JEWS IN MINNESOTA:

Biographical Information: Rabbi David Aronson's father was from White Russia, and his mother was from Latvia. Aronson was born in White Russia and came to the United States with his family at age eleven. The family lived on New York's East Side. Aronson went to day school for one year, then high school, college and seminary. He became a rabbi at Beth El Synagogue in Minneapolis in September of 1924. At the time of the interview he was professor of rabbinics in the graduate school of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.

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OH 131.1

Interview with David Aronson, 1967. 1 master audiotape reel (3 hours, 45 minutes), 5 submaster audio files: WAV, and 5 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (42 pages).

Subjects discussed: The 1924 replacement of crosses by Stars of David on markers along Victory Memorial Drive for Jewish soldiers killed in World War I; family history; Jews living on Minneapolis's North Side; first impressions of Minneapolis; the status of Jews in the community; and Jewish organizations including Beth El, Talmud Torah, and Menorah and Hillel at the University of Minnesota.

Interviewed by: Guida Gordon.

Use restricted.

Transcript of oral history interview with Rabbi David Aronson.

Biographical Information: Moses Barron was born in Russia in 1883, son of a Hebrew scholar. He came to the United States in 1888 and lived on a farm in Stevens County. Barron attended elementary school in Fargo, North Dakota, and in 1911 he graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School. He served in France in World War I, married in 1919 and has four children. Barron taught and practiced medicine in Minneapolis until 1964, when he moved to Los Angeles.

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OH 131.2

Interview with Moses Barron, January 1970. 1 master sound cassette (60 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (11 pages).

Subjects discussed: His childhood, including his father's immigration and peddling of tinware from New York to Minneapolis, and finally farming in Stevens County; hard life on the farm; education at the University of Minnesota; teaching and practicing medicine, including work on pancreas secretions and on pathology; visitors to his home in Minneapolis, including doctors and Jewish scholars; Jewish literary and cultural organizations; an editorial in the Minneapolis Star; and his move to Los Angeles and his life in that area. Barron speaks very slowly. It is more a narrative than an oral history interview.

Interviewed by: Joan Sharp.

Use Restricted.

Transcript of oral history interview with Moses Barron.

Biographical Information: Ben Brochin was born in Minneapolis on Sept. 2, 1909, to Solomon Brochin (1878-1958) and Anna Levinson Brochin (1883-1947), who came to Minneapolis from Lithuania in 1906. Solomon Brochin ran a grocery store (later a delicatessen) in north Minneapolis. Ben Brochin began work in his father's store as a child and later took over the business. Brochin's Delicatessen had four locations and finally closed in 1967.

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OH 131.3

Interview with Ben Brochin, June 17, 1979. 3 master audiocassettes (1 hour, 30 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (16 pages).

Subjects discussed: The North Minneapolis Jewish neighborhood; Brochin's store, with a vivid description of its contents; his father, an ardent Zionist, grocer, and agent for a steamship company that brought immigrants to the United States; boyhood work in the store, including selling newspapers; amateur boxing as a source of income for young men; celebrating the end of World War I at the Glass Block in Minneapolis; his father's practice of staking new immigrants to food on credit at his store; the Talmud Torah picnic at Longfellow Gardens and Zoo; and the Emmanuel Cohen Center.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Ben Brochin.

Biographical Information: Angelo Cohn was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1914, and in 1920 he immigrated with his parents and two brothers to the United States, where they joined an extended family of cousins in Minneapolis. Both his parents were professionally trained, his mother as a language teacher and his father as a lawyer. Angelo Cohn graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1936 with a degree in journalism and worked as a reporter on the Minneapolis Star. He married in 1948 and has three children.

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OH 131.4

Interview with Angelo Cohn, March 5, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (61 minutes), 2submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (15 pages).

Subjects discussed: The immigration of his extended family; early life in the Minneapolis immigrant community, including geographical locations of community institutions and synagogues; education and recreation; the Depression; religious institutions; bootlegging; anti-Semitism; and the Teamsters strike in 1936.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Angelo Cohn.

