R.I. Jewish Historical Association’s 75th Anniversary

I was privileged to deliver the following address on Sunday, May 3 at a large gathering at the Dwares Jewish Community Center. The principal speaker was Keith Stokes, who portrayed “The World that Made Judah Touro.” Not only is he Rhode Island’s Historian Laureate, but Stokes is also a Newport native who descends from the colonial Touro family.

Sen. Jack Reed also gave a highly evocative presentation about his deep bonds with many of the Ocean State’s Jewish leaders, especially the late Robert A. Riesman. Reed also presented the Association with a celebratory proclamation, as did many other state and local elected officials. The Association was also pleased to receive heartwarming messages from Rabbi Leslie Y. Gutterman, who has inspired so many of our leaders and members, and Dr. C. Morgan Grefe, the executive director of the Rhode Island Historical Society, which has mentored and continues to collaborate with the Association.

I probably spoke too long, but I did not want to miss covering many of the Jewish Historical Association’s distinguished accomplishments.

Thank you, friends, for helping celebrate our Association’s extraordinary milestone. We are now 75 years young.

More than two decades ago, I was delighted to serve as our 14th president. Having worked with nine of my predecessors, I felt especially close to three: Stan Abrams, Bob Kotlen and Gene Weinberg.

Fortunately, seven wonderful presidents have followed me, and now we welcome our eighth, David Bazar, whom I have known for at least 20 years. Not merely a loyal alumnus of Providence Country Day School, he became its longest-serving and one of its most effective presidents.

Our Association, which was our country’s first state or local Jewish historical organization, has achieved so much. Thanks largely to Eleanor Horvitz’s three decades of leadership and continuing efforts by Anne Sherman, Kate-Lynne Laroche, Sam Turco and Jaime Walden, we have built and catalogued an extraordinary resource, the Beryl and Chaya Segal Archives, which were named in memory of Jerry Foster’s parents and Harold’s grandparents. The collection consists of a vast number of original and published documents, hundreds of photographs, scores of oral history interviews and several artifacts. The Association has also assembled a key reference library, and we have provided significant assistance to researchers in Rhode Island, elsewhere in New England and beyond.

Over the decades, we have also expanded our educational impact through numerous programs, including lectures, panel discussions, field trips and online resources. Just last year, thanks to Judge J. Jerome Hahn’s legacy, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Roger Williams National Memorial with the National Parks Foundation and we also helped create a children’s book.

In 1954, our Association had played a key role in celebrating the American Jewish Tercentenary. We have also participated in many regional meetings of Jewish historical groups, and in 1988, we hosted the national conference of the American Jewish Historical Society. A decade later, through the initial leadership of Albert Klyberg and the Rhode Island Historical Society, our Association became one of three founders of the never completed Heritage Harbor Museum, now a grant-awarding entity as the Heritage Harbor Foundation, where we hoped to establish a far larger presence.

Since 1975, thanks largely to the efforts of Mel Zurier, our board member for a half-century, the Association has been a rent-free tenant of the Jewish Federation. And we have continued to feel profound gratitude to its successor, the Jewish Alliance, for its generosity.

In 2017, a highly successful fundraising campaign led us to move to far larger and more comfortable quarters, the Fred, Gertrude & Henry Regensteiner Offices, within the Dwares JCC. And thanks to numerous gifts, we have also been fortunate to strengthen our endowment.

As the eighth editor of The Notes, I have been responsible for 22 issues, five more than my longest-serving predecessor, Dr. Seebert Goldowsky. I have felt privileged to collaborate with two wonderful graphic designers, Bobbie Friedman and Steve Logowitz, each for 11 issues. The three of us have also enjoyed a wonderful partnership with Signature Press in East Providence, and I hope that it continues.

Since 2012, thanks to its trustees, especially Norman Jay Bolotow, the Harold A. Winstead Charitable Foundation has quite generously underwritten the publication of The Notes. I think that Norman’s Uncle Harold would be quite proud of what we have so steadily accomplished.

In 1954, when our leaders launched our visionary journal, there were a few issues per year. Since becoming an annual journal two years later, The Notes’ length and depth have continually grown. The results have been more than 11,000 pages of inquiries and insights. Fortunately, every issue has also been carefully indexed and posted online through our website.

I’m still enormously proud of another publication, “The Jews of Rhode Island,” an anthology of important articles from The Notes, which was published by the University Press of New England, Brandeis University Press and our Association in 2004 to celebrate our journal’s 50th anniversary. I happily served as the volume’s coeditor.

In 1951, during the Korean War and the McCarthy era, how could our seven founders have ever imagined our astonishing success? Unfortunately, I never knew them, but I would please like to remind you who these pioneers were: David C. Adelman, Alter Boyman, Rabbi William G. Braude, Prof. Israel J. Kapstein, Arthur J. Levy, Matilda Pincus and Beryl Segal. Three of the founders were born in Europe, but only one in Little Rhody, and this was David Adelman, the founding president and editor of The Notes.

I’d like to think that there are several basic reasons why our Association has been able to achieve so much. Essentially, the founders and their followers were optimists. Having come up with a wonderful idea, they ran with it. The founders and their followers were also thoughtful, caring and imaginative people. Some were religiously observant, but all loved learning, research and books. These pioneers used words and images to perpetuate their profound gratitude for America’s and Little Rhody’s extraordinary freedoms, challenges, opportunities and blessings. Whatever their political affiliations, our predecessors were deeply patriotic. I also truly believe that our Association has said and done so much to honor Judaism and the Jewish people.

Dear friends and colleagues, I look forward to celebrating many more milestones together. Meanwhile, thanks again for your unwavering enthusiasm, pride, strength and support.

GEORGE M. GOODWIN, of Providence, is the editor of Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes.