This Jewish American couple collected 13,000 Jewish artifacts

Some of us may keep a few items of this nature. What about a couple who found and initially archived themselves 13,000 different pieces? I saw some of them in 2003 in a bomb shelter built to protect the paintings, old luach-calendars, even one from the Revolutionary War, all Haggadot published in the USA up to 1890. Clearly, they did purchase significant pieces for their collection. Most items, though, were found in piles of old papers, which they searched, and in many other locales for possible “old stuff” not saved but not thrown away.

Their names are Deanne and Arnold Kaplan, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They lived in Allentown for many years, and have retired to Florida.

The first exhibition of the Arnold & Deanne Collection of Early American Judaica was held at University of Pennsylvania in February-June 2014. This husband and wife team, it has been said, have performed a service which can never be accomplished again in terms of locating original American multidimensional items for the period 1550 to 1890.

Knowing nothing about these intrepid individuals, I received a call, in January 2003, from Arnold Kaplan from Allentown when I was living 90 km north in Scranton. He was very pleasant on the phone; he had read a recent article of mine on a Jewish soldier at Valley Forge in the Revolutionary War.

I was invited to come visit and see some material related to American Jewish history which he wanted to show me. Six months later, I was at the Kaplans’ doorstep. I rang the bell; they welcomed me to their home. I was asked to sit on the sofa in the living room.

“I bought this in a paper show in Philadelphia a few weeks ago,” Arnold said nonchalantly, bringing out a large volume. “This is a receipt book from Philadelphia from the 1780s used for his finance business by Mr. Robert Morris who was the treasurer of American Continental Congress starting in 1776. He provided the funds so General George Washington’s army of Minutemen and American Patriots could defeat the British. When the British left, the United States of America was truly born.”

I had never been this close to American historical figures before. Arnold began to flip the pages, moving toward the back of the book. He stopped at a certain page.

“David, do you recognize any names?” I look closely and I say aloud “Haym Salomon, Haym Salomon” and the name is on the page at least 15 times. Then Nones and Gratzes and many other famous Jews in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War period.

I was amazed; I realized that I was sitting in the home of fascinating collectors. They whetted my appetite some more with nineteenth century oil paintings of Jews that had never been on display. They included Pennsylvania Dutch pieces signed by the artist in Yiddish, who was a peddler in the state, and billheads of Jewish-owned businesses by the hundreds from the 1780s continuing for most of the nineteenth century.

“Here are some of the original letters of Isaac Leeser, assumed to be the leading Jewish figure in 19th century American Jewry,” Arnold said. In their collection are 400 Leeser letters.

Dee took me upstairs and showed me her specialty. Complementing what Arnold was uncovering, she focused on the Victorian trading cards of American Jewish businessmen. Traveling to the most unlikely places, she brought together 4,000 of these cards from every state of the union.

“David,” Arnold said, “a collection like this can never be replicated.”

What really captured me, though, was that Arnold had every item listed in a database. Subsequently, in 2009, he “migrated” the entire collection to the “Colenda” computer program.

In November 2012, Deanne and Arnold Kaplan donated to the University of Pennsylvania Library some 11,000 original items of American Judaica: 1520 to 1890: silver services and presentation cups; a multitude of printed matter; original oil paintings of Jews and by Jews never seen before; ephemera related to Jews of all types. Added to this are the 4,000 trading cards including those of Levi Strauss. This is “a unique window into the business world of American Jewish merchants 1870-1890.”

Since then, they have added another 2,000 original pieces and the search goes on.  “We looked for a home for our collection for many years,” the Kaplans emphasized at the gift presentation hosted by the president of the University of Pennsylvania. “This university was selected, conceived by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, because it is one of the finest institutions of higher education in the world.”

THE KAPLANS are still collecting. Why do you want to discover more? I asked Arnold by e-mail in March, 2021.

“I continue to collect,” he answered, “for the primary reason that I wish to see the collection strengthened while I can still help. Needless to say, I enjoy it. There are two categories of items in the Collection. It chronologically spans Jewish life in the Americas from the 1500s and stops by 1890(the period of mass migration). Content wise, it covers all aspects of the American Jew: religious, family, commercial and public.”

Arnold works closely with Dr. Arthur Kiron, who oversees the collection at the University of Pennsylvania. He sent me a description of two items he has just located: “Manuscript Ledger – 404 pages of business activity during the American Revolutionary War. Its entries range from prize ships, ship partnerships, arming privateers, to discounting a note from Benjamin Franklin as minister to France.”

“The list of merchants reads like a who’s who of the colonial Philadelphia mercantile class, including Hyam Salomon and numerous other Jewish merchants. He also has just found Rebecca Gratz’s own ‘Jewish Lunar Calendar 5566 to 5619’ published in Newport Rhode Island.” On the title page of the volume is her unmistakable signature.”

