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How a Catholic university amassed a treasure trove of Jewish artifacts from the Bronx
(New York Jewish Week) – A Catholic university may be the unlikeliest place for what may be the largest depository dedicated to the Jewish history of the Bronx.
But at Fordham University — the private, Jesuit institution in the Bronx — decades worth of archival documents and artifacts from the local Jewish community have found a home, thanks to its Jewish studies department.
For the last three years, Fordham has been collecting and cataloging items that detail a once-thriving Jewish community in the Bronx: yearbooks full of Jewish last names, Bar Mitzvah invitations, phonebooks full of Jewish-owned businesses — all the simple transactions that define an era in history.
The archive at Fordham is one of the only physical collections of everyday material from Jewish residents of the borough, according to Magda Teter, the chair of the Center for Jewish Studies at the university, who spearheaded the project.
“It’s not only preserving a piece of New York Jewish history, but also a way of life,” Teter told the New York Jewish Week. “Bringing this voice to the dominant Christian identity of Fordham and teaching about Jews [as a minority] within the dominant cultures is very important.”
A song and dance book in the Fordham University collection features the lyrics for “Hatikvah” and “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and a “Jewish dictionary.” (Julia Gergely)
During the first half of the twentieth century, Jewish life thrived in the Bronx. There were 260 registered synagogues in 1940, and the borough produced some of the biggest Jewish names in show business, fashion, literature and more: designer Ralph Lauren, politician Bella Abzug, novelist E.L. Doctorow, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, Miss America Bess Myerson, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Robert Lefkowitz.
At the community’s peak in 1930, the Bronx was approximately 49% Jewish, according to the borough’s official historian, Lloyd Ultan. South of Tremont Avenue, the number reached 80%. Most of the Jewish Bronx was of Eastern European descent; many were first generation Americans whose parents had immigrated and lived on the Lower East Side, but who could now afford to live in less cramped neighborhoods with more trees and wider streets.
Though there is a strong Jewish community in the neighborhood of Riverdale, most of the Jewish community moved out of the Bronx for the suburbs after World War II when mortgages for white would-be homeowners were being subsidized by the government and Blacks and Latinos were steered to Bronx neighborhoods they couldn’t afford or that the city had chosen to neglect. The Jewish population of the Bronx dropped from 650,000 in 1948 to 45,000 in 2003. Many of the synagogues have been converted for other uses, and the physical legacy of the Jewish community there has begun to erode over time, making an archive all the more necessary.
While Teter was always interested in collecting items from the Jewish Bronx, the archive got an unexpected boost from a member of the public. In the spring of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Fordham hosted a virtual event, “Remnants: Photographs of the Jewish Bronx,” which featured evidence of the area’s faded Jewish history gathered by writer and photographer Julian Voloj. (Voloj is the husband of the New York Jewish Week’s managing editor, Lisa Keys.)
An invitation for the bar mitzvah of Freddie Rothberg, which took place on Oct. 6, 1951 at Beth Hamedrash Hagadol. (Julia Gergely)
In the audience was Ellen Meshnick, who had grown up in New York and now lives in Georgia. Inspired, she offered Fordham a trove of material her parents, Frank and Martha Meshnick, had kept throughout their lives in the Bronx. The boxes included donated yearbooks from Morris High School and Walton High School, songbooks, bar mitzvah invitations, a marriage certificate, receipts for a flower delivery — even a document from the hospital from when she was born — mostly from the 1930s through the 1960s.
The donation significantly bolstered what materials Fordham already had on hand, which included less personal but still unique items like matchbooks from kosher restaurants. Now, Teter is growing the archive through other private donations and occasionally by purchasing materials online — personal family archives, books about Bronx Jewish history, songsheets and the like.
The marriage certificate, or ketubah, recognizing the marriage between Frank Meshnick and Martha Farber on Aug. 23, 1942. The certificate was part of an archive donated to Fordham University by the couple’s daughter Ellen. (Julia Gergely)
“They may not be the most beautiful things, but we are interested in what people actually used and lived with,” Teter said.
Teter said that while the American Jewish Historical Society in Manhattan does collect the types of quotidian and personal items that American Jews kept with them in the last few centuries, they don’t have much that uniquely focuses on Jewish life in the Bronx.
The entire collection is part of a greater effort by Teter, the Jewish studies department and the librarians at Fordham to increase awareness about Judaism and Jewish people. “I will not hide that I think it’s an important way to fight antisemitism — to teach Jewish history and Jewish culture in all its colors and in all its experiences,” she said. “It enriches the students’ appreciation and understanding of Jewish life beyond how Jews are usually portrayed.”
