Overview
Katrina’s Jewish Voices is an online collection project to collect, preserve, and present the American Jewish community’s experiences of Hurricane Katrina and their recollections of the Jewish communities of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The Jewish Women’s Archive organized the project, in collaboration with the Center for History and New Media, with generous funding from foundations and individual donors.
Katrina’s Jewish Voices welcomes members of the Jewish community—women and men alike—to tell their own stories of how the storm affected them, and to share their memories of these historic Jewish communities. The project is collecting digital artifacts in a variety of forms, including photos, blog postings, podcasts, emails, essays and other first-hand accounts, from American Jews nationwide.
These collections will serve as a vital resource for future historians of the American Jewish experience, as well as for those interested in exploring how individuals and different faith communities responded to this vast humanitarian crisis.
Sharing our stories is also a way to create powerful connections in the present. We hope that those who contribute to this online collection and those who immerse themselves in the stories and images they find here come away moved and inspired by these varied Jewish voices of Katrina.
Questions? Feel free to contact us or to call at 617-232-2258.
Member of the media? Download press releases from our Pressroom, or contact Ruth Pearlstein, JWA Program Manager, using our contact form or call at 617-232-2258.
About the Katrina’s Jewish Voices Oral History Project
In a complementary part of the Katrina’s Jewish Voices project, JWA is partnering with the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL) to conduct 100 in-depth oral histories with members of the Jewish communities of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and the Gulf Coast. This will enable a wide cross-section of these communities to serve as “historic witnesses” to a watershed event in its (and our) communal history. These interviews will be permanently housed at ISJL and made available on the Katrina’s Jewish Voices website. For more information about the Katrina’s Jewish Voices oral history project, please visit the Jewish Women’s Archive Pressroom.
The public is invited to suggest names of family, friends, and colleagues using the Narrator Nomination Form.
The project seeks to identify potential narrators—both women and men—from different sectors of the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Gulf Coast Jewish communities to share their stories. To achieve a diverse and representative group, project staff will pay attention to criteria such as gender, age, affiliations, occupation, role within the community, people’s experiences during and after the hurricane, as well as their decisions about whether or not to return.
About the Jewish Women’s Archive
The mission of the Jewish Women’s Archive (JWA) is to uncover, chronicle, and transmit the rich history of American Jewish women.
Since its founding in 1995, the Jewish Women’s Archive has been developing innovative formats and collaborative partnerships to transmit the rich history of American Jewish women and their accomplishments to a broad public. JWA seeks to make known the contributions of outstanding Jewish women of achievement as well as the profound, but often unacknowledged, impact Jewish women have had within their local communities. One of the first organizations in the Jewish community to recognize and invest in the potential of the Internet for academic, cultural, archival, and educational purposes, JWA continues to innovate in its use of technology to convey and provide access to Jewish women’s stories on its website.
A national, non-profit membership organization headquartered in Brookline, Massachusetts, JWA is entering its second decade of changing the way history is researched, recorded, and taught.
Contact JWA at:
Jewish Women’s Archive 138 Harvard Street Brookline, MA 02446 617.232.2258 www.jwa.orgJWA Project Staff
Collaborating Institutions
The Jewish Women’s Archive would like to thank the following collaborating institutions for participating in Katrina’s Jewish Voices and for encouraging their communities to add their voices to the online collection.
- Congregation Gates of Prayer, Metairie, Louisiana
- Jewish Endowment Foundation, New Orleans
- Jewish Federation of Greater Baton Rouge
- Jewish Federation of Greater Houston
- Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans
- New Orleans Hillel
- New Orleans Jewish Community Center
- Northshore Jewish Congregation, Mandeville, Louisiana
- Touro Synagogue, New Orleans
- United Jewish Communities
Supporters
Katrina’s Jewish Voices is funded by generous individuals and foundations. Please add your financial support.
JWA would like to thank the following major donors:
- The 350 Fund: The American Jewish Historical Society, Celebrate 350: Jewish Life in America, and the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in celebration of 350 years of Jewish life in America.
- Jan Aronson
- Asher Calechman Family
- Jewish Endowment Foundation, New Orleans
- Jewish Federation of Greater Baton Rouge
- Southern Jewish Historical Society
- The Louisiana ladies at SPANX®
- The Wise Women
If you have any questions about making a contribution of financial support, please contact us.
Photo Credit: The photograph of a menorah from Beth Israel Congregation in the Katrina's Jewish Voices header is courtesy of Frederick D. Weil.