American Jewish Historical Society Sets Up $2,500 Fund for Doctoral Candidates

The American Jewish Historical Society has created a special $2,500 fund to provide research grants to doctoral degrees candidates for research and studies in American Jewish historical subjects, Philip Snag of Chicago told the 67th annual meeting of the society here in his presidential report.

The four-day sessions concluded with election of Dr. Abram V. Goodman of Lawrence, N.Y. as president to succeed Dr. Sang, who was elected to life membership of the society’s board. Dr. Sang reported that the society had undertaken to obtain assurance that synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and other historic sites in the Caribbean Islands, now in danger of being obliterated, will be preserved. The need for speedy action in the area was stressed by Rabbi Simeon J. Maslin, who was rabbi of the Curacao congregation for five years before taking his present pulpit at the Chicago KAM Congregation, and by Ralph M. Paiewonsky, former Virgin Islands governor.

Dr. Jacob R. Marcus, director of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, told the society’s executive council that there was “an increased interest in American Jewish historical studies” at the university level, adding that in many universities students were saying that “if we can have Negro history courses, why not Jewish courses.” He expressed concern, however, over the limited number of Jewish academicians devoting themselves to research in the Jewish field.

Dr. Oscar Handlin of Harvard University, speaking at the 67th annual convention banquet, “reaching out into the past” in Jewish historical studies “without falsifying it.” The convention was told that in May a five volume record of American Jewish achievements will be issued by the Society. Under the direction of Rabbi Abraham Karp of Rochester, N.Y. and Dr. Moshe Davis, director of the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, recent publications of the Society will be issued in Hebrew translations in Israel.