For over a decade, Dr. Ronald and Miriam Rubin have been generous partners and benefactors of the Yeshiva University Libraries contributing over 100 rare items to the library catalog. Recently the Rubin's added to this legacy by donating 350 newspaper clippings published in North America between 1734 and 1869, each of which communicates an important insight into the story of Jewish life on this continent.
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Dr. Rubin generously donated the rare collection, which he amassed while conducting research on American Jewish life. He is a noted collector of antiquarian Americana and was a professor of political science at the City University of New York's Borough of Manhattan Community College for over fifty years. In 2019, Dr. Rubin authored Strangers & Natives: A Newspaper Narrative of Early Jewish America 1734 –1869 and based his research in the book on the artifacts given to YU.
Perhaps the most treasured and historically significant item in the gifted collection is an issue dated September 15th, 1790, detailing correspondences between George Washington and the Newport Hebrew Congregation.
These letters not only highlight President Washington's unique relationship with the Jewish community but also provides a lens into the founding father's commitment to ensuring a religiously tolerant society.
Washington wrote in his letter that "The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy… For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."
Shulamith Berger, curator of special collections at the Mendel Gottesman Library, remarked at the collection's reception ceremony that "one of the highlights of these primary sources is the immediacy of the information for both researchers and students. Observers will read these documents in the way a contemporary would have read it, and it places the Jewish material directly in the context of American life and the happenings of general society."
Berger concluded, "Professor Rubin is always bringing gifts when he visits, and he's been a partner in building up the libraries, and the library is most grateful to Dr. Rubin for this unique contribution to the University's collections."
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