The document, forgotten for 200 years in a city archive, allowed researchers from three countries led by an Israeli to pinpoint two of the main institutions of Litvak Jewry before the Holocaust.
In 1897, a 16-year-old Jewish orphan from Lithuania named Lena Himmelstein arrived in New York City and found work in a sweatshop for $1 a week. After her first husband, David Bryant, died at a young age, Lena supported herself and her son by making and selling tea gowns. When she applied to open a bank account, […]