I shall ever hope to be able to do. Yet the responsible American Jewish historian in me feels the need to make the obvious point that Setty Kuhn grew up in an indelibly racist society. She could not have avoided reflecting these views even as she addressed issues that most individuals in privileged white Cincinnati would have avoided.
Her letters as a young woman deployed the derogatory language and patronizing racial attitudes of the world she lived in. These certainly faded with time, but it’s clear from some of the papers in her collection that the Yiddish word “schwartzer” as a negative term for black people was sustained even within her cultured German Jewish circle.
Let me share one example which is so shocking, I think, not because we live in a society that has driven out racism. Rather, because most of us who would now identify with the political activism and social consciousness embodied by Setty, could never imagine deploying racist terms in the interest of our own amusement. It’s hard even to imagine just how close we are in time and identification to those able to do so quite easily and with great aplomb.
The following comes from one of the many song and tributes written over the years by friends and family in Setty’s honor. This one comes from the last verse of a poem written to mark the 20th anniversary (in 1913) of the marriage of Setty Swarts to Simon Kuhn. Here it is, make of it what you will:
“So Si he knew he’d met his fate,
And they were married soon,
For is it not most proper that,
A Schwartz should wed a Kuhn?”
source: Setty Kuhn Papers, American Jewish Archives
But ah, history. As much as I admire Setty, it is impossible to simply ignore the troubling social attitudes and certainties -- inherent in her life and that of her community -- that come too starkly into view from our early 21st-century perspective. We are forced to censure those we would admire, with the all too certain awareness that we too, in all our earnestness and/or cynicism, will be brought up short by those who someday may look back at us.
Setty lived in a broad world that spanned continents and communities, but her intimate world was a very narrow one. This world consisted almost entirely of Cincinnati’s German Jewish elite – and she was related by blood or marriage to many of its most prominent members. She was even the founder of the country club that came to define the parameters of this community. It was a community defined both by its love of Christmas and its shared devotion to communal betterment.
Setty Kuhn particularly was recognized for addressing the needs of those less fortunate. As one Cincinnati columnist observed, although she always lived amidst privilege, she chose to use those privileges in the interests of a better world. In pursuing her special passion – housing reform – she became instrumental in the passage of municipal, state, and national legislation to address the growing decay of America’s inner cities and its impact upon the least fortunate.
But yesterday’s cutting edge reforms can become the cramped and destructive forces of today. “Slum eradication” as a way to improve neighborhoods often meant the replacement of human scaled neighborhoods with soulless housing projects that did little to foster opportunity and bred much of the destructive behavior they were meant to prevent. It would be hard to argue that Cincinnati’s housing projects did much to advance the fortunes of the African American population they were intended to serve. An easier argument would be that they worked well in keeping that community segregated and marginalized, while opening space for more of the kind of downtown industrial expansion desired by the municipality.
Setty Kuhn worked harder and with more effectiveness for the broader community (across class, religious, and racial lines) than I shall ever hope to be able to do. Yet the responsible American Jewish historian in me feels the need to make the obvious point that Setty Kuhn grew up in an indelibly racist society. She could not have avoided reflecting these views even as she addressed issues that most individuals in privileged white Cincinnati would have avoided.
Her letters as a young woman deployed the derogatory language and patronizing racial attitudes of the world she lived in. These certainly faded with time, but it’s clear from some of the papers in her collection that the Yiddish word “schwartzer” as a negative term for black people was sustained even within her cultured German Jewish circle.
Let me share one example which is so shocking, I think, not because we live in a society that has driven out racism. Rather, because most of us who would now identify with the political activism and social consciousness embodied by Setty, could never imagine deploying racist terms in the interest of our own amusement. It’s hard even to imagine just how close we are in time and identification to those able to do so quite easily and with great aplomb.