The Kaplans added, “We feel that the expertise of Dr. Arthur Kiron, the head of Judaica Library and the archival collections, will ensure the vibrancy of the work of our hands in the years ahead.”

Prof. Jonathan Sarna, preeminent historian of American Jewry, wrote that “this is a classic collection which may never be rivaled. The Kaplans focused, in particular, on the mercantile history of American Jewry so that our approach to this subject will have to change considerably. They are the greatest collectors of this age.”

A key aspect of this material, Kiron suggested, “is that a sharper picture emerges bringing into focus what the ordinary lives and labor of many different classes of American Jews were like: the variety of ways in which they earned a living, the families they built, the children they raised, the education they gave them, how they cared for the sick, how they worshipped and how they responded to the controversial issues of the day.”

Kiron pointed out that this is only one aspect of the Kaplan collection.

What has happened in the period from 2012 on, is that, in addition to the collection growing, a major part of it is online so anyone in the world can enter and see whatever interests them. The scholars have a major tool to assist them in their research.

Look closely at another phenomenon, emblematic of the mercantile Jew moving west, as detailed in the words of Arnold Kaplan. “We were able to locate a ledger from the store of Block & Levy, San Rafael, Marin County California Territory. It is signed by Emanuel Block III and Samuel Levy in the frontispiece in old ink. Throughout it is signed by D. Block, Maurice L. Levy and Philip Rothschild. Beginning November 20, 1859, it continues for almost 200 pages.”

Now its uniqueness: “This is the earliest known Jewish storekeeper ledger in the California Gold Fields.” What an exciting find!

When asked if they had any favorites, the Kaplans answered in this way: “There are two silver Kiddush cups given in the early 19th century – one a silver cup as a gift on the dedication of the Mikveh Israel synagogue, with the initials ‘R.G.’ – Rebecca Gratz. Second, a silver cup presented to Benjamin Nones, a noted Revolutionary War military hero who lived in Philadelphia. The cup is inscribed: ‘Humbly presented to the right honourable Benjamin Nones for his dedicated service to the Jewish community of Philadelphia.’”

The most historically important paintings in the collection are a pair of portraits of Manuel Josephson (1729-1796) and Rachel Josephson (1732-1797) attributed to the American painter, Lawrence Kilburn. These may be their wedding portraits in 1759. Josephson is quite well known as a civic and religious leader. When Haym Salomon died in 1785, unexpectedly, leaving his family penniless, Josephson took care of them. On December 13, 1790, Josephson penned a letter of congratulations to George Washington for the congregations in Philadelphia, New York, Charleston and Richmond. Washington responded by thanking Josephson in these words: “The liberality of sentiment towards each other which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this country stands unparalleled in the history of nations.”

In the mercantile sector is the set of the five Levi Strauss clothing business cards showing the different types of pants worn by miners during the California gold rush. Frequently Montgolfier balloons would be sent up with the trading cards of a Jewish merchant, Myer Myers, for example, from Wilmington, Delaware. Whoever found the balloon and cards would get free clothing. Descriptions of these hunts abound in the newspapers of the day.

In Jerusalem, the name of Judah Touro is well known. In his will in 1855, he left $60,000 to build a new hospital in Jerusalem. He indicated that this should be done under the jurisdiction of Sir Moses Montefiore. When the initial construction could not be accomplished, Montefiore used the funds to build Mishkenot Sha’ananim, the first Jewish residence outside of the Old City.

To help Jews know when the months began and the holidays fell, a luach had to be written because no printed one existed in the USA. The Kaplans learned of the availability of a handwritten version started in Philadelphia in 1776 and completed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1778.

Abraham Eliezer Cohen of the Mikveh Israel’s teaching staff prepared it for the Pollack family, but since every one of the Jewish patriot families had to flee when the British captured Philadelphia, that luah was completed in Lancaster. The “Patriots Luah,” as the Kaplans have named it.

Prof. Sarna wrote that the “luah calendar enabled Jews to keep track of monthly worship even amidst the dislocations of the Revolutionary War, when Jews had to flee from place to place. The luah helps preserve the regular cycles of distinctive Jewish ritual practices.”

Their love for Israel is quite intense and they have given without fanfare to institutions in the Jewish homeland with whom they identify. In the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, they chaired the 350th birthday exhibit of American Jewish roots at the Lehigh Valley Heritage Center in the spring of 2005.

The Kaplans have done a great service to American Jewry, in particular, and world Jewry, in general, by providing actual evidence of what Jewish life was like in the New World.

Previously, the study of the American Jewish community focused on the major immigration of European Jewry commencing in 1881. Now with these pieces of the puzzle of the American Jewish experience exposed, a much larger picture of the historical experience of American Jewry can be assembled.

The Kaplans should have the pleasure of seeing the digitizing of the entire 13,000 pieces so that scholars the world over can research the contents no matter where in the world they might live. That is the fulfillment of enlightening the earth’s inhabitants so that they can better understand the American Jewish civilization.