46 June 27 • 2019
jn
From the DJN Foundation Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History
Mike Smith
Alene and Graham
Landau Archivist
Chair
PHOTOGRAPH
COURTESY OF THE RABBI LEO M. FRANKLIN ARCHIVES OF TEMPLE BETH EL, BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI.
Abraham “Aid” Kushner was known for his remarkable synagogue models. Here, in the 1970s, he is pictured in the Anna S. and Meyer L. Prentis Memorial Library at Temple Beth El with many of his models.
O
n June 6, the Jewish Historical Society held
its annual meeting and awards ceremony,
a very nice affair. One of the awardees was
Peggy Finkelstein, who received the Judith Levin
Cantor Lifetime Achievement Award. Finkelstein
is the director of the Peg and Mort Finkelstein
Historical Archives at Temple Emanuel in Grand
Rapids. Naturally, I like archivists, especially, those
with a bit of vision.
Finkelstein has an impressive track record as an
archivist. As her family historian for many years, she
morphed into the director of the archive at Temple
Emanuel and, beginning in 2002, when Peg and Mort
began supporting the archives, she began to reorga-
nize them. “I wanted to make it user-friendly,
” she
said. Well, she did, and is now working to digitize
collections and make them even more user-friend-
ly. Along the way, she earned the Olson Lifetime
Contribution of Local History Award from Grand
Valley State University as well as a history award from
the Historical Society of Michigan.
Finkelstein’
s work raised another question for me
— what does the William Davidson Digital Archive
of Jewish Detroit History contain regarding Temple
Emanuel, which is one of the oldest temples in
Michigan in the state’
s second largest city? Its website
claims it is the fifth-oldest Reform congregation in the
United States. It was founded in 1857 by five German
families and remained largely German until the late-
19th century. Its current temple opened in 1952.
Searching for “Temple Emanuel, Grand Rapids” in
the Davidson archive results in 540 pages citing the
temple, with the first mention in 1917. In particular,
I found a very good article in the Oct. 4, 1968, issue
of the JN titled: “The History of Grand Rapids Jewry
and its Founders.”
The archive demonstrates that the JN and the
Jewish Chronicle has and has had reporting on
Jewish life throughout the state of Michigan, from
Marquette and Mackinac Island, to Traverse City,
Grand Rapids and Detroit.
So, mazel tov to Peg! Good luck to her as she con-
tinues to develop the archives named after her and
her husband. And may Temple Emanuel thrive for
another 150 years. ■
Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation archives,
available for free at www.djnfoundation.org.
Looking Back