The following comes from one of the many song and tributes written over the years by friends and family in Setty’s honor. This one comes from the last verse of a poem written to mark the 20th anniversary (in 1913) of the marriage of Setty Swarts to Simon Kuhn. Here it is, make of it what you will:
“So Si he knew he’d met his fate,
And they were married soon,
For is it not most proper that,
A Schwartz should wed a Kuhn?”
source: Setty Kuhn Papers, American Jewish Archives
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Settie Swartz Kuhn: Making a Difference ...
I’ve been spending this week with Mrs. Simon Kuhn, a.k.a. Setty Swarts Kuhn, or more familiarly: Aunt Setty. Wow. Regine Ransohoff mentioned her to me as a Jewish woman for whom a Cincinnati housing project is named, and suggested that I might be interested in the many other things that she did. Well yes, and thanks Regine!
From her creation of the Better Housing League in 1916 and past her retirement from the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority in 1950 at age 82, Kuhn worked hard to earn official designation as “outstanding woman of the half-century” in Cincinnati public housing. As one admirer summarized the situation: “the word housing to me has meant Mrs. Simon Kuhn."
But Setty Kuhn’s influence was felt in realms far beyond housing. I can’t begin to describe the range of her communal work here, so let me just cite the list of organizations that co-sponsored a celebration of her career on the occasion of her 70th birthday. In perusing this list, please remember that these were not just organizations in which Setty Kuhn took an active part. No, in almost every case (besides, perhaps the United Jewish Social Agencies) she was a key (and often sole) founder and sustainer.
Here they are: The Better Housing League, the Child Guidance Home, The Cincinnati Chamber Music Society, the Cincinnati Peace League, the Community Gardens, the Foreign Policy Association, The Foster Home, the Geneva Scholarship Fund, the Jewish Convalescent Home, the League of Women Voters, the Losantiville Country Club, the Toscanini foundation, the United Jewish Social Agencies, the University School, and the Woman’s City Club.
A hefty resumé for any community activist, and one that beautifully exemplifies the way that social issues and reform work that often arose in Jewish communal contexts were successfully presented by Jewish activists as matters that required broad communal attention and systematic municipal reform. This will be a major concern in my book, but what struck me most immediately about Setty’s collection of papers were the ways which her friends, family, and colleagues (Jews and non-Jews) found to express their appreciation for her tireless devotion and effectiveness. (And I’m not even going to get into the myriad scores of poems, songs, and parodies written in her honor – those these are genres dear to my own heart).
People loved Setty for what she did:
“There has been continuously one member [of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority] that completely exemplifies unselfish and courageous support of an ideal of improving the circumstances of the underprivileged. Whatever the Authority has accomplished has been attributable in the largest measure to your steadfast and devoted concern with basic social betterment.”
And they also loved her, as one letter writer noted, for how she did it:
“More than just starting things and founding organizations and carrying them on, sometimes with great effort, is the spirit and sincerity you put into these matters.”
She was known by so many (including professional colleagues and city officials) as “Aunt Setty,” that one nephew felt constrained to admonish her: “And don’t’ forget, I’m the only legitimate nephew, them others are imposters, just a lot bastards.”
Setty Kuhn’s life was not easy. Her father died when she was three. Her husband went through severe bouts of depression and died at an early age – around the same time that one of her three daughters, who was mentally retarded, also died. In fact, many of the institutions that she founded or supported, a home for mentally retarded children, a convalescent home, an inclusive and modern private school, a country club (to serve her ill husband) were efforts to transform challenges that she’d experienced in her own life into broader possibilities for others facing similar challenges.
Some other time, I’ll write about some of the time-bound social attitudes that can undermine our eager idealization of someone like Aunt Setty, but I can only join her friends, her disciples, her colleagues in treasuring the humanity that informed her activism.