Biographical Information: Lillian Besler Cohn was born in Minneapolis in 1895 of immigrant parents (from Niomsk, Romania). Her father had been a miller. In this country he worked on a farm in New York and at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. In Minneapolis he worked as a miller with Pillsbury Mills but became ill. After recovering he was self-employed with various occupations, including making and selling grits, running a secondhand-tool store, locksmithing and making and selling umbrellas. Lillian Besler married Louis Cohn in 1917 and has one son, Victor. She has been active in study groups, Democratic Farmer Labor Party politics and the Soviet Jewry Action Committee.

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OH 131.5

Interview with Lillian Besler Cohn, February 25, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (58 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (15 pages).

Subjects discussed: Charitable organizations in the early Jewish community; her father's hard work and hard times; her lack of education (she quit school so that her brothers could be educated); social life in the Jewish community; anti-Semitism; and prominent citizens in the Jewish community.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

The master recording of the Cohn interview shares one 120-minute cassette with the original recording of the Ida Levitan Sanders interview.

Transcript of oral history interview with Lillian Besler Cohn.

Biographical Information: Amos Deinard was raised near Lake Minnetonka and later resided in Minneapolis. He was a prominent Jewish figure in Minnesota. In 1933 he married his sister's close friend. Together they raised their son and daughter. Among the many positions he served he continued to improve the community by serving as member and chairman on the Fair Employment Practices Commission from 1947 to 1964. He considered himself a liberal in "the true sense of the word."

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OH 131.6

Interview with Amos Deinard, December 10, 1978. 2 master sound cassette (2 hours), 3 submaster audio files: WAV, and 3 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (29 pages).

Subjects discussed: The Temple of Israel members in Minneapolis; his family; Jewish families; anti-Semitism; businesses and bootlegging; studying law; education; politics; minorities and discrimination; Unitarianism; community involvement; and liberalism. According to the narrator's wishes, the names of a company and its president referred to in an anecdote on pages 37 and 38 have been erased from the transcript and tape recording.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

The master recording of the Cohn interview shares one 120-minute cassette with the original recording of the Ida Levitan Sanders interview.

Transcript of oral history interview with Amos Deinard.

Biographical Information: Gladys Jacobs was born in 1903 and raised in Minneapolis. Her father operated Jacobs Jewelry in Minneapolis, and her mother's family was involved in the G. Pflaum and Sons cigar factory in St. Anthony. Jacobs married Harold Finkelstein (of the Finkelstein and Rubin theater chain) of St. Paul in 1926. In 1936 they changed their last name to Field.

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OH 131.7

Interview with Gladys Jacobs Field, January 29, 1978. 2 master audiocassettes (1 hour, 42 minutes), 4 submaster audio files: WAV, and 4 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (32 pages).

Subjects discussed: Growing up in a large German-Jewish family; her close relationships with her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins; incidences of anti-Semitism that she experienced; her involvement with the Minneapolis Art Institute, the Walker Art Center, and community and Jewish organizations; and her feelings about being Jewish.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Gladys Jacobs Field.

Biographical Information: Ernie Fliegel was born in Barlad, Romania, in 1904 and came to the United States in 1910 with his grandmother, mother, brother and sister. (His father was also in this country but had little contact with the family). His mother worked in a New York sweat shop to earn money for their trip to Minneapolis. Fliegel sold newspapers by age seven and later became a professional boxer. He was a contender for the featherweight championship before an eye injury forced him to retire in 1927. He became a fight promoter, traveled with Jack Dempsey and became an owner, with his friend Max Winter, of the 620 Club on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. He married his wife Eileen in about 1925, and they have one son, Richard.

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OH 131.8

Interview with Ernie Fliegel, May 7, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (58 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (16 pages).

