Preservation, Annotation, and Dissemination of a Digital Video Collection of Yiddish in Eastern Europe

Recipient: Veidlinger, Jeffrey (Bloomington, IN 47405-7103 USA) in affiliation with Indiana University, Bloomington (Bloomington, IN 47405 USA)

Goal: The preservation, annotation, and improved access to a digital video collection of approximately 700 hours of oral history interviews with Yiddish speakers in Eastern Europe.

Description: This grant will provide funds to preserve, annotate and provide access to a digital video collection of approximately 700 hours of ethnographic, linguistic and oral history interviews with Yiddish-speakers in Eastern Europe conducted since 2002. The collection will be maintained by Indiana University's Archives of Traditional Music, annotated with the EVIA Digital Archive Project Annotator's Workshop and physically stored at Indiana University's Mass Data Storage Services.

Grant: 194443 / PW-50350-09,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources,   Year Awarded: 2009

Chosen Food: Adaptation, Identity, and Debate in American Jewish Foodways

Recipient: Falk, Karen (Baltimore, MD 21202 USA) in affiliation with Jewish Museum of Maryland

Goal: Planning for a traveling exhibition, a catalog, a website, and educational and public programs examining Jewish foodways as expressions of tradition and adaptation.

Description: The Jewish Museum of Maryland (JMM), a leading center of American Jewish history and culture, requests NEH support to research and plan an interpretive project titled Chosen Food: Adapation, Identity, and Debate in American Jewish Foodways. This grant will provide funds for a team of humanities scholars adn design consultants to help JMM staff and its institutional partners plan an integrated intitiative consisting of a 2,000 square-foot exhibition which will travel to at least three venues across the United States, an exhibition catalog and interpretive brochure, public programs, educational activities, and an interactive website. "Chosen Food" will interpret the many meanings of Jewish foodways to a large, multicultural audience across the country. For Jews, as for other Americans, food is never just about consumption: food is a means to observe and to celebrate, to maintain tradition and to makr transition, to preserve memory and to produce new meaning.

Grant: 191812 / GE-50072-08,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Planning,   Year Awarded: 2008

Improving Storage for Humanities Collections

Recipient: Sulkin, Howard A (Chicago, IL 60605 USA) in affiliation with Spertus College of Judaica

Goal: The purchase and installation of compact storage furniture and the move and re-housing of library, museum, and archival collections to a new storage facility.

Description: Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, housing Spertus Museum, Asher Library, and the Chicago Jewish Archives, maintains one of North America's most diverse collections of material documenting worldwide Jewish history and culture. Spertus is now constructing a new facility in downtown Chicago, scheduled to open to the public in late 2007. As an integral part of this effort, Spertus is dramatically enhancing its resources for collections care. New storage facilities will increase collections capacity by 50%; enable consolidation, reorganization, and rehousing of collections; and provide state-of-the-art environmental systems to preserve these materials for future generations. We request a $500,000 Stabilization Grant for related costs during 07/01/07-6/30/08, including: 1) purchase of new compact shelving and mobile storage units to rehouse the collections; and 2) personnel, services, and materials for packing, moving, and rehousing these collections.

Grant: 186049 / PZ-50084-07,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Stabilization Grants,   Year Awarded: 2007

Implementation of New Interpretive Program Elements at the National Historic Landmark Eldridge Street Synagogue

Recipient: Polland, Annie (New York, NY 10002 USA) in affiliation with Eldridge Street Project, Inc./Museum at Eldridge Street

Goal: Implementation of new interpretive exhibits, publications, and tours examining the architectural, religious, and cultural history of a historic synagogue and community in New York's Lower East Side.

Description: The Eldridge Street Project ("ESP")requests funds to complete the overall revisioning of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a National Historic Landmark on New York?s Lower East Side. A multi-million-dollar restoration of this historic site nears completion in late 2007, permitting greater numbers to visit, expanded access to building areas, and enhanced opportunities to inform and inspire. NEH funds are specifically requested to introduce new interpretative elements that will enrich the experience of visitors, readers of ESP publications and users of the organization?s website: (1) interpretive text and visual displays throughout the building, (2) audio interpretation, (3) a semi-permanent exhibit on the synagogue restoration and preservation process, (4) the development of three walking tours, and (5) publication of a series of scholarly essays in monograph form to accompany the building?s reopening.

Grant: 186845 / BR-50029-07,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: Interpreting America's Historic Places Implementation,   Year Awarded: 2007

Venice, the Jews, and Italian Culture: Historical Eras and Cultural Representations

Recipient: Baumgarten, Murray (Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA) in affiliation with University of California, Santa Cruz

Goal: A five-week institute for twenty-four college and university teachers in Venice on Jewish experience in the Venetian Ghetto, and its cultural, intellectual, and historical contexts.

