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Home > Penn Libraries > Kislak Center > Penn Judaica > Jewish Counterculture History Project > JCCHP Oral Histories

 

Oral Histories

This project focuses particularly on the havurah movement, which represents a signal effort to reinvent Jewish communal worship and social life outside the framework of traditional synagogue denominations and structures. The first such institution, Havurat Shalom, was established in Boston in 1968, in the wake of Israel’s Six-Day War and at the height of America’s cultural, social and political ferment. In his study of American Judaism, historian Jonathan Sarna emphasizes that havurah members consciously set out to “jettison the bourgeois middle-class values of suburbia and to re-imagine Judaism” as a liberating force capable of revolutionizing personal and religious relationships as well as politics and society. (Sarna, American Judaism, p. 319). Related efforts sprang up in other cities, such as Fabrangen in Washington, D.C., the New York Havurah, as well as havurot in the mid-West and California. With the spread of radical Jewish cultural movements came distinct trends and independent organizations: the Jewish renewal movement, P’nai Or, the Jewish Student Network, and related self-identified Jewish secular political activism, like Jews for Urban Justice, Breira, Ezrat Nashim and Jewish Feminism, Jewish Gay culture, Jewish music and the Klezmer revival, and Jewish Back-to-the-Earth agriculturalists.

As we approach the half-century mark since the founding of Havurat Shalom, this project seeks to contribute to building a documentary record of these diverse forms of Jewish counterculture through a pilot effort to interview approximately twenty-five key members of the havurah movement. We intend to focus primarily on Havurat Shalom as well as on the New York Havurah and Fabrangen in this initial phase of the project. It should also be noted that each of these havurot had their own particular structures and outlooks and were not in their early years part of an organized movement. The history of the havurah and of the Jewish counterculture more generally remains to be written, and indeed, at the present time, archival collections are being assembled at Brandeis University, the University of Pennsylvania, the American Jewish Archives, the American Jewish Historical Society, and the University of Colorado—just to name a few institutions. This project aims to further the current effort already underway by documenting the experiences and reflections of early havurah participants through oral history. These oral histories will ultimately be made available to the public as part of an open, pluralistic, and cooperative endeavor to gather and disseminate information. Thus, this initial and limited oral history project represents an important piece of a larger effort to collect information about and begin to interpret this important moment in American Jewish history.

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  • Jewish Counter Culture Oral History Project Highlights by Multiple narrators

    Jewish Counter Culture Oral History Project Highlights

    Multiple narrators

    This video presents highlights from the more than two dozens interviews with members of the founding generation of the earliest American havurot.

  • Jewish Counter Culture Oral History Project Overview by Clara Phillips

    Jewish Counter Culture Oral History Project Overview

    Clara Phillips

    An overview video describing the Jewish Counter Culture Oral History Project.

  • Havurat Shalom: Reflections at 50 by Sharon Strassfeld, Art Green, Barry Holtz, Joe Reimer, Michael Paley, Mona Fishbane, Michael Fishbane, Richard Siegel, Joel Rosenberg, David Roskies, and Michael Strassfeld

    Havurat Shalom: Reflections at 50

    Sharon Strassfeld, Art Green, Barry Holtz, Joe Reimer, Michael Paley, Mona Fishbane, Michael Fishbane, Richard Siegel, Joel Rosenberg, David Roskies, and Michael Strassfeld

    Short video containing clips from the Jewish Counter Culture Oral History project interviews shown at the 50th reunion of the founders of Havurat Shalom during Memorial Day weekend, May 2018.

