Collections

Collection consists of photographs pertaining to national and international news, entertainment, fashion and publicity, and sports. Also included are photographs of accidents, disasters, and crime.

The collection consists of Burgert Brothers prints derived from various sources and assembled into a composite collection.  The two principle sources for the Burgert images were the photographic holdings of the Tony Pizzo and Hampton Dunn collections. Both had considerable numbers of Burgert prints and negatives dispersed under various subject headings. The collection was assembled into a single, coherent collection in 1993.

This collection contains correspondence, memos, court dockets, news clippings, and meeting notes related to the Anti-defamation League (ADL). Mr. Roth was member of the National Board of Trustees of the B'Nai B'Rith Foundation of the United States; Vice-Chairman of the National Civil Rights Committee; Chairman of the Florida Regional Board of the ADL. His relationship with the ADL began in 1931 and continued through the 1990s. Additionally, this collection contains correspondence, photos, clippings, and ephemera from Burnett Roth's personal life. This includes material related to his education, military service during World War II, his career as an attorney in Miami, business ventures, and political offices. Some material related to his immediate family is included. Of special interest are notes compiled by Mr. Roth for an intended book about the history of Jewry in Florida.

Personal papers, 1840-1979, including records as a student, 1916-1919; as a teacher at Pensacola High School, 1928-1967; memorabilia and letters about life at Florida State College for Women, 1919-1923; summer studies at Columbia, 1929; the University of Virginia, 1938; and the University of Wisconsin, 1930. Includes considerable family records of her parents, John McMillan Burrow and Nelle Agnes Barrington Burrow and other relatives including the Anderson, Burrow, Cresap, Pyle, and Vaughn families of Pensacola; the Barrington, Burrow, Conner families of Wabash, Indiana; and the Medbury and Phillips families of St. Mary's, Ohio.

The collection of Cantor Shabtai Ackerman consists of manuscript music, print music, personal songbooks, personal papers, programs, and pictures relating to his professional life as a cantor. Music books have been cataloged and relocated to Rare Books. Audio recordings have been relocated to Judaica Sound Archives. Cantor Ackerman was a world-renowned cantor with a powerful dramatic tenor voice. He was wounded by the Nazis in World War II and chanted services in the great Moscow Synagogue as a refugee in 1945. After the War, he was appointed permanent Cantor of the Baron De Rothschild and Ahavas Achim (Fraterna) Synagogue in Bucharest. He also served as Chief Cantor for the Great Synagogue of Tel-Aviv, Congregation Beth Abraham Hillel Moses in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Florida. He received an honorary doctoral degree in music from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where scholarships in his name have since been established. Cantor Ackerman received two Kavod awards from the Cantors Assembly of America. He passed away on July 27, 2007.

The collection of Cantor Irving Obstbaum consists of manuscript music, print music, personal songbooks, personal papers, programs, and pictures relating to his professional life as a cantor. Music books have been cataloged and relocated to Rare Books. Audio recordings have been relocated to Judaica Sound Archives.  Cantor Irving Obstbaum served the congregation of Temple Beth-El in New York for over 40 years.  Along with his responsibilities to his congregation, he served as Executive Director of the Jewish Ministers Cantors' Association that helped find and place other qualified cantors to other Temples. He was also well known for giving lectures and sermons on various Jewish and Hebrew musical topics throughout New York.

The collection of Cantor Morton Pliskin consists of manuscript music, print music, personal songbooks, personal papers, programs, and pictures relating to his professional life as a cantor. Music books have been cataloged and relocated to Rare Books. Audio recordings have been relocated to Judaica Sound Archives. Cantor Pliskin was known as a "wunderkind" cantor who started singing next to his father who was a cantor at the age of 13. After his family moved to Chicago he studied at the Hebrew Theological College of Jewish Studies in Chicago, the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and the University of Northern Illinois (where he focused on cantorial history). After graduating and serving as a cantor in Minneapolis for a few years he returned to Chicago where he served at the congregations of Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation and A.G. Beth Israel. Cantor Pliskin also had well established relationships with Cantor Moses Silverman and Dr. Bauer. He passed away on January 9, 2008.