Cataloging Richmond’s Jewish History
This blog is by Mary Moody McLean, M.A. in History and a Certificate in Public History December 2023.
Below the staircase at Beth Ahabah Museum and Archives (BAMA) rests a large stone with unnatural craters. These dents resulted from bullets fired by the Nazi Sturmabteilung paramilitary and Schutzstaffel paramilitary forces on November 9, 1938 in Berlin. The German synagogue where the stone resided was not the only target. Nazi forces destroyed storefronts, synagogues, cars, and houses in the effort to drive out the Jewish population and ultimately force them into concentration camps during World War II. This is the background of just one object in the Beth Ahabah collection, yet it so clearly demonstrates the importance of cataloging the lives and teachings of Jewish communities. Beth Ahabah achieves this mission in a humble archive on West Franklin Street in Richmond. Amongst the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, are snapshots of local Jewish history starting from the 1760s when Jews operating businesses in the Virginia Territory settled in Richmond. Beth Ahabah Museum and Archives is propelled with the mission that documents pertaining to Jewish history, traditions and practices must be preserved and catalogued to continue Jewish education in Richmond.
When I began working at Beth Ahabah as an intern archivist, I got hands-on experience with cataloging and preserving Beth Ahabah’s important documents. My primary responsibilities at the archive included organizing and processing the papers of Shelly Berger, a current employee and former president of BAMA. The collection consists of meeting agendas, director’s reports, cash positions, other administrative documents, and email correspondence. For several hours each week over four months, I went folder by folder, organizing, cataloging, and verifying each document individually. It is such a special process being trusted to provide the utmost care, attention to detail, and importance to each document, whether it is the original handwritten By-Laws of the Beth Ahabah Trust or simply Shelly Berger’s lunch order during a Trustees meeting. With determination, I managed to process 66% of the collection.
In addition to organizing the Berger collection, I also witnessed an accession of materials in the archives. One donor brought various Beth Ahabah memorabilia, including a copy of a letter from George Washington to K.K. Beth Shalome.
This acquisition added to an archive that started informally with the Beth Ahabah congregation continually receiving and logging important information regarding the Jewish population of Richmond. After seven decades’ worth of marriage certificates, consecration papers, death notices, birth registries, Bar and Bat Mitzvah logs, and various other synagogue events, the institutional records had grown quite large. In 1977, the Beth Ahabah Museum and Archives Trust was created to properly catalog and safely preserve the acquired materials.
This collection assists BAMA in its educational mission, where I also gained valuable experience. I assisted on tours and helped BAMA employees, Bill Obrochta, Shelly Berger, and Tracy Herman with religious programming by finding materials in the dry room. It is essential that archives have at least one dry room, as the key factor impacting the quality of stored goods is the humidity in the air surrounding them. To control the humidity, the dry room is heated and dehumidified to prolong the lifespan of these objects. Typically, dry rooms store documents, films, or photographs for prolonged periods, safeguarding them from degradation or other detrimental effects.
I particularly enjoyed helping Tracy find objects about the consecration ceremony when the children of the temple between the ages of 5 and 8 officially start their Jewish education. We located pictures of previous consecration classes, and I found an invitation to the 225th anniversary of Beth Ahabah’s special consecration reunion service. These materials helped the children understand that consecration has happened for hundreds of years at Beth Ahabah, and the consecration class they are initiated with will resonate for the rest of their lives.
Working at BAMA has helped me learn more about the history of Jews in Richmond and the history of the congregation. Over one hundred Jewish people lived in Richmond, a city of almost four thousand, by 1789. With this robust population, the Jewish residents established Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalome, meaning The Holy Congregation, House of Peace in the Sephardic tradition. K.K. Beth Shalome, as it is affectionally referred to, was the first Jewish synagogue in Richmond and the sixth in the United States. As more German and Eastern European Jews immigrated to the area, they joined K.K. Beth Shalome but sought an Ashkenazic worship tradition, rather than Sephardic. In 1841, this sect of Ashkenazi Jews established a partner congregation called Beth Ahabah, meaning House of Love, maneuvered in the Ashkenazi traditions. In 1846, the first Rabbi of Beth Ahabah, Rabbi Michelbacher, founded the first Jewish school in Richmond which did very well and even provided classrooms for the first public school in Richmond. Soon thereafter, Congregation Beth Ahabah began to shift to Reform practices, obtaining an organ, permitting men and women to sit together in the pews of the synagogue, and allowing women to join the choir. In 1875, Beth Ahabah officially joined the Reform movement and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which led to the consolidation of K.K. Beth Shalome and Congregation Beth Ahabah in 1898. The combined congregation necessitated a newer and larger synagogue, which led to the construction of the present-day building in 1904 where I completed my internship.
In between my archival and educational work, I always joined the staff for lunch and to chat about our days. It was in this setting that I learned the most about Jewish traditions (and Jewish foods, yum!). Needless to say, I greatly enjoyed working at BAMA, and I have come to love archives. While the work can be challenging (and occasionally tedious), it is a great feeling to know that I have helped future researchers understand, study, and examine Jewish history in Richmond. Bill, Shelly, and Tracy are all extremely kind, cheerful people, and I cannot be more thankful for the experience of working with them. Be sure to visit the museum at 1109 W Franklin St, between 10am and 3pm to learn more about this wonderful archive!
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