A street scene of the Lower East Side. The Great Synagogue of Rome. The Jewish Quarter of Oran, Algeria. These are just a few of the sites and scenes depicted in the wide-ranging Barbara R. and Steven M. Balkin Judaica Post Card Collection. Donated by the Balkins to the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture, the collection is now available to peruse on the Mayrent website (mayrent.wisc.edu/balkin-postcard-collection/). The physical collection will be housed at the library of the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies.
Over the past year, Jewish Studies certificate student Lily Gray (‘21) worked with Mayrent Director Sunny Yudkoff and CJS Project Assistant Amie Goblirsch to curate the collection. The result is a series of thematically arranged galleries offering vivid images of Jewish life in America, North Africa, Europe, other parts of the world. Yiddish greeting cards comprise another gallery. For the latest gallery of New Year’s Cards in Yiddish, German, Hungarian, and English, click here
“We’re grateful to the Balkin family for this engaging collection,” says Yudkoff. “The collection includes evocative post cards depicting Jewish culture from Michigan to Jerusalem. We’re looking forward to seeing how our students draw on the resources of the collection, as they learn about the historical and geographical range of Jewish culture.”