One younger colleague who went on to work in public health for the Cincinnati Community Chest was transformed by her first encounter with Setty who she came to regard as the city’s “Number 1 Woman Citizen”:
“I do not exaggerate in saying that you set a pattern of life which has challenged my admiration ever since. My own contribution to these great causes … to which you have devoted your energy, time and money, has been very limited. But at least I accepted your standard of values, preferred your pattern to any other.”
I was particularly struck by a 1938 note from a woman who had taught in the school founded by Setty, but who had left Cincinnati 26 years earlier. She recalled Setty as … “one of the loveliest spirits that have ever touched my life.”
One remembrance of Setty Kuhn asked: “What made her the extraordinary woman she was?” The answer in part: “the intensity of her convictions, the magnetism and persuasiveness which lent an inner glow to her personality, and led her own mother to say of her: ‘Setty could charm the blue out of heaven.’”
In our green age, would that we all could find numerous opportunities and worthy subjects to recycle such compliments … As so many wrote to her during her lifetime: “It is only too bad that there are not a dozen Mrs. Kuhns in Cincinnati.” Not to mention everywhere else.
From her creation of the Better Housing League in 1916 and past her retirement from the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority in 1950 at age 82, Kuhn worked hard to earn official designation as “outstanding woman of the half-century” in Cincinnati public housing. As one admirer summarized the situation: “the word housing to me has meant Mrs. Simon Kuhn."
But Setty Kuhn’s influence was felt in realms far beyond housing. I can’t begin to describe the range of her communal work here, so let me just cite the list of organizations that co-sponsored a celebration of her career on the occasion of her 70th birthday. In perusing this list, please remember that these were not just organizations in which Setty Kuhn took an active part. No, in almost every case (besides, perhaps the United Jewish Social Agencies) she was a key (and often sole) founder and sustainer.
Here they are: The Better Housing League, the Child Guidance Home, The Cincinnati Chamber Music Society, the Cincinnati Peace League, the Community Gardens, the Foreign Policy Association, The Foster Home, the Geneva Scholarship Fund, the Jewish Convalescent Home, the League of Women Voters, the Losantiville Country Club, the Toscanini foundation, the United Jewish Social Agencies, the University School, and the Woman’s City Club.
A hefty resumé for any community activist, and one that beautifully exemplifies the way that social issues and reform work that often arose in Jewish communal contexts were successfully presented by Jewish activists as matters that required broad communal attention and systematic municipal reform. This will be a major concern in my book, but what struck me most immediately about Setty’s collection of papers were the ways which her friends, family, and colleagues (Jews and non-Jews) found to express their appreciation for her tireless devotion and effectiveness. (And I’m not even going to get into the myriad scores of poems, songs, and parodies written in her honor – those these are genres dear to my own heart).
People loved Setty for what she did:
“There has been continuously one member [of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority] that completely exemplifies unselfish and courageous support of an ideal of improving the circumstances of the underprivileged. Whatever the Authority has accomplished has been attributable in the largest measure to your steadfast and devoted concern with basic social betterment.”
And they also loved her, as one letter writer noted, for how she did it:
“More than just starting things and founding organizations and carrying them on, sometimes with great effort, is the spirit and sincerity you put into these matters.”
She was known by so many (including professional colleagues and city officials) as “Aunt Setty,” that one nephew felt constrained to admonish her: “And don’t’ forget, I’m the only legitimate nephew, them others are imposters, just a lot bastards.”
Setty Kuhn’s life was not easy. Her father died when she was three. Her husband went through severe bouts of depression and died at an early age – around the same time that one of her three daughters, who was mentally retarded, also died. In fact, many of the institutions that she founded or supported, a home for mentally retarded children, a convalescent home, an inclusive and modern private school, a country club (to serve her ill husband) were efforts to transform challenges that she’d experienced in her own life into broader possibilities for others facing similar challenges.
Some other time, I’ll write about some of the time-bound social attitudes that can undermine our eager idealization of someone like Aunt Setty, but I can only join her friends, her disciples, her colleagues in treasuring the humanity that informed her activism.
