Records of Temple Ansche Chesed, NYC
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On Nov.10/99 and June 14/99 I sent discouraging messages regarding the
records of Temple Ansche Chesed (251 West 100th Street (Corner of
West End Avenue), New York NY 10025). In them I said I had had trouble
accessing them where they were stored at the Jewish Theological Seminary,
and that when I was finally able to view them, they were in unassorted
envelopes and bundles. Moreover, from those I examined at random, I was
led to conclude that the records had been haphazardly kept by the Temple's
personnel. This may have been one reason why the Temple fell upon hard
times. (Other reasons for the Temple's downfall may have been the aging of
its regular attendants, or the moving away from West End Avenue by their
families and descendents.)
Today I made another one of my periodic internet searches for information
about my father's professional work as an architect. Not only did I find
what was to me a new German website displaying the addresses of thirteen
skyscrapers he designed including photographs of two of them at:
http://www.skyscrapers.com/deutsch/company/0.9/101639
but while searching for "H.I. FELDMAN" I also discovered to my surprise that
Ansche Chesed's records have been organized since my last visit to the
Seminary.
When I clicked on that Ansche Chesed records site the "google" search
engine found, the inventory began to display itself as having been neatly
organized, year by year. "Google" said that my father's name would be
highlighted, but after a little while, the page stopped unfolding, and my
browser "hung" so that I could not scroll down the entire page at least to
see my father's name much less to the page's end. Twice more I
unsuccessfully tried to see the full page. But then I figured out how to
download the inventory to view with my "Acrobat Reader" gadget. If you ave
Acrobat Reader, you can get the inventory by going to:
www.jtsa.edu/research/ratner/archives/conrec/inst_anschechesedny.pdf
Now that I have the inventory, my father's name appears along with a
J.Ballinger and a J.Goldberg after a 1963 entry for the American Irving
Savings Bank. A few other names appear throughout the inventory, but no
membership list. Don't expect to find too many membership lists if you do
go to the Seminary, and those you find will probably be incomplete for any
particular year.
Maybe other Jewishgenners will also be able to view the inventory and then
be encouraged to visit the Seminary to rummage through the records for
information about those of their family members who attended Ansche Chesed.
However, I still think that even though some of the records have been
organized by year and subject matter, the records themselves were not
maintained well during the many years my father and some of his friends
worshiped and socialized there.
Also, a few months ago, I read Paul Cowan's "An Orphan in History:
Retrieving a Jewish Legacy," William Morrow,1996,ISBN 0-688-14604-X.
Toward the end of his autobiography, he talks about his and his wife's
role in reviving the then nearly moribund Temple Ansche Chesed. From what
the late Cowan wrote and from some remarks another Jewishgenner made to me
privately a few months ago, I daresay it is now a different sort of Temple
than the one I attended with my father when I was still a very small
girl.
Naomi Fatouros (nee FELDMAN)
Bloomington, Indiana
NFat...@aol.com
Researching: BELKOWSKY and BIELKOWSKY, Odessa and Berdichev; FELDMAN, Pinsk;
SCHUTZ, RETTIG, WAHL, Shcherets; LEVY, Mulhouse; SAS or SASS,Podwolochisk;
RAPOPORT, Tarnopol, Korostyshev; BEHAM, Salok and Kharkov; WOLPIANSKY,
Ostryna.
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