The Jewish studies department at Fordham is relatively new: The college began offering a Jewish studies minor in 2016, and opened the department in 2017. At the time, the highlight of the library’s archives was the Rosenblatt Holocaust collection, which was funded by an alumnus. Since 1992, the library has amassed over 11,000 titles, videos and artifacts on the Holocaust, according to librarian Linda Loschiavo.
When Teter arrived, Loschiavo worked with her to bring in historical Passover haggadahs from all over the world. Fordham now possesses two Italian haggadahs from the 1660s, as well as Jewish artifacts from unexpected places, like playbills from Jewish Bollywood.
Last month the university opened the Henry S. Miller Judaica Research Room on the fourth floor of the campus’ main library — named for Fordham’s first Jewish student, who graduated in 1968. Miller, a leader of a financial restructuring firm, is now a trustee of the college.
Fordham President Tania Tetlow described herself jokingly as “a wannabe Jew” at the room’s unveiling. “I’ve understood how deeply intertwined Judaism and Catholicism are,” she said, “and the connections we have of the deep intellectualism of both faiths, of the desire to study text and the interpretation of text going back for thousands of years, of the love of ritual — and the central place of food and guilt!”
The former Jacob Schiff Center on Valentine Avenue. (Julian Voloj)
“At the moment, we envision that the research room will be a space for exhibitions that would foster the curatorial skills of our students and that will bring Jewish art and artists to campus,” Teter said. “We would now be able to display their art and combine the exhibitions with some items from the Judaica collection.”
The research room is currently displaying Voloj’s Bronx photographs, along with some of the recently acquired local archival materials, curated by sophomore Reyna Stovall, who is interning in Fordham’s Jewish studies department this semester.
“It is really, really rewarding,” said Stovall, who is Jewish. Stovall became involved in the Jewish studies department because of her interest in Holocaust studies, but as she began her internship, she was excited to work on the archives cataloging the once thriving Jewish history of the Bronx.
The yearbook photo of Frank Meshnick (bottom right), who graduated from Morris High School in Morrisania in 1931. (Julia Gergely)
“It’s pretty amazing that they have the collection to begin with,” she added. “It really shows Fordham’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity that they’re willing to take on this massive collection of Judaica, even though that’s not the religion that the school was founded on.”
Teter estimates there are about 300 Jews among the school’s 15,000 undergrads. As a result, the Center for Jewish Studies and the research room offers students from all backgrounds the opportunity to learn more about Judaism — as well as marginalized communities in general, and connect their stories to their own lives.
“Our identity grew to showcase Jewish studies at the intersection and in conversation with other fields and areas of study,” Teter explained.
The Center’s goal, she added, is “to make students, faculty and the public realize that studying Jews is not just for Jews, and that they can learn so much about the areas of their own concern and interest by studying Jews.”
“Something magical happens when you give students the opportunity to work with historical artifacts, and really touch history,” Teter said. “That’s what I think inspired the director of the library to devote that space to that kind of research and to that kind of student experience.”
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The post How a Catholic university amassed a treasure trove of Jewish artifacts from the Bronx appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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As Supreme Court dilutes Voting Rights Act, Tennessee’s first Jewish congressman could lose his seat
The first Jew elected to represent Tennessee in Congress could lose his seat to redistricting following a Wednesday Supreme Court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act by limiting states’ ability to take race into account when drawing voting maps.
Rep. Steve Cohen, a progressive Democrat elected in 2006, represents a majority-Black district that includes parts of Memphis. He is the only Democrat among Tennessee’s nine members of the House.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican running for Tennessee governor, called on the legislature to redistrict “immediately” following the Supreme Court decision, posting to X an all-red map of Tennessee that would split up Cohen’s district, effectively eliminating his seat.
Cohen, 76, had been set to face Justin Pearson, 31 — a challenger positioned to Cohen’s left on Israel — in the August Democratic primary. Cohen has historically been backed by J Street, the left-leaning political advocacy group that supports a two-state solution and describes itself as “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace.”
But if district lines are redrawn before the midterms, as Blackburn has proposed, neither candidate would likely be competitive.
In a statement, Cohen said he had been “expecting this decision” but was “disappointed that the Court has diluted the Voting Rights Act which guaranteed minority voters the right to elect the representative of their choosing.”