One younger colleague who went on to work in public health for the Cincinnati Community Chest was transformed by her first encounter with Setty who she came to regard as the city’s “Number 1 Woman Citizen”:
“I do not exaggerate in saying that you set a pattern of life which has challenged my admiration ever since. My own contribution to these great causes … to which you have devoted your energy, time and money, has been very limited. But at least I accepted your standard of values, preferred your pattern to any other.”
I was particularly struck by a 1938 note from a woman who had taught in the school founded by Setty, but who had left Cincinnati 26 years earlier. She recalled Setty as … “one of the loveliest spirits that have ever touched my life.”
One remembrance of Setty Kuhn asked: “What made her the extraordinary woman she was?” The answer in part: “the intensity of her convictions, the magnetism and persuasiveness which lent an inner glow to her personality, and led her own mother to say of her: ‘Setty could charm the blue out of heaven.’”
In our green age, would that we all could find numerous opportunities and worthy subjects to recycle such compliments … As so many wrote to her during her lifetime: “It is only too bad that there are not a dozen Mrs. Kuhns in Cincinnati.” Not to mention everywhere else.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Spielberg in Cincinnati
I have often hoped to catch a glimpse of director Steven Spielberg’s Cincinnati roots in the course of my research. Today’s Cincinnati Enquirer does a pretty good job of covering this ground and conveniently indicates what I should be looking for if I want to find Spielberg’s Cincinnati forebears.
I know I’d heard that Spielberg’s family belonged to the Adath Israel congregation (Lexington Road Synagogue / Feinberg’s) in the Avondale neighborhood. The article doesn’t mention this, but does indicate that Steven’s family lived on Lexington Ave and so must have been pretty close to the synagogue. I was a little disappointed to learn that although Steven was born in the Queen City in 1946, his family moved to New Jersey in 1949.
The article highlights a 90-minute interview with Spielberg that will be broadcast on TCM (don’t ask me what that stands for …) on Monday night. In the interview, Steven mentions sitting in his grandmother’s house as she taught English to Holocaust survivors and and learning to recognize numbers by studying the tattooed numerals on their arms.
An accompanying article tells how Steven’s dad Arnold grew up on Windham Ave. which he would sled down to Victory Parkway and that, after serving in WWII, he studied electrical engineering at UC. His mom, Leah Posner Spielberg Adler reports that she grew up in a “very educated but very poor” Jewish family, that her father, Philip Posner, sold dry goods, and that she learned to love music by sitting on the back benches when the Cincinnati Opera performed at the zoo. Leah studied for a while at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and her mother's name was Jennie.
Now that I know their names and a little about them, I’ll be on Spielberg/Posner lookout …. woo hoo! I’ll be adding this to the Kevin Youkilis family watch … the Boston Red Sox current first baseman’s extended family, however, was quite active at the Lexington Ave. Synagogue and in the Cincinnati Jewish community for many years, so I’ve had those bases covered for a while ….
I know I’d heard that Spielberg’s family belonged to the Adath Israel congregation (Lexington Road Synagogue / Feinberg’s) in the Avondale neighborhood. The article doesn’t mention this, but does indicate that Steven’s family lived on Lexington Ave and so must have been pretty close to the synagogue. I was a little disappointed to learn that although Steven was born in the Queen City in 1946, his family moved to New Jersey in 1949.
The article highlights a 90-minute interview with Spielberg that will be broadcast on TCM (don’t ask me what that stands for …) on Monday night. In the interview, Steven mentions sitting in his grandmother’s house as she taught English to Holocaust survivors and and learning to recognize numbers by studying the tattooed numerals on their arms.
An accompanying article tells how Steven’s dad Arnold grew up on Windham Ave. which he would sled down to Victory Parkway and that, after serving in WWII, he studied electrical engineering at UC. His mom, Leah Posner Spielberg Adler reports that she grew up in a “very educated but very poor” Jewish family, that her father, Philip Posner, sold dry goods, and that she learned to love music by sitting on the back benches when the Cincinnati Opera performed at the zoo. Leah studied for a while at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and her mother's name was Jennie.
