The Jewish Theological Seminary of America (Conservative) has acquired the personal files of Bernard G. Richards, founder and director until this year of the Jewish Information Bureau here. Mr. Richards’ correspondence is the first major acquisition of the American Jewish Religious Archives, established at the Seminary last year as a repository for source materials about the history of Judaism in the United States and Canada.
“The Richards’ files contain a wealth of historic material concerning the early days of Zionism,” according to Dr. Moshe Davis, co-director of the Seminary’s American Jewish History Center here. In addition to confidential reports on the problems of Jews around the world in the 1920s and 1930s, the file contains more than 1,000 letters from such historic figures as Louis D. Brandeis, Jacob Schiff, Julian W. Mack, Louis Marshall and Stephen S. Wise, among others. The History Center is devoted to the preparation of historical materials and the writing of history.
Mr. Richards was a correspondent and an editor for various Yiddish newspapers after coming to this country from Lithuania at the age of nine in 1886. He was a feature writer for Boston and New York newspapers and was a founder and executive secretary of the American Jewish Congress.
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