Cohen’s Jewish identity
This would not be Cohen’s first brush with redistricting. In 2012, Tennessee’s voting borders were redrawn in such a way that Cohen was cut off from representing many of his Jewish constituents — including the area where his own synagogue is located in Memphis.
“When I get asked how many Jews are in your district, I used to say 10,000,” Cohen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2018. “Now I say, ‘well, there’s Laurie, Jeff, Malcolm …”
Despite the redrawn lines, Cohen has consistently been re-elected since 2006, even as his campaigns have been marked by attacks on his Jewish identity; a flyer distributed in 2008 read “Cohen and the Jews hate Jesus.”
That same year, an attack ad seemed to insinuate that Cohen was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. “This guy would have never invited me to his Seder,” Cohen told the Forward at the time, responding to what he called the “ludicrous” suggestion that he had an affinity for Klansmen.
In 2016, Cohen took a very-Jewish jab at Donald Trump’s pick to be Israel ambassador, David Friedman, with a Fiddler on the Roof reference: “You’re no Tevye the milkman.” His wry sense of humor was most recently on display during a cameo on the show The Rehearsal, with Jewish comedian Nathan Fielder.
Cohen has worked across partisan divides with Tennessee’s only other Jewish representative, Republican David Kustoff, elected in 2017, a decade after Cohen became Tennessee’s first Jewish representative. The two share a rabbi, Micah Greenstein of the Reform Temple Israel in Memphis.
If Tennessee’s legislature moves forward with a special session to redraw the maps, Cohen has vowed to fight back.
“This ruling effectively undoes the work of Martin Luther King and John Lewis. Changes to the Voting Rights Act should be made by Congress,” Cohen said in a statement. “If the General Assembly is called back into a special session and seeks to do Trump’s bidding, I will exercise every option, legal and political, to prevent the harm this decision today makes possible.”
The post As Supreme Court dilutes Voting Rights Act, Tennessee’s first Jewish congressman could lose his seat appeared first on The Forward.
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This Year in Israel, Yom HaZikaron Was Different
Mourners visit the graves of fallen IDF soldiers at Israel’s Yom HaZikaron ceremony. Photo: Israel Defense Forces
For most of my years, Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) has had special significance. In 1948, my father’s younger brother (one of three survivors of a large Warsaw family) was killed in the Battle of Mishmar Hayarden. From 1950 until my father’s passing in 1990, he visited his brother’s grave, the only grave he was able to visit (his parents, sister, older brother, and baby brother were slaughtered in Auschwitz/Treblinka). I often joined him on this sad, but important, visit.
The atmosphere at the military part of the ancient cemetery in Safed was always mournful but serene and peaceful. Even after wars such as 1967, 1973 or the Lebanon campaign in 1982, it was mostly one or two family members standing by the graves of their family members. They would cry a little, listen to the memorial prayer El Moleh Rachamim, but celebrate the individuals buried in the kvarim and then go home.
This year was different. With tens of thousands of victims of the October 7 war and the wars initiated by Israel’s other enemies, every military cemetery in Israel was packed and turned into family gatherings. Noticeably, there was an upsurge of the number of children crying at graves of their parents or siblings. All I could think of was this is not the way it should be.
This war was a war for Israel’s survival. It involved the entire country from north to south, east to west. Thousands came back home to Israel to fight for the country’s existence. And the losses reflected this massive effort. Looking around the cemetery you saw every breed of Jew — religious, secular, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Russian, Black. But as always, the saddest part was the children.
My friend Jackie Schimmel writes about the thousands of small stickers lining lampposts and bus stops, petrol stations, and kitchen fridges all across the country. Words that soldiers had as their mottos or themes of life:
“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
“He fought out of love of those behind him rather than hatred of those in front of him.”
“It’s very good to live for our country.”
They are fragments of philosophy that stayed behind.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin quoted her son Hersh — who was quoting Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl citing German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche — “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
Schimmel compares these sayings to Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers), our sayings from famous rishonim, each beginning with “Hu haya omer” — “he used to say.”
So, with the large increase of children and teens that now have to visit graves and mourn their losses, perhaps we can look at these stickers and these sayings as a way for the young to mourn. These notes, the fragments of themselves that people have left behind, can be a way to pay tribute to the bravest of the brave — our soldiers and victims of terror. And even more so, a way for adults to reconnect to all of the young fighting or who fought.
“I go in search of my brothers.”
