Educational Resources Annette Levy Ratkin Jewish Community Archives
Gordon Jewish Community Center Library
801 Percy Warner Blvd. Nashville, TN 37205 (615) 354-1655 Fax: (615) 352-0056
801 Percy Warner Blvd. Nashville, TN 37205 (615) 356-7170, ext. 1679 Fax: (615) 353-2659
www.jewishnashville.org/resources/annettelevy-ratkin-archives Lynn Fleischer, archive associate archives@jewishnashville.org
The Gordon JCC Library has a spacious look and is used for reading and meeting. Arrangements to use the room for a meeting are made through Marilyn Rubin, (615) 354-1679, in the JCC office. If you use the room for reading purposes, you can find childrens/juvenile books, fiction, biographies, history or cookbooks, along with books about Jewish practice and holidays, the Holocaust, Israel, and many other topics related to Jewish life and religion. The library has special collections of large-print books and yizkor books compiled by survivors of East European shtetls. The collections can be located by using the patron computer station in the library. Materials may be borrowed for two weeks and renewed by phone. A video or DVD checkout must be arranged in advance by contacting the staff. The library is usually open whenever the JCC main building is open.
Since 1979, the Annette Levy Ratkin Archives has collected the records of the families, businesses and institutions of the Jewish communities of Middle Tennessee, many having origins in the mid-19th century. Housed in the Gordon Jewish Community Center, the archives includes the records of such local organizations as the Nashville section of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), Hadassah, Woodmont Country Club, B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Community Council (which later became the Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee), the congregations, Jewish Family Service, and more. The archives also houses microfilm, hard and digital copies of The Jewish Observer of Nashville, which began publication in 1935, and its predecessor, The YMHA News, first published in 1915. An oral history audiotape collection, sponsored by NCJW, documents the memories of older adults who grew up in Nashville. It also has a collection of reminiscences by NCJW past presidents. A DVD oral history collection, contains the experiences of Holocaust refugees, survivors and liberators. Tombstones dated before 1900 in the Jewish cemeteries of Nashville have been photographed, preserving their inscriptions. All documents and photographs are stored in acid-free folders and boxes, and are available to researchers from the Jewish and secular community under supervision of the archives staff. “A Caring Community, the History of the Jews of Nashville,” is a DVD presentation produced by the archives, tracing the development of the Nashville Jewish community from 1851 to date. It can be purchased from the archives in DVD format for $10 plus postage. The archives recently acquired the exhibit “Bagels & Barbeque, the Jewish Experience in Tennessee,” an exhibit prepared with the Tennessee State Museum and other Tennessee Jewish Federations for the 2007 General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities (now the Jewish Federations of North America). The mission of the archives is to preserve the records of the Jews of Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Please consider donating your family’s papers as a legacy.
Jewish Genealogical Society of Nashville Roy Hiller, president nashvillejgs@gmail.com Established in late 2018, the group meets at the Gordon JCC and is open to anyone interested in learning more about Jewish genealogy and tracing family histories. The group is a chapter of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies.
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