Jewish Family and Career Services (Louisville, Ky.) Oral History and Obituary Collection, 2001-2018
Held by The Filson Historical Society
Creator: Jewish Family and Career Services (Louisville, Ky.)
Title: Oral History and Obituary Collection, 2001-2018
Rights: For information regarding literary and copyright interest for these papers, contact the Collections Department.
Size of Collection: 1 cubic foot
Location Number: Mss. BJ J59a
Scope and Content Note
The collection consists of oral history questionnaires filled out by Jewish Family and Career Services (JFCS) volunteers with members of Louisville’s Jewish community in 2001-2018, as well as obituaries from 2008-2018 to document the lives of local Jewish individuals.
Originally started by JFCS board member Ann Friedman, the oral history project eventually encompassed 206 interviews with Jewish individuals in Louisville. The interviews were conducted by JFCS volunteers, who used a standardized script to ask senior community members questions about various parts of their lives. Questions included: “How did your family originally come to this country and when?”; “What was your neighborhood like?”; “What holidays and rituals were observed?”; and “How did you meet your husband/wife?” Some of the interviewees grew up in other cities and parts of the country, such as New York City, Cincinnati, or rural Mississippi, and they relate memories about their lives in those locations.
The interviews all come with signed paperwork agreeing to their use as historical community resources. Some include supplemental material on the narrators, such as resumes, obituaries, and photographs dating from the 1930s-1950s and 1980s-2018. Interviews are arranged in binders in alphabetical order. The interviews can be browsed and searched online at https://filsonhistorical.omeka.net/collections/show/119.
The obituaries were collected by JFCS staff; they document Jewish community members who died during the years 2008-2018.
Click on the links below to access:
Index of people interviewed for the oral history project (click to access PDF)
Index of people documented by the obituaries (click to access PDF)
Related collections:
Jewish Family and Vocational Service (Louisville, Ky.) records [Mss. BJ J59].
Jewish Family and Vocational Service photograph collection [019PC42].
Historical Note
Jewish Family and Career Services (JFCS) grew out of Jewish agencies established in Louisville in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1908, local Jewish leaders and organizations formed the Federation of Jewish Charities to assist Eastern European Jewish immigrants who settled in Louisville. Its name changed to the Jewish Welfare Federation (JWF) in 1918 and became the Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA) in 1951.
In 1943, the Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) was established in Louisville to provide educational and vocational guidance to Jewish youth. It grew out of a committee formed in 1938 representing the JWF, the Louisville Section of the National Council of Jewish Women, and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA). The committee was concerned with the lack of school and career guidance for young people and with the anti-Semitism faced by Jewish students. Louisville became the smallest Jewish community in the country with a professionally staffed vocational service, which served not just Jewish youth but also adults, veterans, immigrants, and non-Jewish residents.
In 1978, the JSSA and the JVS joined to create the Jewish Family and Vocational Service (JFVS) and moved to the newly opened Shalom Tower on Dutchmans Lane, next door to the Jewish Community Center (JCC). The organization has provided educational, testing, career, counseling, and family services, helped to resettle refugees, and sponsored programs for older adults. The Louis & Lee Roth Family Center opened in 2000, providing more spacious facilities for JFVS and its programs.
In 2008, the organization’s name was changed to Jewish Family and Career Services (JFCS). The JFCS oral history project was started by board member Ann Friedman.
Sources:
Carol Ely, Jewish Louisville: Portrait of a Community, pp. 92-93, 142-44.
Jewish Family and Vocational Service, Leadership, Legends, and Legacies: A Tribute to the 100th Anniversary Honoring Past Leaders (2008).
Herman Landau, Adath Louisville: The Story of a Jewish Community (1981), pp. 122-34.
“JFCS Creates Family Legacies with Their Oral History Project,” May 30, 2012, https://jewishlouisville.org/jfcs-creates-family-legacies-with-their-oral-history-project/
Folder List
Box 1
Folder 1: Oral histories – A
Folder 2: Oral histories – B
Folder 3: Oral histories – C
Folder 4: Oral histories – D
Folder 5: Oral histories – E
Folder 6: Oral histories – F
Folder 7: Oral histories – Ga-Gol
Folder 8: Oral histories – Goo-Gu
Folder 9: Oral histories – H
Folder 10: Oral histories – I-J
Folder 11: Oral histories – K
Folder 12: Oral histories – L
Folder 13: Oral histories – M
Folder 14: Oral histories – N
Folder 15: Oral histories – P
Folder 16: Oral histories – R
Folder 17: Oral histories – S
Folder 18: Oral histories – T-V
Folder 19: Oral histories – W-Z
Folder 20: Obituaries – A-B
Folder 21: Obituaries – C-F
Folder 22: Obituaries – G-J
Folder 23: Obituaries – K-L
Folder 24: Obituaries – M-P
Folder 25: Obituaries – Q-S
Folder 26: Obituaries – T-Z
Subject Headings
Antisemitism – Kentucky – Louisville.
Business enterprises – Kentucky – Louisville.
Dating.
Emigration and immigration.
Family-owned business enterprises – Kentucky – Louisville.
Fasts and feasts – Judaism.
Floods – Ohio River – 1937.
Holocaust survivors.
Immigrants.
Israel – Description and travel.
Israel – Missions.
Jefferson County (Ky.)
Jefferson County Public Schools
Jewish businesspeople – Kentucky – Louisville.
Jewish Community Center (Louisville, Ky.)
Jewish families – Kentucky – Louisville.
Jewish Hospital (Louisville, Ky.)
Jewish neighborhoods – Kentucky – Louisville.
Jewish newspapers – Kentucky.
Jewish religious education – Kentucky – Louisville.
Jews – Kentucky – Louisville.
Jews – United States – Attitudes toward Israel.
Judaism.
Kosher food.
Louisville (Ky.)
National Council of Jewish Women. Louisville Section.
Prohibition.
Rabbis – Kentucky – Louisville.
Stores, retail – Kentucky – Louisville.
Synagogues – Kentucky – Louisville.
Tornado damage – Kentucky – Louisville.
Young Men’s Hebrew Association (Louisville, Ky.)
World War, 1939-1945.