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TREASURE CHEST
IN OHIO
By Alfred Werner
il>r. Werner i.s a noted eritie and
art historian.)
Cincinnati. Ohio's second largest
community, is. like Home, built on
seven lulls. Today's tourist will
am ee with Charles Dickens’ des
cription of it as a "beautiful" city,
"cheerful, thriving and animated."
Lying in an Mediterranean charm
and loveliness. There are many
sights to delight, many places to
welcome the stranger, and one of
the most interesting is, undoubted
ly. the famous Hebrew Union Col
lege which recently celebrated its
Hiiih birthday.
It is no coincidence that the
"Queen City" was chosen by the
revered Dr. Isaac M. Wise to har
bor the first rabbinical seminary
lor Reform Judaism. Jews have
been living in the city since 1817.
and they have both received much
from, and given much to. Cincin
nati. Three Jews, Julius Flcisch-
mann. Frederick S. Spiegel and
Murray Seasongood liave served
a mayors of Cincinnati: a Jew has
been vice-mavor; several Jews have
served as city councilors, judges,
and in other public services. Jews
have been prominent in fostering
several major industries, but they
have not lagged in cultural activ
ities either: a number of Jews
were instiumental in organizing
the city's famous concerts and sum
mer opera.
Visitors must not miss seeing
Cincinnati's Jewish Museum, small
m size, but endowed with many
precious things, and fittingly lo
cated in one of the Hebrew Union
College buildings. Its short history
goes back to the year 1925 when, at
the suggestion of the late Dr.
Adolph S. Oko, head of the College
Library, several wealthy friends of
the College acquired for it the
famous art collection of Berlin’s
Sally Kirchstein (1869-1934), that
rare combination of businessman
and scholar whose pastime was
u thei mg objects of Jewish art. He
had acquired the collection of Hein-
ricr, Frauberger, a German Gentile
who. astonishingly, was the foundei
of a "Society for the Investigation
of Jewish Art Treasures", and,
until his death in 1820, devoted all
his energies to making it success
ful. Through his own purchases,
Kirschstein enlarged the stock of
the former Frauberger Collection.
rich on ritual objects for holiday
use.
It was fortunate that these treas
ures were, almost in tin* nick of
tune, brought to safety in this good
country, for they might have been
confiscated and destroyed by the
Nazis a few years later, as were
dozens of similar collections. But
there were, as yet, no quarters
at the Hebrew Union College ade
quately to display these pieces in
rooms accessible to tin* public.
From year to year the Collection
grew, through purchases or private
gifts, but since it was hidden
in cellars and vaults, it was like
gold slumbering in the veins of a
mountain and waiting for the day
the miner's tools would bring it
up to the bright daylight.
For the Hebrew Union C lUeyt
collection, this blessed day of lib
eration came in 1948. The year be
fore. a Jewish Museum on New
Volk’s Fifth Avenue had opened
its gate to the public — after the
heads of the Jewish Theological
Seminal \ had decided that it was
absurd to store thousands ol items
without giving the public a chance
to see and enjoy them. Prompted
by the same commericul spirit, the
trustees of the Hebrew Union Col
lege had the one-story building
of the Bernheim Library redecor
ated and assigned half of the spaci
to the museum-in-thc-making
while the other hall would be oc
cupied by the American Jewish
Ai chives.
But even the richest, the most
thrilling collection of pieces is of
little use. if there i.s no individual
to take proper care of them, to
separate the wheat from the chaff,
to provide the proper setting, and
to present the selected treasures
in a systematic manner. The mis
fortunes that befell the Jews of
Germany did provide the Museum
with just the kind of scholar and
organizer it needed. He is Dr. Franz
Landsberger, a grev-haired, kindly
Silesian who, with his wife, has
been taking loving care of the
museum. Landsberger, who cele
brated his seventieth birthday two
years ago, has been a tive as a
historian of art for several decades.
His first book, a biography of the
18th century German painter, Tis-
chbein (famous as the portraitist
of Goethe) was published in 1908.
It was followed by several equally
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