Subjects discussed: His childhood in Romania and Minneapolis; extreme poverty; selling newspapers, including a 1916 strike by newsboys; his amateur and professional boxing career; the 1930s Depression; bootlegging; the 620 Club; the truckers' strike of 1934; and education.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Ernie Fliegel.

Biographical Information: Blanche Halpern Goldberg was born in Minneapolis in about 1906. Her family had come from Politork, Romania, in 1900. In 1910 they moved to Hebron, North Dakota, returning to Minneapolis in 1921. She is one of twelve Halpern children. She attended West High School and the University of Minnesota, from which she received a bachelor's degree in education in 1926. Also in 1926 she married Dr. Isadore Goldberg, and they have two sons, Stanley and Arthur. Goldberg taught in Minneapolis public schools for a short time after World War II.

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OH 131.9

Interview with Blanche Halpern Goldberg, May 4, 1976. 2 master audiocassettes (1 hour, 35 minutes), 4 submaster audio files: WAV, and 4 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (19 pages).

Subjects discussed: The emigration of extended family to Minneapolis; life as Jews in a small North Dakota town; anti-Semitism at the University of Minnesota and in teaching and medicine; education; the Depression; and child-rearing, including her two sons and her sister's two children.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Blanche Halpern Goldberg.

Biographical Information: Isadore Goldberg was born in Minneapolis in 1900. His parents came from Lithuania in about 1894 and married in Minneapolis in 1896. He graduated from North High School and the University of Minnesota Medical School and served in the U.S. Army in World Wars I and II. In 1926 he married Blanche Halpern, and they have two sons, Stanley and Arthur.

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OH 131.10

Interview with Isadore Goldberg, May 12, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (1 hour, 30 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (18 pages).

Subjects discussed: His early childhood; family poverty; his newspaper route; education; early experiences in his medical practice; the Depression; anti-Semitism, especially in medicine; World War II; and religion.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Isadore Goldberg.

Biographical Information: Charles Goldfus was born Oct. 1, 1897, in north Minneapolis. Both parents were from Lithuania. In 1929 he married Sylvia Jacobs of St. Paul. Goldfus opened a liquor store in downtown Minneapolis in 1934, and in the 1940s he became a partner in the Dorset Hansen Catering Company. In 1947 he sold both businesses and moved to California. At the time of the interview, he and his wife lived in Palm Springs, California.

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OH 131.11

Interview with Charles Goldfus, June 25 and 26, 1978. 2 master audiocassettes (2 hours, 13 minutes), 3 submaster audio files: WAV, and 3 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (18 pages).

Subjects discussed: His family's house on Lyndale Place, near 6th Avenue North and Lyndale Avenue; many north Minneapolis businesses and people in the Jewish community; receiving liquor license number 1 after the repeal of prohibition, and opening his liquor store in February of 1934 in the Plymouth Building, 523 Hennepin Avenue; developing his own private brand labels, such as "King's Favorite" scotch; and entering the catering businesses.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Charles Goldfus.

Biographical Information: Florence Glick Greene was born January 1, 1900, in Muscatine, Iowa. Her parents came from Laskova, Lithuania, a small town near Riga. Her father came to the United States in 1890, and her mother came with their four children more than three years later. Florence Glick married Louis Greene on January 23, 1926, and they had two daughters. She died November 24, 1985.

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OH 131.12

Interview with Florence Glick Greene, August 13, 1979. 1 master sound cassette (59 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (13 pages).

Subjects discussed: Her early life in a small Iowa town; life in Minneapolis in the 1920s; work experience; anti-Semitism; the Depression; social and cultural activities; immigrants' poverty.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Florence Glick Greene.

Biographical Information: Viola Hoffman Hymes was born in Chicago and moved to Minneapolis at age 10 in about 1916. Her mother was born in Sweden, and her father was born in Romania and came to the United States at age 20. She graduated from West High School and the University of Minnesota, with a degree in education. She taught high school for five years before marrying Dr. Charles Hymes in 1930. They had two sons. Hymes was national president of the Council of Jewish Women and was elected to the Minneapolis School Board in 1963. She was an unsuccessful candidate for alderman in 1970 and was a founding member of the Citizens Committee on Public Education (COPE). She died in 1991.