J. Philip Rosen is currently Chairman of the American Section of the World Jewish Congress and Board Member of Yeshiva University, as well as several other Jewish causes. He was Vice-Chair of Birthright Israel for many years.
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UK Raises Threat Level to ‘Severe’ After London Antisemitic Terror Attack
Protesters hold up placards against British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his visit to Golders Green, northwest London, following a terror attack on April 29, 2026, in which two men were stabbed, in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/Pool via REUTERS
Britain on Thursday raised its national terrorism threat level to “severe,” signaling that a terrorist attack was considered “highly likely,” following an antisemitic stabbing in north London.
Interior minister Shabana Mahmood said the level had been increased from “substantial” after the attack in the Golders Green area on Wednesday, adding that the decision reflected a broader and rising threat environment rather than a single event.
“I know this will be a source of concern to many, particularly amongst our Jewish community, who have suffered so much,” the minister said in a statement. “As the threat level rises, I urge everyone to be vigilant as they go about their daily lives and report any concerns they have to the police. And I can assure everyone that our world-class security services and the police are working day and night to keep our country safe.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to take action to protect the Jewish community in Britain, acknowledging that Jews were scared a day after the stabbing left two Jewish men, one in his 70s and one in his 30s, hospitalized in stable condition.
The attacked followed a spate of antisemitic attacks in the British capital.
Starmer, who has faced severe criticism from some in the Jewish community for the government’s response, promised more police in Jewish areas, a crackdown on those spreading antisemitism, and new legislation to deal with state-sponsored threats from the likes of Iran.
He had earlier been jeered and heckled by a small crowd waving banners reading “Keir Starmer Jew Harmer” when he visited Golders Green where the two Jewish men were stabbed on Wednesday.
‘PEOPLE ARE SCARED’
“People are scared, scared to show who they are in their community, scared to go to synagogue and practice their religion, scared to go to university as a Jew, to send their children to school as a Jew, to tell their colleagues that they are Jewish,” Starmer said in a televised statement.
The suspect in the Golders Green attack, a 45-year-old British national who was born in Somalia, had a history of serious violence and mental health issues, police said.
They also confirmed he had previously been referred to the counter radicalization scheme Prevent in 2020, while local media reported he had served time in prison for an incident in 2008 when he stabbed an officer and a police dog.
Amid widespread calls for more to be done to protect the about 290,000 Jews living in Britain, Starmer said the government would do “everything in our power to stamp this hatred out,” with stronger powers to shut down charities promoting extremism and a clampdown on “hate preachers.”
The government has also said it would fast-track legislation allowing the prosecution of people acting as proxies of a state-sponsored group, so they can be dealt with in the same way as spies for foreign intelligence services.
“We need stronger powers to tackle the malign threat posed by states like Iran, because we know for a fact that they want to harm British Jews,” Starmer said.
A pro-Iranian government group has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks while last month, two men were charged under Britain’s existing National Security Act with being tasked by Iran to carry out hostile surveillance.
Tehran has rejected such accusations.
PROTEST PROBLEM
One of the major issues which has caused anger amongst the Jewish community in Britain has been anti-Israel marches, which have become commonplace since the October 2023 Hamas assault on the Jewish state that triggered the war in Gaza. Critics say the protests have generated hostility and become a hotbed of antisemitism.
“If you stand alongside people who say, ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ you are calling for terrorism against Jews, and people who use that phrase should be prosecuted,” Starmer said. “It is racism, extreme racism, and it has left a minority community in this country, scared, intimidated, wondering if they belong.”
The recent incidents in London are part of a rising number of antisemitic attacks.
Last October, two people were killed after an attack at a synagogue in the northern English city of Manchester. A week later, two men went on trial over a plot to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community.
They were found guilty in December, just over a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Australia’s Bondi Beach.
Britain’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall, told the BBC the British attacks had become “the biggest national security emergency” since 2017, when there was a string of high-profile attacks.
Mahmood said additional funding would pay for more protective security for the country’s synagogues, schools, places of worship, and community centers, boosting police numbers in areas with a large Jewish community.
According to the British government, an additional £25 million ($34 million) will be invested to increase security for Jewish communities.
“We are seeing a huge increase in antisemitism, and that’s why the government’s work on education and stamping out antisemitism across other parts of the public sector is also an incredibly important part of this picture,” Mahmood said.
She did not say the legislation would be used against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) but told Sky News: “I expect to be making decisions in the very near future about the groups that we will be designating as state-linked.”
Several countries have designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization.