The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library houses a wealth of resources for researching Western Jewish families. It contains personal and family papers, congregational records, photographs, and records of Jewish institutions and businesses. The collection is being digitized and the new Magnes website will provide improved online access to these resources for researching Jewish life in the American West.

1. An Insider’s Guide to
Researching Western Jewish
Families in the Magnes
Collections
Lara Michels, MLIS, PhD
Archivist for the Magnes
Collection of Jewish Art and Life
at the Bancroft Library,
UC Berkeley

2. The Past… Jew
Mo
d er
n an
Arc
hiva
ish d co l co
cere llec
The Sixties @Magnes mon n t em tion
ial o por s
•Cemeteries Commission and WJHC bjec ar y
Rar ts a fine
•Rescue trips to India and Iran e Bo nd d art
o ks ec o
•Strauss Collection an d rati
Man ve a
uscr rt
ipts
The Seventies @Magnes
•First Jewish Museum to be accredited
•Film projects
•Publishing projects
•Docent program
The Eighties @Magnes
•Renovation of Burke mansion
•Blumenthal Rare Book Library added
•Gallery space expanded The Nineties and 2000s @Magnes
•Seymour Fromer retires
•Dissolved merger between Jewish Museum of SF and Magnes
•Digitization of collection and creation of online catalog

3. The Present…cts to
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4. New Name: The Magnes
The Future… Collection of Jewish Art and
Life at the Bancroft Library
Physical access:
•Bancroft Library
•New Magnes facility in
Downtown Berkeley
Intellectual access:
•UC catalogs
•OAC
•Magnes online catalog
•New Integrated Magnes
website with more tools

6. Family and Personal Papers

7. Ackerman Marks
Behrend Meyer
Bogen Naftaly
Corinson Neustadter
Dinkelspiel Pantoskey
Elkus Phillips
Gilbert Pinto-Levy
Glazier Rosenberg
Greenebaum Rosenblatt
Haas Rosenbloom
Lilienthal Rubin
Lubin Samuels
Hirsch Schoenfeld
Kahn Sloss
Levy-Pudlin Swig
Livingston Teller
Lowenthal-Goldfarb Weinstock
Zellerbach

8. WJHC Vertical File
•Three parts: Geographic File, Name File
and Subject File
•Name File arranged by surname
•Watch for finding aid on OAC

9. Western Jewry and
WJHC Indexes
•Martin Meyer’s Western Jewry
(1916)
•Index to the Emanu-El
newspaper
•Index to the 1986 WJHC
Collection Guide
•Indexes to various
publications on Western Jews
(prepared by WJHC
volunteers)

10. Books Indexed by WJHC
•Jack Goldman’s A History of Pioneer Jews in California,
1849-1870
•Rudolf Glanz’s The Jews of California--From the Discover of
Gold Until 1880
•I.J. Benjamin’s Three Years in America, 1859-1962
Other Published Indexes
Index in Norton Stern’s California Jewish History: A Descriptive
Bibliography
Indexes in Sara Cogan’s three bibliographies on California
Jewish history
Index in Robert Levinson’s The Jews in the California Gold Rush

11. Congregational Records
Marriage records Membership lists
Burial records Minutes

12. Beth Israel,
Sherith Israel, SF Berkeley
Keneseth Israel, SF
Emanu-El, SF
Beth Jacob, Beth Israel, SF
Oakland
Temple Sinai, Oakland
Temple Israel, Stockton
First Hebrew Congregation, Albany (Oregon)

13. Institutional
Records
Case Files
Membership lists
Photographs

14. Eureka Benevolent Society
Ladies United Hebrew Benevolent Society
Mount Zion Hospital
Jewish Community Centers of SF and Oakland
Jewish Welfare Federations of SF and Oakland
Emanu-El Sisterhood for Personal Service

15. Business Records

16. Bissinger and Co. Haas Bros.
Marks & Co. Ben Swig
Weinstock-Lubin
Zellerbach Paper Co.
White House Dept Store

17. Think Broadly! Unusual Collections and Sources

18. Digital Magnes

25. The New Magnes @ Bancroft Website

26. Lara Michels
lmichels@library.berkeley.edu