Description: This interdisciplinary institute explores the cultural, intellectual, and historic experience of Venetian Jewry. Our focus is the Ghetto of Venice, which gave its name to all such subsequent ethnic enclosures. We will explore, discuss and analyze the history of the Ghetto of Venice as built environment, cultural text and symbolic site. Our inquiry encompasses the literary, artistic and dramatic representations of Italian and Venetian Jews. The Institute will begin with the Renaissance, while emphasizing the modern experience of Venetian Jewry, a paradigmatic Italian Jewish community. The beneficiaries are college and university teachers in European culture, literature, art, and history, Holocaust studies, Italian studies and Jewish studies.

Grant: 187150 / EH-50147-07,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Institutes for College and University Teachers,   Year Awarded: 2007

Preservation Assistance

Recipient: Pingel, Claire (Philadelphia, PA 19106 USA) in affiliation with National Museum of American Jewish History

Goal: The purchase of storage cabinets and archival supplies to rehouse oversized artifacts, such as posters, newspapers, prints, and drawings, that document American Jewish history and culture.

Description: The National Museum of American Jewish History requests a Preservation Assistance Grant of $5,000 to purchase three metal flat file cabinets and map file folders. The equipment will alleviate a serious overcrowding problem in the museum's existing two flat file cabinets. Overcrowding and improper storage practices have caused some minimal damage to the collection. Additionally, approximately 2,500 recently acquired oversized paper artifacts are currently awaiting permanent storage and will be placed in the new file cabinets. In addition to allowing existing collections to be stored properly, no longer crowded into insufficient space, the installation of three file cabinets and related materials will allow for the future growth of the museum's paper collection. Proper storage will ensure long-range preservation of the oversized materials in the flat files and improve access to the collection for the museum's research visitors.

Grant: 184299 / PG-50052-07,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation Assistance Grants,   Year Awarded: 2007

Jewish Studies at Johns Hopkins: Building a Program of National Significance Through Library Endowment

Recipient: Slingluff, Deborah (Baltimore, MD 21218 USA) in affiliation with Johns Hopkins University

Goal: Endowment for a librarian, acquisitions, and cataloguing in support of the Stulman Jewish Studies program.

Description: Johns Hopkins seeks to partner with NEH to help sustain its legacy of distinguished teaching and research by endowing collections and key positions at the Sheridan Libraries that will help propel the Stulman Jewish Studies program to national significance. With the Challenge Grant and accompanying private funds, Johns Hopkins will create and endow the position of Jewish Studies Librarian and provide additional permanent support for Jewish Studies research collections and related cataloging initiatives.

Grant: 178925 / CH-50279-06,   Division: Challenge Grants,   Program: Challenge Grants,   Year Awarded: 2006

The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe

Recipient: Edelstein, Jeffrey P (New York, NY 10011 USA) in affiliation with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York, NY 10028 USA)

Goal: The creation of an encyclopedia on the history and culture of Eastern European Jews from their original emigration to the region until 2000. The encyclopedia will be published in print and electronic form.

Description: The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe will be the definitive reference work for information on all aspects of the history and culture of East European Jews from the beginning of their settlement in the region until 2000. The 1,800 alphabetically arranged entries will be presented so any reader can comprehend the topics in this work of 2 million words, 1,000 illustrations, and 100 maps. Published in partnership with Yale University Press, the encyclopedia will bring together for the first time a new generation of East European scholars with their North American, Israeli, and West European colleagues. We request a two-year, $250,000 grant to support completion of the editorial work and planning and creation of the online edition.

Grant: 179504 / PA-51979-06,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation/Access Projects,   Year Awarded: 2006

Jewish Buenos Aires

Recipient: Foster, David W (Tempe, AZ 85287-0202 USA) in affiliation with Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ 85287 USA)

Goal: A three-week seminar for fifteen college and university faculty on Argentine Jewish literature and culture, to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Description: The seminar will focus on major texts in twentieth-century Jewish culture as it has played out in the contest of immigration and assimilation Buenos Aires, Argentina, the major center of Jewish culture in Latin America. Through a detailed examination of these works as literary texts that interpret the Jewish experience in Buenos Aires, the seminar will provide participants with an important grounding in this important dimension of ethnic culture in Argentina and, by implication, in other Latin American societies. Participants will be college and university professors of Latin American studies, some of whom may have some familiarity with Argentina; all will have a working command of Spanish. Latin American Jewish Studies is a relatively recent area of interest to Latin Americanists, and the seminar will contribute toward addressing the critical lack of trained scholars in the field.

Grant: 182061 / FS-50094-06,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Seminars for College Teachers,   Year Awarded: 2006

Documenting Yiddish Culture and Language in Ukraine

Recipient: Kerler, Dov-Ber (Bloomington, IN 47405-7005 USA) in affiliation with Indiana University, Bloomington (Bloomington, IN 47405 USA)

Goal: Five expeditions to Ukraine to conduct oral history interviews with surviving Yiddish speakers about Jewish life in the region prior to the Holocaust.

