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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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Michigan Democrats Nominate Lawyer Who Praised Hezbollah for Top University Post
A sign at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Photo: Ken Lund.
The Michigan Democratic Party nominated attorney attorney Amir Makled over incumbent Jewish Regent Jordan Acker on Sunday, drawing fresh scrutiny towards Makled’s defense of international terrorist organizations and anti-Israel posture.
Makled, a Dearborn-based civil rights attorney who has been outspoken in support of divestment from Israel, won the party’s nomination for one of two regent seats up for election this year, defeating Acker, who had become a frequent target of pro-Palestinian activists over his opposition to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) efforts on campus.
The contest has drawn national attention because of the unusually broad authority held by University of Michigan regents, who are elected statewide and oversee the university’s finances, investments, executive leadership and major institutional policy decisions. The eight-member board plays a central role in decisions ranging from presidential oversight to responses to campus protest movements and demands for divestment.
For months, anti-Israel student activists and progressive organizers had pressed for changes to the board, arguing the university should divest from companies tied to Israel amid the war in Gaza. Acker, one of the board’s most vocal opponents of divestment, became a particular focus of that pressure campaign. In December 2024, pro-Hamas activists targeted Acker’s home with violent demonstrations, breaking his windows and spray-painting his car “Divest Free Palestine.” The vandals also spray-painted an inverted red triangle on Acker’s car, a symbol used to indicate support for the Hamas terrorist group.
Makled, who represented a student arrested during the university’s 2024 anti-Israel encampment protests, had argued publicly that the university should reconsider its investment policies regarding Israel. His nomination, however, also drew scrutiny after resurfaced and later-deleted social media posts in which he appeared to praise Hezbollah and shared antisemitic content. The Michigan chapter of the Service Employees International Union reportedly withdrew its endorsement following the controversy.
An investigation by The Detroit News revealed that Makled was found to have deleted social media posts praising leaders of the Hezbollah terrorist organization. One of the posts referred to slain Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah as a “martyr.” He also reposted antisemitic messages from far-right commentator Candace Owens which referred to Israelis as “demons” who “lie, cheat, murder and blackmail.”
Supporters of Acker have argued the outcome reflects a broader deterioration in support for Israel and tolerance of antisemitism within Democratic politics, particularly among younger and more progressive voters. Some also noted that Paul Brown, Acker’s non-Jewish running mate who had similarly opposed divestment efforts, was renominated while Acker was not, making the result especially symbolic for many Jewish Democrats.
The race underscores how university governance battles have become a new front in national political fights over Israel. While university divestment decisions are often constrained by legal and fiduciary obligations, regents can shape investment policy, institutional messaging and the university’s overall posture toward such campaigns.
With eight regents serving staggered terms and only two seats on the ballot this cycle, a single election does not determine the university’s investment policy outright. But activists on both sides increasingly view these races as critical long-term contests over whether public universities will resist or embrace institutional divestment from Israel.
As the general election approaches, the regent race is likely to remain a closely watched test of how far the Democratic Party’s internal debate over Israel is reshaping not only national politics, but the leadership of major American universities. Recent polls indicate that Democratic constituents have rapidly shifted away from supporting Israel
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Rahm Emanuel joins calls for end to US ‘financial aid’ to Israel
(JTA) — Rahm Emanuel has joined growing calls for the United States to end subsidies tied to its military sales to Israel, arguing that Israel should purchase weapons on the same terms as other U.S. allies.
“The days of taxpayers subsidizing Israel militarily, that’s over,” Emanuel said during an appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO Max show “Real Time.” “No more financial aid.”
Emanuel is the Jewish former mayor of Chicago who is seen as a likely 2028 Democratic presidential candidate. His comments come months after he said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government bore responsibility for the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza last summer.
Now, as support for Israel hits a record low among Democrats and party leaders increasingly move away from the United States’ longstanding backing of the country, calls to end U.S. military aid to Israel are gaining traction.
Last week, all but seven Senate Democrats voted to block the sales of certain weapons to Israel, marking a doubling in the number of lawmakers backing similar resolutions in just two years.
Emanuel, whose father was born in Jerusalem and who volunteered as a civilian with the Israeli army during the Gulf War in the 1990s, told Maher that Israel should be able to fund its own military — and implied that it might not meet the United States’ standards for being able to purchase U.S.-made weapons.
