Behind the Lens: New York Jews between the Wars

Location: Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, NYC

Co-presented with the Museum of the City of New York.

Presented in connection with Letters to Afar, an immersive video art installation co-presented by YIVO and the Museum of the City of New York (October 22, 2014-March 22, 2015).

By the time the Immigration Act passed in 1924, there were approximately 1.5 million Jews living in New York, most of whom were immigrants, or children of immigrants. Who were these Jews? How did they live? In this program, four historians dig into the YIVO Institute's archives and present us with a rarely-seen portrait of New York Jewish life in the 1920s and 30s. Sharing with us film footage of Jewish holiday balls; an issue of the Yiddish Forverts, including its cartoons and ads; autobiographies written by recent immigrants; and records from landsmannschaftn organizations, these historians will help illuminate previously unseen corners of an incredibly diverse community of New York Jews and the culture they produced. With Rebecca Kobrin (Columbia University); Roberta Newman (YIVO); Annie Polland, moderator (Tenement Museum); Edward Portnoy (Rutgers, YIVO); and Daniel Soyer (Fordham University).

About the Participants

Rebecca Kobrin is the Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University. Her first book is Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press). It was a National Jewish Book Award finalist and was awarded the Jordan Schnitzer Prize for the best book in modern Jewish history by the Association for Jewish Studies. She is the editor of the volume Chosen Capital: Jews and American Capitalism (Rutgers University Press), selected as a recommended reading by the National Jewish Book Council. Prior to coming to Columbia University, she served as the Hilda Blaustein Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale University (2002-2004) and the American Academy of Jewish Research Post-Doctoral Fellow at New York University (2004-2006). She is presently completing a book entitled Destructive Creators: Failed Jewish Bankers Who Changed America, 1914-1930.

Roberta Newman is Director of Digital Initiatives at YIVO. From 1988-1992, she was the curator of YIVO's photo and film archive. She is the author, with Alice Nakhimovsky, of Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl: Yiddish Letter Manuals from Russia and America (Indiana University Press).

Annie Polland (moderator) is the Senior Vice President for Programs and Education at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where she oversees exhibits and interpretation. She is the author, with Daniel Soyer, of Emerging Metropolis: New York Jews in the Age of Immigration (2012), winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award. Prior to her work at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, she served as Vice President of Education at the Museum at Eldridge Street, where she wrote Landmark of the Spirit (2008).

Edward Portnoy received his Ph.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary. His dissertation was on cartoons of the Yiddish press. He also holds an M.A in Yiddish Studies from Columbia, having written on artists/writers Zuni Maud and Yosl Cutler. His articles on Jewish popular culture phenomena have appeared in The Drama Review, Polin, and The International Journal of Comic Art. In addition to speaking on Jewish popular culture throughout Europe and North America, he has consulted on museum exhibits at the Museum of the City of New York, Musée d'art et d'histoire du judaïsme in Paris, and the Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam. He is Academic Advisor for the Max Weinreich Center at YIVO.

Daniel Soyer is professor of history at Fordham University in New York. With Annie Polland he is author of The Emerging Metropolis: New York Jews in the Age of Immigration, 1840-1920 (NYU Press, 2012), volume 2 of City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, winner of the National Jewish Book Award. His previous book, Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939 (Harvard University Press, 1997) won the Saul Viener Prize of the American Jewish Historical Society.