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OH 131.13

Interview with Viola Hoffman Hymes, May 10, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (52 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (13 pages).

Subjects discussed: Her early family life and family history; friendships; education; anti-Semitism; community service activities; the Depression; politics; marriage and family; and religion.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Viola Hoffman Hymes.

Biographical Information: Slovie Kissin was born April 23, 1905, in St. Paul. Her father was Rabbi Wolfe Kissin, who came to St. Paul from London via Kansas City, Missouri, to open a private Hebrew school, Rev. Kissin's Parochial School. Later he became principal of the newly organized Capital City Hebrew School. Slovie Kissin had three sisters, Leah, Sternie and Sarah, and two brothers, Joe and Alfred. The family moved to Duluth in 1911 and returned to St. Paul in 1913. Next they lived and farmed on a five-acre farm called Slingerlands, Mahtomedi, White Bear Lake. Kissin graduated from Mechanic Arts High School, and on December 28, 1924, she married Bernard Bernstein. (He changed his name back to Marver, his family's original name, in 1940.) They have three sons. The family operated various clothing and general stores in St. Paul and South Dakota. Kissin-Marver was also involved in many community service organizations, includingtheRamsey County Mothers' March on Polio, the state and national boards of the United Nations Association, the St. Paul Inter Club Council, and the board of the St. Paul YWCA. She also was a dramatics teacher for community playgrounds and in Catholic schools.

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OH 131.14

Interview with Slovie Kissin-Marver, November 7 and 10, 1986. 2 master audiocassettes (3 hours, 7 minutes), 4 submaster audio files: WAV, and 4 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (96 pages).

Subjects discussed: Her family background and religion; family involvement in farming; family life and child-rearing; her father's career as a rabbi, fundraiser, businessman and horticulturist; her education; her courtship, marriage and three sons; Bernie Marver's businesses; her life in small towns; and work on various community services. The two male voices on the tapes are Bernard Marver and one of the Marvers' sons.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Slovie Kissen-Marver.

Biographical Information: Vera Nissenson Lyons was born in 1912 and came to Minneapolis in 1924 from Privarog, Russia, with her mother and father, an Orthodox rabbi. She married Arnold Labowitz (Lyons) in 1935. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in social work and worked during the first years of her marriage. She has been a local and regional officer of Hadassah, a women's Zionist organization, and served as a resource person for Judaism and Jewish holidays for the Minneapolis public schools. She also teaches kosher cooking.

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OH 131.15

Interview with Vera Nissenson Lyons, February 11, 1976. 1 master audiocassettes (58 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (14 pages).

Subjects discussed: Anti-Semitism in Russia, including a graphic description of a pogrom; flight from Russia to Minneapolis; life as an immigrant child; the 1930s Depression; working her way through college; the Jewish community in Minneapolis; and Jewish cooking.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Vera Nissenson Lyons.

Biographical Information: : William Mayberg was born in Russia in 1887. He married in 1911, came to the United States in 1913, and had two sons. He was self-educated but was a teacher most of his life. He also operated small grocery stores in Minneapolis and St. Paul. He died in 1978.

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OH 131.16

Interview with William Mayberg, January 15, 1976. 1 master audiocassettes (1 hour, 18 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (26 pages).

Subjects discussed: Jewish children's education in Russia and the United States; poverty of immigrant life; history of the Zionist movement; a Zionist farm and school in Champlin, Minnesota; and religion.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with William Mayberg.

Biographical Information: Albert G. Minda was born July 30, 1895, in Holton, Kansas. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1918, did postgraduate work at the Universities of Chicago, Columbia and Minnesota, and was ordained rabbi at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1919. He served as rabbi at Temple Beth El in South Bend, Indiana, from 1919 to 1922, when he became rabbi at Temple Israel in Minneapolis. He was granted an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1947 by the Hebrew Union College. In 1963 he was appointed Rabbi Emeritus at Temple Israel. He died in 1977.