Now that I know their names and a little about them, I’ll be on Spielberg/Posner lookout …. woo hoo! I’ll be adding this to the Kevin Youkilis family watch … the Boston Red Sox current first baseman’s extended family, however, was quite active at the Lexington Ave. Synagogue and in the Cincinnati Jewish community for many years, so I’ve had those bases covered for a while ….
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Remembering Jean Rothenberg
Jean W. Rothenberg, who died in May at the age of 98, was one of the many older Jewish women I've had the opportunity to meet in Cincinnati who made me realize that any city that could boast vital sharp women like these had something special going for it. There was a strength to the civic Jewish culture here that these women both made possible and reflected. It was women like Jean (all of them of course completely unique in themselves) who made me want to understand this community and its history at a deeper level.
I'm very pleased that the Jewish Women's Archive was able to post a remembrance of Jean, written by Sue Ransohoff and Jim Kesner, on the "In Memoriam" pages of our website. The remembrance points to Jean's devoted work on behalf of the hearing impaired and to her indomitable and feisty personality.
Jean had a reputation for being tough, but as many anecdotes about her suggest she was more than ready to open herself to everyone that came her way. Jim Kesner remembers how Jean introduced herself at the opera, got him to walk her to her car, and then invited herself to join his movie group. Another friend told me that once her knees went bad, Jean would happily cadge downhill rides from whatever random car might be going by.
Once, as I was anticipating an upcoming sabbatical, I told Jean that I was thinking of following my days of research and writing with evenings spent watching classic films borrowed from the public library. She seconded my plan and, without hesitation, suggested that I bring the movies over to her house so we could watch them together. Would that I had actually followed through on this video sharing plan rather than feeling, in the end, too overwhelmed by work to spend time watching movies.
There are a few observations about Jean that I wanted to be sure to include in the JWA remembrance. The first was about Jean's truly uncanny ability to make the person standing in front of her feel like there was, at that moment, no one on earth that she could possibly find more interesting. She offered her full focus, conveying her sense that there was nothing more she could want than to learn from you. The other observation was the dominant theme that I heard emerging from Jean's memorial service in June which is also present in the "In Memoriam" piece --- Jean did everything she could to live fully and, in the process, she offered others a model of how to live.
Finally and fortuitously, it just so happens that this week I came across the engagement and wedding announcements of Jean's marriage to Dr. Robert (Bob) Rothenberg. It is my great pleasure as a researcher to be able to share excerpts here. On September 27, 1929, Every Friday announced the engagement of Miss Jean Ransohoff Westheimer, who had just returned from a summer abroad with her parents to Dr. Robert Rothenberg, "a Harvard man, 1924" who had taken his medical training at the University of Cincinnati and was completing an internship at the University of Michigan.
Despite the local prominence of both Jean's and Bob's parents [Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Rothenberg], the wedding appears to have been a simple affair, ornamented with a "musical programme by the Heermann Trio ... supplemented by vocal solos by Mr. Dan Beddoe." It took place on a "Thursday evening, October 3rd [1929], at the home of the bride's parents [Mr. and Mrs. Leo Westheimer], only members of the family attending the quiet ceremony." Unlike many Every Friday wedding announcements, this one carried no mention of what the bride wore. We do learn that both of Cincinnati's leading Reform rabbis participated in the ceremony with "Dr. James G. Heller officiat[ing] and Dr. David Philipson pronounc[ing] the blessing."
I'm grateful that I got to know Jean ... an American Israelite to remember.
I'm very pleased that the Jewish Women's Archive was able to post a remembrance of Jean, written by Sue Ransohoff and Jim Kesner, on the "In Memoriam" pages of our website. The remembrance points to Jean's devoted work on behalf of the hearing impaired and to her indomitable and feisty personality.
