Congregation Beth Jacob (Union City, N.J.) Records

The records of the Congregation Beth Jacob date from 1911 to 1976. It seems that a sizeable proportion of the records reflect the activities of the Congregation during the twenty year period following the end of World War II (1946-1966). With the exception of the Congregation's minutes, the records of this orthodox synagogue are generally fragmentary and incomplete. In conjunction with the separately processed records of the Sisterhood, important information about the activities of the Congregation Beth Jacob can still be pieced together to provide an overall picture of a 20th Century Orthodox Jewish community in a Northern New Jersey city.

The most complete series of records generated by the Congregation are its MINUTES. However, these are written in Yiddish from 1911-1939. There is a chronological gap during the war years, but then the MINUTES resume in English in 1949.

The rest of the Congregation's records were divided into several small series. The CORRESPONDENCE files are not substantial and their content is variable. The AD JOURNALS contain interesting but brief accounts of the history of the Congregation. The MEMBERSHIP FILES contain lists of members' names and addresses, as well as holiday seating plans. The LEGAL DOCUMENTS contain contracts and insurance policies. The FINANCIAL DOCUMENTS contain membership ledgers, bills and receipts, cancelled checks, and disbursement records. The CEMETERY FILES contain materials related to cemetery maintance, as well as oversized maps of cemetery property. The BUILDING PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS contain textual descriptions of the proposed alterations from 1965 as well as oversized architectural drawings of various dates. The YIZKOR SCROLL MEMORIAL FILES contain information about the Congregation's annual prayerful remembrance of its deceased members. The GENERAL FILES contain items which could not be classed with any of the above series and include several artifactual items.

As a separate organization within the Congregalion Beth Jacob, the Hebrew Free Loan Society generated its own set of organizational records. There are MINUTES as well as FINANCIAL AND MEMBERSHIP DOCUMENTS. Some of these records date from are the Society's beginning in 1926.

Similarly, the Sisterhood was a separate organization within the Congregation Beth Jacob and generated its own organizational records. These records were processed separately (see separate finding aid).

The records of the Sisterhood of Congregation Beth Jacob date from 1920 to 1984, with the majority dating 1937-1980. As such, these records chronicle the full garnet of the organization's life: its birth, growth, and decline. Together with the (as yet unpro_cessed) records of the Congregation at large, the Sisterhood records offer documentary evidence of the Jewish community which belonged to this orthodox synagogue .

The strength of the Sisterhood records lies in its completeness. The minutes are by far the most detailed of the records- -indeed chronicling the motion to create a Sisterhood! There are, however, gaps, particularly in the earliest minutes. For instance, there are no records of meetings from 1928- 1937; and, particularly unfortunate, is the scant documentation during the crucial war period-- 1940- 45. It is not until the late 1970's and early 1980's that any serious gaps recur.

The Sisterhood newsletters, which date from 1959, serve as its public forum, announcing to the community (particularly from 1966 forward in its "Sister to Sister" column) important items such as births, marriages, deaths, graduations, etc.

The financial records, dating from 1951, are relatively simple, listing and tallying the Sisterhood's income, disbursements, and monthly or periodic balance. The minutes, especially the early ones, also include this type of information; hence, financial records prior to 1951 can be found in the minutes themselves.

The correspondence lacks both detail and comprehensiveness. The one exception to this is the Sisterhood's correspondence with the Women's Branch of the Union of Orthodox Congragations of America. These letters, business in nature, document the relationship between the two groups.

Particularly copious are the entertainment records. These comprise skits, plays, and numerous song lyrics, usually adopted to Sisterhood themes and functions.

Despite the existence of the minutes of the inaugural meeting (Sept.30, 1920), determining the Sisterhood's chronology remains problamatic. Both the minutes and newsletters refer several times to the Sisterhood's anniversary; yet wherever this ·reference occurs, the date of the Sisterhood's inception always calculates to 1910, not 1920. Perhaps the Sisterhood had had an earlier incarnation, and was reestablished in 1920. In any case, the synagogue itself dates from 1906 .