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OH 131.17

Interview with Albert G. Minda, July – November 1968. 8 master audiotape reels (7 hours, 48 minutes), 16 submaster audio files: WAV, and 16 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (56 pages).

Subjects discussed: Personal history, including his education, early rabbinical duties in Indiana, marriage and writing; history and development of Temple Israel; the Jewish community in Minneapolis, Talmud Torah, Jewish charity and community services; anti-Semitism and the status of Jews in Minneapolis; duties of a rabbi; and his travels, lectures and participation in Jewish and inter-faith organizations.

Interviewed by: June Stern.

Use restricted.

Transcript of oral history interview with Albert G. Minda.

Biographical Information: Shepsel Roberts was born in Russia in 1914 and came to Minneapolis in 1921 with his parents and older brother and sister. He was educated at Yeshiva (Jewish school) in Chicago, married his wife Tibey at age 21 and has four children.

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OH 131.18

Interview with Shepsel Roberts, March 5, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (26 minutes), 1 submaster audio files: WAV, and 1 user audio file: MP3. Transcript (6 pages).

Subjects discussed: Immigration and poverty; his family's chicken business; selling newspapers as a boy; peddling; the Depression; his work as a shochet (ritual butcher) and mohel (ritual circumciser); and the role of religion in his life.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Shepsel (S.R.) Roberts.

Biographical Information: Esther Schanfield's family came to Minneapolis in the early 1900s, prospered and became community leaders. She studied music at the University of Minnesota and the Julliard School of Music in Boston. She married Eli Rosenbloom in 1924, and they had two sons and one daughter. She was involved in the Jewish community's cultural affairs in the 1940s and is an active Zionist whose daughter lives in Israel.

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OH 131.19

Interview with Esther Schanfield Rosenbloom, February 26, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (21 minutes), 1 submaster audio files: WAV, and 1 user audio file: MP3. Transcript (4 pages).

Subjects discussed: Her family background; arts in the Jewish community in the 1940s; and her honeymoon tour of the United States and Europe. She speaks in the third person.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

The original recording of the Rosenbloom interview shares one 120-minute cassette with the original recording of the Edward Schwartz interview.

Transcript of oral history interview with Esther Schanfield Rosenbloom.

Biographical Information: Ida Levitan Sanders was born in Russia in 1900 and arrived in Minneapolis in 1905. She married Max Sanders, they had two children, David and Mrs. Deera Tychman. She is an active member of Talmud Torah Auxiliary and Alumni and is a founder of Young People's Synagogue and Beth El Synagogue.

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OH 131.20

Interview with Ida Levitan Sanders, February 16, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (40 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (9 pages).

Subjects discussed: Early childhood experiences; secular and religious education; the founding and early history of Minneapolis Talmud Torah; anti-Semitism; the Depression; her home and neighborhood; and child-rearing experiences.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

The original recording of the Sanders interview shares one 120-minute cassette with the original recording of the Lillian Cohn interview.

Transcript of oral history interview with Ida Levitan Sanders.

Biographical Information: Maurice Schanfield's father came to Canada from Romania in 1883, landing in Montreal and working on the Canadian Pacific Railroad until reaching Winnipeg; from there the family hitchhiked to Minneapolis. Schanfield was born in 1904 in Minneapolis. His father died in January of 1911, leaving a widow and four small children. Schanfield entered his uncle's insurance business, attended the University of Minnesota, married his wife, Norma, in 1943 and has four daughters. Although refusing to join organizations, he is active in Alcoholics Anonymous.

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OH 131.21

Interview with Maurice Schanfield, January 13, 1977. 2 master audiocassettes (1 hour and 33 minutes), 3 submaster audio files: WAV, and 3 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (20 pages).

