The Miriam Catalog and Repository

Welcome to NAJC

The purpose of the Miriam Catalog and Repository is to document the culture of North American Jews.

Who We Are

President NAJC
Alan Bailin, PhD, MLS

Professor of Library Services, Hofstra University

Treasurer
Ari Fridkis, MA, MSW

Rabbi, Temple of Universal Judaism

Secretary
Martha Kreisel, MA, MAH

Retired Associate Professor of Library Services, Hofstra University

Collection Director
Ann Grafstein, PhD, MLIS

Professor of Library Services, Hofstra University

 

Miriam Catalog and Repository

The purpose of the Miriam Catalog and Repository is to document the culture of North American Jews. North American Jewish Culture (NAJC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation.

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Recent Submissions

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The Tulsa Race Massacre and Oklahoma’s Jews: Share How local Jews – some with fresh memories of European pogroms – did their small part to help victims of one of the worst acts of racial violence in US history.
(Aish, 2025-01-07) Goldfarb, Phil
This article recounts the Jewish role in helping the African American victims of one of the worst race massacres in American history. It took place in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hundreds of African Americans in a well-to-do community, were killed or injured, and many homes and businesses were destroyed. While few whites reached out to protect or help the victims, many Jewish families took them into their homes and businesses, bought them food and clothing, and hid them. Many of these Jewish families were recent immigrants from Eastern Europe, where they had experienced pogroms and other manifestations of antisemitism. The article describes several stories about specific incidents and the targeting of Jews by the Ku Klux Klan. Click on the link to read the article.
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Judith Lax May 7, 1924–April 19, 2022
(Jewish Women's Archive, 2025-01-14) Krupnick, Helene Herman
Judith Lax was a pioneering lay leader in the Conservative Jewish movement. At a time when women did not occupy leadership roles in the Conservative movement, Lax believed that “women should experience Judaism as fully as men do.” In 1971 she became the first female president of a Conservative congregation. She was also instrumental in women's participation in liturgical services, including allowing women to receive "aliyot" to the Torah. Click on the link to read the article.
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Twenty-First Century Jewish Literature by Women in the US
(Jewish Women's Archive, 2021-06-23) Skinazi, Karen E.H.
This article in the Jewish Women's Archive discusses the nascent area of literature created by Jewish women in the United States. The topics are very wide-ranging, but much of it focuses on the past, reinterpreted in a contemporary light and from a female perspective. All explore issues related to Judaism and Jewish identify. Click on the link to read the article.
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In Peter Yarrow’s legacy, an uneasy blend of Jewish values and personal transgressions: The folksinging Peter of Peter, Paul and Mary has died at 86
(The Forward, 2025-01-07) Ivry, Benjamin
Folksinger, Peter Yarrow, of the well-known singing trio, Peter Paul and Mary, died on January 7, 2025. The singing group melded traditional folk music with a kind of easy-listening sound. Peter Paul and Mary were prominent performers at civil rights protests, including the 1963 March on Washington. The trio was influenced by the older politically-engaged singing group, The Weavers. Yarrow had a secular Jewish upbringing and credited his political commitments to his Jewish values. in 2002 in the Atlanta Jewish Times, he described Peter Paul and Mary as the “the Tikkun Olam trio.” A stain on his legacy is that he had been incarcerated for three months in 1970 for molesting a 14-year old girl in his hotel room. Eleven years later, he petitioned then President Jimmy Carter for a pardon, which was granted. In his letter to Carter, Yarrow stated that he wished to show his own children “that society has forgiven their father” and “their daddy did something very wrong [but] their daddy has also done much for society to help eliminate want and inequality where he saw it.” Click on the link to read the article.
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“J is for Janucá” Brings Latinx Jewish Representation to Children’s Books
(Latina Media Co, 2023-12-15) Heredia, Ces
Ces Herida grew up Jewish in northern Mexico, experienced her Jewishness through a multicultural lens. She describes her house as the only one with a menorah in the window. In trying to explain to Mexicans--Jews and non-Jews--her friend and fellow Jewish-Mexican, Melanie Romero, wrote a children's books “J is for Janucá” She describes the difficulty of establishing an identify in a very Catholic country. Romero describes to Herida the pain of not seeing representations of people like you in the media. "My childhood," she said, "would have been much more empathetic if I had seen a version of myself in the media, and I never did..." Her hope is that "J is for Janucá " will "prevent other Latinx Jewish kids from going through what we went through: the mean comments from kids (and parents), the ignorance, the antisemitic remarks. It holds space for the religious and cultural traditions of a minority within a minority—Latinx Jews—and that can only ever be a good thing." Click on the link to read the article.