  • Interview with Mona and Michael Fishbane by Mona Fishbane and Michael Fishbane

    Interview with Mona and Michael Fishbane

    Mona Fishbane and Michael Fishbane

  • Interview with Robert Goldenberg by Robert Goldenberg

    Interview with Robert Goldenberg

    Robert Goldenberg

  • Interview with George Johnson by George Johnson

    Interview with George Johnson

    George Johnson

  • Interview with Stefan and Mary Krieger by Stefan Krieger and Mary Krieger

    Interview with Stefan and Mary Krieger

    Stefan Krieger and Mary Krieger

  • Interview with Alan Mintz by Alan Mintz

    Interview with Alan Mintz

    Alan Mintz

  • Interview with Michael Paley by Michael Paley

    Interview with Michael Paley

    Michael Paley

  • Interview with Judith Plaskow and Martha Ackelsberg by Judith Plaskow and Martha Ackelsberg

    Interview with Judith Plaskow and Martha Ackelsberg

    Judith Plaskow and Martha Ackelsberg

    Caption to photograph (supplied by narrators):

    The one labeled Sharom and Ilana as babies has (from left to right) Sharon Sperling (toddler), Phyllis Sperling, Dina Rosenfeld; in back row: Martha Ackelsberg, Liz Koltun, Ilana Sugarman [later Ruskay] (in baby seat), Shira Sugarman

  • Interview with John Ruskay by John Ruskay

    Interview with John Ruskay

    John Ruskay

  • Interview with Gerald Serotta by Gerald Serotta

    Interview with Gerald Serotta

    Gerald Serotta

  • Interview with Leslie and Zev Shanken by Leslie Shanken and Zev Shanken

    Interview with Leslie and Zev Shanken

    Leslie Shanken and Zev Shanken

  • Interview with Phyllis Sperling by Phyllis Sperling

    Interview with Phyllis Sperling

    Phyllis Sperling

  • Interview with Rob Agus by Rob Agus

    Interview with Rob Agus

    Rob Agus

  • One Change, Three Stories: Women in the Minyan at Havurat Shalom by Mona Fishbane, Michael Fishbane, Barry Holtz, and Art Green

    One Change, Three Stories: Women in the Minyan at Havurat Shalom

    Mona Fishbane, Michael Fishbane, Barry Holtz, and Art Green

    Short series of clips from three Jewish Counter Culture Oral History interviews used as part of a conference presentation by the filmmaker, Jayne Guberman.

  • Interview with Everett and Mary Gendler by Everett Gendler and Mary Gendler

    Interview with Everett and Mary Gendler

    Everett Gendler and Mary Gendler

  • Interview with Art Green by Art Green

    Interview with Art Green

    Art Green

  • Interview with Barry Holtz by Barry Holtz

    Interview with Barry Holtz

    Barry Holtz

  • Interview with Joseph and Gail Reimer by Joseph Reimer and Gail Reimer

    Interview with Joseph and Gail Reimer

    Joseph Reimer and Gail Reimer

    Captions for photographs (supplied by Joe and Gail Reimer)

    1. Joe and I got married on Labor Day September 1971 at the newly built Lincoln Square Synagogue in NY. (I think ours was the first wedding held in that space.) Rabbi Art Green co-officiated with Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. The wedding photographer was Fred Marcus. I believe he is no longer alive, but the Fred Marcus studio in NY is still operative.

    2. Women dancing prior to bedecken. At far right: Kathy Green; next to her Janet Holtz. Woman in short white dress: Bella Savran. Woman in short green dress: Debbie Fine.

    3. Seated at right: Kathy and Art Green; Standing behind Art - Liz Vitale with Steve Mitchell; also standing: Bella and George Savran. Seated on left - Janet and Barry Holtz; Burt Jacobson.

    4. Seated on far right: Richie Siegel; next to him Danny Matt; Next to him Arnie Cover.

    5. Art Green dancing with Joe Reimer.

    6. Joe Reimer dancing with Richard Siegel.

    7. Richard Siegel and Art Green holding Joe Reimer aloft.

    8.George Savran in center; Joe Reimer at left of photo; Richard Siegel at right of photo.

  • Interview with Joel Rosenberg by Joel Rosenberg

    Interview with Joel Rosenberg

    Joel Rosenberg

  • Interview with David Roskies by David Roskies

    Interview with David Roskies

    David Roskies

  • Interview with George and Bella Savran by George Savrin and Bella Savrin

    Interview with George and Bella Savran

    George Savrin and Bella Savrin

  • Interview with David Shneyer by David Shneyer

    Interview with David Shneyer

    David Shneyer

  • Interview with Richard Siegel by Richard Siegel

    Interview with Richard Siegel

    Richard Siegel

 
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