Jean had a reputation for being tough, but as many anecdotes about her suggest she was more than ready to open herself to everyone that came her way. Jim Kesner remembers how Jean introduced herself at the opera, got him to walk her to her car, and then invited herself to join his movie group. Another friend told me that once her knees went bad, Jean would happily cadge downhill rides from whatever random car might be going by.
Once, as I was anticipating an upcoming sabbatical, I told Jean that I was thinking of following my days of research and writing with evenings spent watching classic films borrowed from the public library. She seconded my plan and, without hesitation, suggested that I bring the movies over to her house so we could watch them together. Would that I had actually followed through on this video sharing plan rather than feeling, in the end, too overwhelmed by work to spend time watching movies.
There are a few observations about Jean that I wanted to be sure to include in the JWA remembrance. The first was about Jean's truly uncanny ability to make the person standing in front of her feel like there was, at that moment, no one on earth that she could possibly find more interesting. She offered her full focus, conveying her sense that there was nothing more she could want than to learn from you. The other observation was the dominant theme that I heard emerging from Jean's memorial service in June which is also present in the "In Memoriam" piece --- Jean did everything she could to live fully and, in the process, she offered others a model of how to live.
Finally and fortuitously, it just so happens that this week I came across the engagement and wedding announcements of Jean's marriage to Dr. Robert (Bob) Rothenberg. It is my great pleasure as a researcher to be able to share excerpts here. On September 27, 1929, Every Friday announced the engagement of Miss Jean Ransohoff Westheimer, who had just returned from a summer abroad with her parents to Dr. Robert Rothenberg, "a Harvard man, 1924" who had taken his medical training at the University of Cincinnati and was completing an internship at the University of Michigan.
Despite the local prominence of both Jean's and Bob's parents [Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Rothenberg], the wedding appears to have been a simple affair, ornamented with a "musical programme by the Heermann Trio ... supplemented by vocal solos by Mr. Dan Beddoe." It took place on a "Thursday evening, October 3rd [1929], at the home of the bride's parents [Mr. and Mrs. Leo Westheimer], only members of the family attending the quiet ceremony." Unlike many Every Friday wedding announcements, this one carried no mention of what the bride wore. We do learn that both of Cincinnati's leading Reform rabbis participated in the ceremony with "Dr. James G. Heller officiat[ing] and Dr. David Philipson pronounc[ing] the blessing."
I'm grateful that I got to know Jean ... an American Israelite to remember.
Monday, July 2, 2007
The Ladies' Auxiliary
I spent much of last week with the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Cincinnati Talmud Torah – or at least with their minute books from the 1920s through the 1940s. I love these ladies. For decades, they accepted sole responsibility for paying off the heavy mortgage of the Talmud Torah buildings that housed intensive Jewish education for the children of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to Cincinnati.
They acted not out of any sense of noblesse oblige, but out of their commitment to provide Jewish education to their children and grandchildren. They would meet monthly to report on their collections and to plan fund-raising picnics. They also brought in cakes, pillows, and crocheted bedspreads that were raffled off for the benefit of the Talmud Torah. Any remaining cakes were purchased during their “refreshment hour,” with the proceeds also going to the building fund. Funds accrued this way grew slowly in good times and bad, but as they reminded themselves “As slowly as it may seem, we are doing a great deal if it is the best that can be done” (September 17, 1940).
Something of the spirit of their meetings is captured in one notation about their Golden Book, where notable donations were recorded: “Mrs Hirschman our president told the ladies that if they bring in 25 new members their names will be entered in the Golden book with a gold star next to their name. We hope that all our members will always have golden stars both in this world and in the next for their good work” (February 8, 1928).
