Collections

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 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.

The collection of Cantor Stuart Kanas mainly consists of manuscript music and print sheet music 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 Kanas studied at the famed Hebrew Union College in New York. Not only remembered for being a great Cantor in both Pennsylvania and New York, Cantor Stuart Kanas is also remembered for a legal decision that helped define the Cantor as a co-officiate in Jewish services of worship when it comes to draft deferment (1967). Cantor Stuart Kanas passed away on September 28, 2002.

The collection of Cantor William W. Lipson consists of sheet music, manuscript music, print music, and papers relating to his professional life as a cantor. Music books have been cataloged and relocated to Rare Books.  William W. Lipson (1921-2009) was Cantor Emeritus of Beth David Congregation, Miami, where he served for 30 years. He was named a Fellow in the Cantors Assembly of America, of which he was a Charter Member, and was recognized with an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for his lifetime of outstanding professional service. He passed away on September 22, 2009 in Atlanta.

In 1991, the family of Zvi Aroni [neé Shalom Zvee Aronowitz] donated his collection of print music, music manuscripts, personal songbooks, pictures, programs, and video recordings 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 Aroni studied voice with Cantor Samuel Kavetsky and had a close relationship with the composer, Reuven Kosakoff. Many of their manuscripts can be found in the Collection. Cantor Aroni came to America in 1947 where he served as cantor in synagogues in Philadelphia and New York City. From 1964-1968 he served as Cantor of the Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue in Toronto, Canada. It was here that he was able to realize his dream of reviving the boy choir and integrating it into the service. From 1968-1979 Cantor Aroni lived and sang in NYC. He was Cantor at Beth Torah in North Miami Beach until his death in 1990.

This collection relates to Carl Lyren who served in the United States Marine Corps in 2nd Marine Division the Pacific Theater. The materials of this collection are made up of maps, unclassified documents from both Japanese and U.S. forces, books, letters, interviews with veterans, photographs, newspaper clippings, and personal notes made by Carl Lyren in his research in writing on the battle of Peleliu, also in this collection is the original manuscript of the publication Dogged Courage: The Struggle for Peleliu, 1944.

Spiral bound volume of Carlton Stauffer's memoir "Rifleman." This privately printed memoir relates to Private First Class Carlton H. Stauffer who served with Company G, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division during World War II and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

This oral history interview transcript relates to the life experiences of Catherine Black, an American woman who grew up in the Great Depression and came of age during World War II. Black recounts growing up during the Great Depression, graduating college, her life on the home front, and her life after the war. She discusses raising a child when her husband was at war, living in Arkansas near a Japanese internment camp, becoming a early widow after the war, her remarrige, and her second husband's experiences as a B17 Bomber Pilot during the War.