Subjects discussed: The early Jewish immigrant neighborhood in south Minneapolis; the Depression; religious training and beliefs; anti-Semitism; education; experiences with card gambling and alcohol addictions; intermarriage and child-rearing; and religious faith and peak experiences.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Maurice Schanfield.

Biographical Information: In 1904 Florence Karp's parents came to the United States from Russia, where her father was a university student, and Karp was born in New York City on May 28, 1906. After two years in New York, the family moved to South Dakota to raise sheep. Five years later they moved to Edmonton, Alberta, to take up another land grant, but they lived in the town. In 1922 they moved to Minneapolis, where Karp's parents became superintendents of the Jewish Home for the Aged (later the Sholom Home). In 1926 Karp graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in music. That year she also married Paul Kunian, and they had two children, Michael and Diana (Mrs. Bruce Lewis). She was active in Reform Judaism at Temple Israel and was a leader of the Zionist women's group Hadassah and of the Minneapolis Federation for Jewish Services. She also was an early supporter of Hubert Humphrey and a Democratic Farmer LaborPartyactivist and fund raiser. Paul Kunian died in 1964, and in 1973 she married Francis Schoff, a non-Jewish widower.

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OH 131.22

Interview with Florence Karp Kunian Schoff, April 29, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (44 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (12 pages).

Subjects discussed: Her early life on the South Dakota sheep ranch; working her way through the University of Minnesota; her courtship and marriage; her parents' background, motivation for emigration, and religious and political beliefs; her own religious and political beliefs and activities; the Depression; anti-Semitism; and Israel.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Florence Karp Kunian Schoff.

Biographical Information: Edward P. Schwartz was born in Minneapolis in 1903. He was a newspaper reporter, weekly newspaper publisher and publicist, particularly for show business. He inherited and expanded his father's business (Schwartz Printing and Ad Art Advertising). Schwartz played a leadership role in the Variety Club of the Northwest and the Variety Club Heart Hospital. He was also involved with the fund drive for building Mount Sinai Hospital, with Temple Israel and with Democratic Farmer Labor politics. He was also a founder of the Henry Miller Society. Schwartz and his wife, Mae, were married in 1928, and they have one daughter.

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OH 131.23

Interview with Edward P. Schwartz, February 25, 1976. 1 master sound cassette (60 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (15 pages).

Subjects discussed: His family background; his working career; intermarriage; anti-Semitism in local business and city affairs; the 1930s Depression; Temple Israel; the Variety Club of the Northwest and the founding of the Variety Club Hospital; Mount Sinai Hospital; the 620 Club and other Minneapolis restaurants; DFL politics, Hubert Humphrey's early career; and the Henry Miller Society.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

The original recording of the Schwartz interview shares one 120-minute cassette with the original recording of the Esther Schanfield Rosenbloom interview.

Transcript of oral history interview with Edward P. Schwartz.

Biographical Information: Nathan M. (Nate) Shapiro was born in Minneapolis in May of 1911. His father had come to Milwaukee several years earlier and then moved to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, to work as a coppersmith for Leinenkugel Breweries. Next his father moved to Minneapolis, established an auto repair business and later owned a confectionery. Shapiro graduated from North High School and worked at a Snyder's drug store, later becoming its manager. When Prohibition ended in 1934, he and his brother Monroe (Curly) opened Curly's nightclub. When his brother died in 1945, he sold it and went into the theater business and later the insurance business. He married his brother's widow and adopted their son and daughter. Shapiro was a regional officer in the Sertoma Club and a community fund raiser. He was also a close friend of Hubert Humphrey and active in the Democratic Farmer Labor Party.

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OH 131.24

Interview with Nathan Shapiro, May 12, 1976. 2 master audiocassettes (1 hour, 24 minutes), 3 submaster audio files: WAV, and 3 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (17 pages).

