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Author: JDC Archives

Elka Deitsch Shares her JDC Story

Elka Deitsch Shares her JDC Story

Growing up I had always heard about “The Joint,” but did not know exactly how the organization had helped my family.  As the senior curator of the Temple Emanu-El Museum in New York, I knew that many of JDC’s early founders had been congregants of the historic temple. As I continued to find documents with a JDC connection in my professional life, my curiosity was piqued. What was my personal connection to the humanitarian aid organization? Had the Joint really had a hand in shaping the fate of my family? I decided to search the JDC Names Database for...

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Traditional Ethiopian Pottery

Traditional Ethiopian Pottery

These traditional pieces of pottery (see right) were crafted by members of the Beta Israel or House of Israel community of Jews in Ethiopia. Ceramic work and metallurgy became specialties of the Jewish community, as Christians did not want to engage in those types of handiwork. Historically, Christian Ethiopians believed in buda, or the evil eye, and that those who possessed it had the power to change forms. Ironworkers are often labeled as bearing buda, and thus Jews were forced into that cursed profession and barred from other kinds of work. These small, fragile statues were made in Wolleka,...

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JDC Archives Featured in Judaica Europeana Newsletter

JDC Archives Featured in Judaica Europeana Newsletter

The recent Judaica Europeana (JE) e-newsletter highlights the JDC Archives, a partner agency of Judaica Europeana. JE was established, with funding from the European Commission and the Rothschild Foundation, to provide online access to digital content documenting European Jewish life and culture. A sub-project of the larger Europeana portal which includes over 23 million digital objects from over 2,200 institutions, JE will help researchers access material around the world relating to European Jewish life. This partnership enables the JDC Archives to reach a wider audience of European scholars. Four interactive online exhibits about JDCs history are already available on...

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JTAs “Seeking Kin” column features JDC Records

JTAs “Seeking Kin” column features JDC Records

  Rose Goteiner, an 88-year-old survivor, recently came across a photo (right) of 21 people standing before a truck marked American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. This July 1946 photo from Amsterdam, The Netherlands depicts 16 children for whom the JDC arranged visas and transportation to the U.S. on the SS Marine Flasher. Rose believes that one of the girls in the forefront of the photo is her sister Ruth, whom Rose last saw in 1943. Always assuming Ruth had perished, seeing this photo 60 years later gives Rose fresh hope that her baby sister survived the war and is...

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Special Video of Operation Solomon, the 1991 Airlift of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel

Special Video of Operation Solomon, the 1991 Airlift of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel

Today marks the 22nd anniversary of Operation Solomon, the covert operation to airlift over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 36 hours. In the spring of 1991, Ethiopia had been in a decades-long civil war and rebel forces were threatening to close in on Addis Ababa, the nation’s capital.  The decline in the Mengistu regime’s influence  presented a promising opportunity for the Beta Israel Ethiopian Jews to realize their dreams of emigration to Israel.  There was also fear that the unrest could create a dangerous situation, with Ethiopian Jews being caught in the crossfire. The Israeli government put a...

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