JDC Archives Announces Mimi Pasternak Toubin (z”l) Public Educational Programming
Please check out our upcoming virtual programs!
The JDC Archives is delighted to announce its fall and winter webinars, which are made possible by the generous support of the Miriam “Mimi” Pasternak Toubin (z”l) Public Educational Programming from the JDC Archives. Mrs. Toubin’s daughter and JDC Board Member, Robin Stein, shares why the support of the public programming is so meaningful to her:
My mom, affectionately known as Mimi Toubin to her friends and family, loved learning about modern Jewish history and was captivated by the diverse experiences of Jewish life worldwide. As the daughter of an immigrant from what is now Ukraine, who initially lived in Cuba before moving to the US, she deeply valued the support provided by Jewish organizations, such as the JDC. Mimi believed in preserving and sharing knowledge of our Jewish heritage for future generations. She would be so pleased that the JDC Archives continue to highlight important moments in Jewish history.
Our upcoming programs include:
WEBINAR:
JDC and the Power of Female Diplomacy: The Life and Leadership of Laura Margolis and Olga Feinberg, 1939-1949
Thursday, September 26, 2024
12:00pm–1:15pm (Eastern)
During the pivotal decade between 1939 and 1949, as the JDC tended to Jews throughout the world, it sent a cadre of Jewish women to lead their efforts. These women not only cared for the welfare needs of Jewish refugees throughout the world, but also practiced diplomacy in ways that few women had done so before them. Through an examination of experiences of Laura Margolis and Olga Feinberg during this pivotal decade, we see the power of female diplomacy that helped the JDC at this critical moment in Jewish history. Working in places such as Havana, Shanghai, Paris, Jericho and Aden, Margolis and Feinberg show how women performed the same type of work as men but used their gender to shape not only their successes, and failures, but also how the JDC was viewed throughout the world.
Rebecca Kobrin is the Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University where she is also the co-director of Columbia’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and a member of its Task Force on Antisemitism.
Kobrin works in the fields of immigration history, urban studies, business history, and Jewish History, specializing in modern Jewish migration. Her book Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2010) was awarded the Jordan Schnitzer prize for best book in modern Jewish history concerning the Americas (2012). She is the editor of Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism (Rutgers University Press, 2012) and Salo Baron: Using the Past to Shape the Future of Jewish Studies in America (Columbia University Press, 2022), and is co-editor with Adam Teller of Purchasing Power: The Economics of Jewish History (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Her forthcoming book, A Credit to the Nation: East European Immigrant Bankers and American Finance, 1870-1930 (Harvard University Press, 2025), looks at the lost world of immigrant banking. She is one of the lead investigators overseeing the award-winning digital humanities Historical NYC Project, named the best interactive map for its visualization of the demographic and spatial changes wrought in New York City between 1850 and 1940. Her writing regularly appears in The Washington Post, CNN, The Guardian and The Jerusalem Post.
Kobrin was a recipient of the 2022 Fred and Ellen Lewis/ JDC Archives Fellowship.
RSVPWEBINAR:
Wilhelm Filderman: JDC’s Representative in Romania (1920-1947)
Thursday, October 10, 2024
12:00pm-1:15pm (Eastern)
This lecture will explore Wilhelm Filderman’s role as the JDC’s representative in Romania from 1920 to 1947. Filderman was pivotal in advocating for and defending the rights of Romanian Jews, particularly during the upheavals of World War II. Dr. Irimia will examine how the JDC, which gathered information on Jewish conditions, reported on antisemitic legislation and injustices faced by Romanian Jews. Insights from the JDC Archives reveal Filderman’s consistent communication with JDC officials, detailing the dire situation and requesting aid for Jewish institutions and communities. The talk will also address the challenges JDC faced, especially after the onset of the royal dictatorship in 1938 and the prohibition of contact with JDC from 1941. Finally, it will assess the Joint’s efforts to support Romanian Jews during the Holocaust.