Subjects discussed: His family background, including his grandfather's supervision of a distillery in Russia and his work as a peddler; his own childhood and education; business experiences; the breakup of a theater owners' monopoly in the 1940s in Minneapolis; concerns about child-rearing and Jewishness; anti-Semitism; intermarriage and strong concern for the relationship between the Gentile and Jewish communities (he and his children are Unitarians); friendship with Hubert Humphrey; leadership in the Sertoma Club; and activity in the DFL.

Interviewed by: Rhoda G. Lewin.

Transcript of oral history interview with Nathan M. Shapiro.

Biographical Information: Anna Lee Wolff was born in Minneapolis in 1886. She graduated from Wellesley in 1908 and married Maurice Wolff in 1909. In 1914 she was the first president of the Women's Auxiliary of the Temple of Aaron. In 1918 she was a founder of the local organization of the National Council of Jewish Women, and for two terms she was president of the Minneapolis World Affairs Council. At the time of the interview she had been a member of a local writers' group for twenty-five years.

Maurice Wolff was born in Minneapolis in 1884. His parents were very active in Temple Shore Tov (later Temple Israel). He graduated from high school in 1902 and went to work for the Rothchild advertising agency about five days later. He worked there until 1919, when he went to work in his wife's family's business. Later he was business editor of Lancet Publications, which included the medical journal Lancet. Wolff was president of the Jewish welfare board during World War I and was active in Masonry and skating. He was also a member of the board for Family and Children's Services of Hennepin County and lectured in advertising at the University of Minnesota, College of St. Thomas, and local business colleges.

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OH 131.25

Interview with Maurice and Anna Lee Wolff, June 14, 1969. 1 master audiocassettes (1 hour, 1 minute), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, and 2 user audio files: MP3. Transcript (12 pages).

Subjects discussed: Anna Lee Wolff's early life in Minneapolis, activities in public and religious affairs, general absence of anti-Semitism, and her pacifist beliefs. Maurice Wolff's career in advertising, interests in skating and social clubs, community service, and an absence of anti-Semitism.

Interviewed by: Mrs. V.R. Gould

Use restricted.

Transcript of oral history interview with Maurice and Anna Lee Wolff.

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:: Emigration and immigration.; Immigrants -- Minnesota.; Jewish families -- Minnesota.; Jews -- Minnesota -- Biography.; Jews -- Minnesota -- History.; Jews -- Minnesota -- Social life and customs.

Persons:: Aronson, David, b. 1894, interviewee.; Barron, Moses, 1883-, interviewee.; Brochin, Ben, interviewee.; Cohn, Angelo, 1914-, interviewee.; Cohn, Lilian Besler, interviewee.; Deinard, Amos Spencer, interviewee.; Field, Gladys Jacobs, interviewee.; Fliegel, Ernie, interviewee.; Goldberg, Blanche Halpern, interviewee.; Goldberg, Isadore, interviewee.; Goldfus, Charles, interviewee.; Gordon, Guida, interviewer.; Gould, V. R., Mrs., interviewer.; Greene, Florence Glick, interviewee.; Hymes, Viola Hoffman, 1906-1991, interviewee.; Kissin-Marver, Slovie, 1905-, interviewee.; Lewin, Rhoda, interviewer.; Lyons, Vera Nissenson, interviewee.; Mayberg, William, interviewee.; Minda, Albert Greenberg, 1895-, interviewee.; Roberts, Shepsel, interviewee.; Rosenbloom, Esther Schanfield, interviewee.; Sanders, Ida Levitan, interviewee.; Schanfield, Maurice, interviewee.; Schoff, Florence Karp Kunian, interviewee.; Schwartz, Edward P., interviewee.; Shapiro, Nathan, interviewee.; Sharp, Joan, interviewer.; Stern, June, interviewer.; Wolff, Anna Lee, interviewee.; Wolff, Maurice, interviewee.

Places:: Near-North Community (Minneapolis, Minn.) -- History.; Near-North Community (Minneapolis, Minn.) -- Biography.

Document Types:: Interviews.; Oral histories (document genres)