In addition to whatever gold stars they accrued, between 1916 and 1923 the ladies raised the notable sum of $16,500 to pay off the 1916 downtown Talmud Torah building. With Cincinnati’s moving population, however, they were quickly confronted with a new $55,000 mortgage for the building that was erected in the hilltop suburb of Avondale in 1927. The ladies raised $10,000 against this debt by mid-1929. And, despite the intervention of the Great Depression and World War II, resulting in a loss of membership and in much scarcity, the ladies went gamely on beating back the mortgage, even as regular mortgage payments of $1000, and then $500, were reduced to $250 increments.
As World War II wound down, the mortgage balance had been reduced to less then $9000, at which time the male Talmud Torah committee informed the ladies that they had decided to “lend a helping hand” to polish off the debt. An invitation to a “Mortgage-Burning Dinner” to be held on June 17, 1945 arrived from the Talmud Torah Association and the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Talmud Torah. The inside of the invitation, however, listed only the names of the “Mortgage Fund Committee” consisting entirely of men.
Cincinnati’s Talmud Torah is remembered with pride for its provision of well-trained professional (mostly male) teachers and the impressive intensive Jewish education it afforded to thousands of school children. Few who remember the existence of the Talmud Torah today would associate its success with women’s work. Yet like so many other institutions central to the Jewish communal life of most American cities, Cincinnati’s Talmud Torah would not have existed without the women who paid its bills. They did much more than serve refreshments – though they did that too.
Source: Cincinnati Ohio, Cincinnati Talmud Torah, Small Collections #2010, American Jewish Archives
They acted not out of any sense of noblesse oblige, but out of their commitment to provide Jewish education to their children and grandchildren. They would meet monthly to report on their collections and to plan fund-raising picnics. They also brought in cakes, pillows, and crocheted bedspreads that were raffled off for the benefit of the Talmud Torah. Any remaining cakes were purchased during their “refreshment hour,” with the proceeds also going to the building fund. Funds accrued this way grew slowly in good times and bad, but as they reminded themselves “As slowly as it may seem, we are doing a great deal if it is the best that can be done” (September 17, 1940).
Something of the spirit of their meetings is captured in one notation about their Golden Book, where notable donations were recorded: “Mrs Hirschman our president told the ladies that if they bring in 25 new members their names will be entered in the Golden book with a gold star next to their name. We hope that all our members will always have golden stars both in this world and in the next for their good work” (February 8, 1928).
In addition to whatever gold stars they accrued, between 1916 and 1923 the ladies raised the notable sum of $16,500 to pay off the 1916 downtown Talmud Torah building. With Cincinnati’s moving population, however, they were quickly confronted with a new $55,000 mortgage for the building that was erected in the hilltop suburb of Avondale in 1927. The ladies raised $10,000 against this debt by mid-1929. And, despite the intervention of the Great Depression and World War II, resulting in a loss of membership and in much scarcity, the ladies went gamely on beating back the mortgage, even as regular mortgage payments of $1000, and then $500, were reduced to $250 increments.
As World War II wound down, the mortgage balance had been reduced to less then $9000, at which time the male Talmud Torah committee informed the ladies that they had decided to “lend a helping hand” to polish off the debt. An invitation to a “Mortgage-Burning Dinner” to be held on June 17, 1945 arrived from the Talmud Torah Association and the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Talmud Torah. The inside of the invitation, however, listed only the names of the “Mortgage Fund Committee” consisting entirely of men.
Cincinnati’s Talmud Torah is remembered with pride for its provision of well-trained professional (mostly male) teachers and the impressive intensive Jewish education it afforded to thousands of school children. Few who remember the existence of the Talmud Torah today would associate its success with women’s work. Yet like so many other institutions central to the Jewish communal life of most American cities, Cincinnati’s Talmud Torah would not have existed without the women who paid its bills. They did much more than serve refreshments – though they did that too.
Source: Cincinnati Ohio, Cincinnati Talmud Torah, Small Collections #2010, American Jewish Archives
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