Maria Mădălina Irimia is a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Letters at Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, focusing on Yiddish folklore in Romania. She holds a PhD in History from “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iași, with a thesis on Jewish Intellectuals in Iași in the Second Half of the 19th Century and the Beginning of the 20th Century: Elias, Moses and Wilhelm Schwarzfeld. She also earned an MA in Jewish History from the same university, exploring the identity dilemmas of Jewish intellectuals in interwar Romania, particularly Mihail Sebastian. Irimia previously held a MINERVA – POSDRU doctoral research fellowship at the “A.D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Romanian Academy. Her research interests include Jewish intellectual and social life, modernization, antisemitism , and Jewish emigration to the Americas. She is currently a researcher at the “Wilhelm Filderman” Center for the Study of Jewish History in Romania. She is the recipient of the 2023 Max and Cecil (Steuer) Chesin/JDC Archives Fellowship.
RSVPWEBINAR:
Lens on Poland: Analyzing JDC Interwar Relief Work through Mixed Media
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
12:00pm-1:15pm (Eastern)
Despite the cessation of the destruction and dislocation of World War I, the situation for Jews in Poland remained bleak. Civil war in neighboring Russia and the Russo-Polish War of 1919-1920 caused further hardship; for Jews, there was additional danger from numerous pogroms. Famine and disease were widespread, and the economy lay in ruins. Children were especially vulnerable, with several hundred thousand orphaned.
Concerned for the welfare and well-being of tens of thousands of Jewish children in need, JDC founded TOZ—the Society for the Preservation of Health—in 1922 and CENTOS—the National Society for the Care of Orphans—in 1923. Through these initiatives, kindergartens, summer camps, and trade schools were set up, and food supplements, medical care, and dental treatment provided for at-risk children.
This is the second program in a new JDC Archives webinar series, Exploring the Jewish Experience in Poland from WWI to the Holocaust: Insights from the JDC Archives.
Abra Cohen is the Artifacts Curator and Outreach Coordinator of the JDC Archives. She holds an MA in Jewish Art and Culture from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a BA in Art History from the University of Michigan. She has led the project to rehouse, catalogue, digitize, and expand the JDC Archives collection of artifacts and ephemera.
Slava Mitsel is the Film and Photo Archivist for the Archives, joining JDC in 2008. He manages the historic photograph collection with over 150,000 images from 1914 to the present as well as the video and film collection of over 2,000 titles relating to JDC’s work over the past century. Slava brings to JDC his expertise for preservation and cataloging of film and photography along with his skills as a filmmaker, producer, and editor with a Master of Fine Arts.
RSVPWEBINAR:
Jewish Responses to Polish Pogroms: Light from the JDC Archives
Monday, December 16, 2024
12:00pm-1:15pm (Eastern)
The years following the death of Poland’s Marshal Józef Piłsudski on May 12, 1935, saw a spike in violent picketing and physical assaults against Jews, their customers, and the police who tried to protect them. Many assaults grew into lethal pogroms. Hasidic Jews, in particular, were targets of violence on account of their recognizable appearance. Jewish responses were varied, including physical self-defense, lobbying, strikes, and protests. Joint programs in post-1935 Poland ranged from financially aiding pogromized communities to retraining Jewish petty merchants as artisans in an effort to encourage less controversial pursuits than trade. This talk focuses on the effects of the pogroms and the Joint’s aid efforts on Poland’s thriving Hasidic communities on the eve of the Nazi onslaught.
This is the third program in a new JDC Archives webinar series, Exploring the Jewish Experience in Poland from WWI to the Holocaust: Insights from the JDC Archives.
Glenn Dynner, Ph.D., is the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Bennett Center at Fairfield University; Editor of the journal Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies; and a recent Guggenheim Fellow. He is author of “Men of Silk”: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society (Oxford University Press, 2006), and Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor & Life in the Kingdom of Poland (Oxford University Press, 2014). His new book is entitled The Light of Learning: Hasidism in Poland on the Eve of the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 2024).
RSVP