Grant: 174429 / PA-51304-05,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation/Access Projects,   Year Awarded: 2005

Key Texts of American Jewish Culture

Recipient: Siegel, Richard A (New York, NY 10001 USA) in affiliation with National Foundation for Jewish Culture

Goal: Implementation of a series of 30 programs at ten venues across the country examining key American Jewish texts that illuminate the intersection of Jewish and mainstream culture.

Grant: 171652 / GP-50109-04,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: Special Projects,   Year Awarded: 2004

The American Jewish Experience: A Comprehensive Website

Recipient: Newman, Roberta G (New York, NY 10025 USA) in affiliation with Center for Jewish History (New York, NY 10011 USA)

Goal: Planning for a website that would have as its focus the history of Jews in America from the original period of settlement to current events and trends.

Description: The American Jewish Experience website will focus on the history of Jews in America from the original period of settlement to current events and trends. The goal is to be comprehensive in interpreting the site's subject matter against the backdrop of issues in the humanities, including the role of American history relating to minority groups, Jewish involvement in the development of American culture and society, the obstacles overcome in adapting to American society, the interplay between religious and civic values, degrees of working relationships within and without the system of government and laws, and the nature of communal, organizational, and familial structures that serve to filter the American Jewish experience.

Grant: 168300 / GL-50471-04,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: Libraries and Archives, Humanities Projects in,   Year Awarded: 2004

South Florida's Yiddish Cultural Legacy

Recipient: Weintraub, David (South Miami, FL 33143 USA) in affiliation with Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture (Coral Gables, FL USA)

Goal: Consultation to plan a traveling exhibition with a companion website about the lost Yiddish cultural legacy of South Florida.

Grant: 172024 / GM-50328-04,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: Museums and Historical Organizations, Humanities Projects in,   Year Awarded: 2004

Creating an Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture in Eastern Europe

Recipient: Hundert, Gershon David (New York, NY 10011 USA) in affiliation with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York, NY 10028 USA)

Goal: The creation of an encyclopedia on the history and culture of Eastern European Jews from their original emigration to the region until 2000. The encyclopedia will be published in print and electronic form.

Grant: 162787 / PA-50197-03,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation/Access Projects,   Year Awarded: 2003

The Other Promised Land: Vacationing, Identity, and the Jewish-American Dream

Recipient: Martens, Melissa J (Baltimore, MD 21231 USA) in affiliation with Jewish Museum of Maryland (Baltimore, MD 21202 USA)

Goal: Consultation with scholars to develop a traveling exhibition interpreting the cultural meanings of Jewish vacationing in America.

Grant: 163050 / GM-50023-03,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: Museums and Historical Organizations, Humanities Projects in,   Year Awarded: 2003

Jewish Civilization: The Next Phase of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies.

Recipient: Myers, David N (Los Angeles, CA 90095-1473 USA) in affiliation with University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024 USA)

Goal: Course development for a revised undergraduate major in Jewish Studies and an endowment for a colloquium, residential research fellowships, and library acquisitions.

Grant: 141497 / CH-20807-01,   Division: Challenge Grants,   Program: Challenge Grants,   Year Awarded: 2001

Integrating the Jewish Perspective in a Liberals Arts Core Curriculum

Recipient: Oppenheim, Lois (Los Angeles, CA 90077 USA) in affiliation with University of Judaism

Goal: The development of three new courses integrating Jewish perspectives into the Liberal Arts core curriculum.

Grant: 142076 / ED-22152-01,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Education Development and Demonstration,   Year Awarded: 2001

Humanities Scholar in Residence

Recipient: Dennis, Jack (Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922 USA) in affiliation with Berkeley Heights School District

Goal: An NEH/Dodge Foundation Humanities Scholar in Residence project for a team of faculty and the principal at Columbia Middle School to work with a humanities scholar to infuse materials on the Holocaust into the humanities curriculum.

Grant: 143799 / EY-20010-01,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Humanities Scholar in Residence Program/Dodge Fdn. Funds,   Year Awarded: 2001

Entertaining America: Jewish Roles in Film, Radio, and Television

Recipient: Beesch, Ruth (New York, NY 10128 USA) in affiliation with Jewish Museum

Goal: Implementation of a traveling multimedia exhibition, catalog, and public programs examining the role of American Jews in shaping American popular entertainment in the 20th century.

Grant: 156310 / GM-26140-00,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: Museums and Historical Organizations, Humanities Projects in,   Year Awarded: 2000

Reformatting Audiotapes of the Language and Culture of Ashkenazic Jewry

Recipient: Gertz, Janet Elaine (New York, NY 10027 USA) in affiliation with Columbia University

Goal: The preservation of 3,000 hours of endangered sound recordings of interviews conducted from 1959 to 1972 in hundreds of Jewish communities in North America, in Central and Eastern Europe, and in Israel.

Grant: 158046 / PA-23436-00,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation/Access Projects,   Year Awarded: 2000