Artifacts Made of Paper
These artifacts include papers and books.
Rays in the Dark Book
Israel
Shulamit L.
This 35-page book, titled "Rays in the Dark" was written by my great-grandmother, Shulamit Gordon L. The book discusses her experiences in the Kaunas ghetto in Lithuania, and her time in hiding from 1941 to 1944. It is about how she survived the Holocaust and the people who saved her. As a blue-eyed, blond-haired girl of 14, my great-grandmother was able to pass as a non-Jew. After she escaped the ghetto in early 1944, she worked as a maid for a Lithuanian family. The people who helped her risked their lives and the lives of their families to do so. She wrote this book to pass down from generation to generation so that everyone can hear her story of survival. The front cover shows her fake identification passport, which she used so that no one would know she was a Jew.
This book is of great significance to my family and me. In part, it acts as a memorial to my great-grandmother's own mother and brother, both of whom were killed. Her father survived by jumping off a freight train that was taking the ghetto residents to a concentration camp in Germany. I am sure that it must have been very difficult for my great-grandmother to write this book, but I am so proud of her for doing so. We all need to know what happened during those terrible times so that it does not happen again in the future!
Naturalization Certificate
USA
This 8x10 inch document is the Certificate of Naturalization for my great-great-grandmother, Mollie Hersh. This paper made her a naturalized citizen of the United States. It is very old and delicate and is kept in an envelope with a letter from Ellis Island.
This artifact is important to my family because it is from so long ago and it shows how my family came to America. Also, the document shows that Mollie Hersh changed her name from Hershkovitz when she arrived here from Poland. Mollie was 41 years old, a widow, and living in Newark, New Jersey when she became a citizen.
Tefillin and Tefillin Bag
Poland
My Dad
My artifact is a pair of tefillin and tefillin bag that belonged to my father's maternal grandfather who was named Israel Alperstein. The tefillin straps are made of brown leather and are very frail. The square boxes for the arm and head are made of leather and painted black. The tefillin bag is rectangular and made of velvet with a gold embroidered Star of David on it.
My great-grandfather Israel was born in a part of Poland that bordered Russia. When he tried to immigrate to the United States with my great-grandmother Yenta (Ethel in English), they were turned away and had to go to Cuba where they lived for two years. They later moved to the Bronx, where they had my grandmother, Irene. According to Irene, her parents spoke Yiddish in their home and didn't talk much about Judaism. They only went to synagogue on the high holy days. However, every summer, they lived in a Jewish bungalow colony in Lake Mohegan near Peekskill, New York. My grandmother remembered her father getting up early to daven at the bungalow synagogue where he put on his tefillin every morning. She also remembers Friday nights at the bungalow "casino" where they would have Friday night services and sing Yiddish songs and hear stories of the old country.
After Israel died, my grandmother Irene gave his tefillin and tefillin bag to my father Russell, since she knew it would mean the most to him. He has cherished his grandfather's tefillin and keeps it with other religious items in our house. My father does not use them because the are very frail and too small for him. However, he cherishes his grandfather's tefillin because it came all the way from Poland to America and was passed down to him to pass down to his sons. One of my father's favorite Temple Beth Ahm events of the year is the Worldwide Wrap, where many congregants get together to pray and lay tefillin. This year, I will be there and my father will teach me how to use tefillin. I love that I will be bringing in my grandfather's tefillin bag the Living Museum one week after learning to wrap tefillin for the first time.
Siddur
Israel
My great grandparents
This Siddur belonged to my great grandparents on my father's side of the family. The Siddur is 3 1/2 inches long, 2 1/2 inches wide and a half inch thick. It was published in Tel Aviv in 1961. The silver cover is very old, tarnished, and it is engraved with pictures. You can see lions, the Ten Commandments, and Moses and Aaron on the front cover. The Twelve Tribes and map of Israel are on the back cover. The spine names four cities in Israel.
My grandmother got this Siddur from Tel Aviv, Israel in 1963 as a gift to her parents. My mother found the Siddur in a dressing table that belonged to my great-grandmother. I am so happy we found this Siddur because now I can pass it down to my children and their children and so on. The Siddur does not have all the prayers that we have in our Siddurim at Temple Beth Ahm today. My grandmother was very happy to hear that my mother found the Siddur, because it brought back many happy memories of the time she went to Israel and of her parents.
Photograph
New Jersey USA
Personal Collection
This artifact is a photograph of the Miriam Barnert Memorial Hebrew Free School Student Choir from Paterson, New Jersey. It was taken for the High Holidays in 1936. My father, Morris M. Tosk, is the child in the first seat on the left. He was 12 years old at this time.
At age 13, my father became a child hazzan (cantor.) In addition to singing at synagogue, he hired himself out for a variety of life cycle events and celebrations. He was even featured on the radio station, WEVD, and sang with the famous Yossele Rosenblatt. During World War II, he was an Assistant Chaplain and led Yom Kippur services in Ansbach, Germany on September 19, 1945.
After getting his accounting degree from Pace University, he got a job as a Youth Advisor at a synagogue in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. He then decided to become a Rabbi. He was nicknamed "The Flying Rabbi" because he attended Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati during the week, and was flown home before Shabbat to serve as Rabbi and Religious School Principal at the newly formed Temple Beth Am in Bayonne, New Jersey, where he stayed until his death in 1976.