“Israel is a very wealthy nation. There should be no more taxpayer support for what they want to do and they get the same deal that any one of our allies do,” Emanuel said. “They have to abide by the laws of the United States if they’re going to buy X weapons, and that’s how it should be constructed.”
In January, Netanyahu said for the first time that he wanted to “taper off” U.S. military aid to Israel over the next decade until it reaches zero. His pledge was quickly met with support from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said at the time, “We need not wait 10 years.”
Speaking of the joint U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, Emanuel said the move amounted to a “violation of a rule Israel’s had for 78 years,” arguing that Israel had long sought to avoid pulling the United States into conflicts with its neighbors.
“The United States should never spill any blood for the state of Israel’s security,” Emanuel said. “What happened here going into Iran with the United States and Israel fighting together, which has never happened in 78 years, is a major change in policy for the State of Israel, which comes with political risk, and now they’re seeing it.”
The post Rahm Emanuel joins calls for end to US ‘financial aid’ to Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Michigan Democrats nominate Eli Savit, progressive Jewish prosecutor, for state attorney general
(JTA) — A progressive Jewish county prosecutor won the endorsement of Michigan’s state Democratic Party over the weekend in his bid for state attorney general, at a convention that also spotlighted deep divides over Israel within the party.
Eli Savit beat out another county prosecutor for the chance to succeed Dana Nessel, the state’s current AG, who is also a Jewish Democrat. He will be the Democratic nominee on November’s ballot.
Unlike Savit, who remains largely embraced by the left, Nessel has made enemies among the state’s pro-Palestinian activist contingent for her role in aggressively prosecuting University of Michigan encampment protesters.
The 41-year-old Savit has since 2021 been the prosecutor of Washtenaw County, which includes Ann Arbor and the university. A former clerk for Jewish Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and elected in a mini-wave of progressive prosecutors that also included Chesa Boudin in San Francisco.
While Boudin was forced out following a 2022 recall, Savit has remained in Washtenaw’s good graces as he’s pushed progressive proposals including decriminalizing consentual sex work, not seeking prosecutions for psychedelics consumption and curbing cash bail.
Savit has called himself “a bona fide American Jew” and has invoked his identity when opposing policies such as President Trump’s first-term 2019 executive order defining Judaism as a nationality as part of an effort to target BDS movements on college campuses. He has said his father’s family came from “shtetls in Russia, Poland, and the Ukraine,” and that his mother, originally from Iowa, converted to Orthodox Judaism. He also wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal in 2016 to dispute a column wondering why more Jews don’t vote Republican.
Savit also played a part in prosecuting the university’s pro-Palestinian protesters, although his role was smaller than Nessel’s. In 2024 his office filed felony charges against four protesters for allegedly assaulting police officers during a sit-in at the university president’s house. Some activists accused Savit and his assistant prosecutor of “betraying their constituents” and “doing so to protect the university’s investments in genocide and apartheid.” (Two of the charged were permitted to enter a diversion program for young offenders, while the other two pled down to misdemeanors.)
When it came to the more high-profile charges against some of the school’s encampment participants, Savit allowed Nessel’s statewide office to handle the cases. Nessel was then accused of being “biased,” a charge she labeled as antisemitic; she ultimately dropped the charges against the protesters.
The attorney who defended the protesters, Amir Makled, also won the Democratic Party’s nomination Sunday in his bid to oust a Jewish, pro-Israel member of the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents. Makled won the party’s support despite reports of past social media activity in which he had retweeted antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens and praised Hezbollah’s assassinated leader.
Savit also unreservedly condemned the Temple Israel attack in Michigan as antisemitic and stated, “There is a lot of grief, a lot of pain from people that may have loved ones, may have relatives who are in the regions, may even have lost loved ones and relatives. But at the end of the day, that certainly does not give license to launch attacks on Jewish community spaces.”
His statements drew a contrast with Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, also a favorite of the state’s progressive wing, whose own condemnation of the attack had also invoked Israel’s war in Lebanon.
The post Michigan Democrats nominate Eli Savit, progressive Jewish prosecutor, for state attorney general appeared first on The Forward.