Print / View Finding Aid as Single Page
Guide to the Isaiah M. Minkoff Papers
WAG.086
Descriptive Summary
| Creator:
|
Minkoff, Isaiah M. |
| Title: |
Isaiah Minkoff Papers |
| Dates [inclusive]: |
1914-1984 , (Bulk 1960-1984). |
| Dates [bulk]: |
Bulk, 1960-1984 |
| Abstract:
|
Isaiah Minkoff was born in Warsaw in 1901 and was raised and educated in Moscow. As
a teenager he became involved in World War I relief work and also became active in
a number of Jewish and socialist organizations. He fled the Soviet Union in 1922 and
arrived in California but soon resettled in New York. In New York, he soon became
active in Jewish communal affairs and became reacquainted with a large circle of Russian
Social-Democratic (Menshevik) exiles who had fled from the Soviet Union after the
consolidation of Bolshevik power. He served as Executive Secretary of the Jewish Labor
Committee. In 1941 he left the Jewish Labor Committee to become Executive Director
of the General Jewish Council, a confederation of Jewish defense organizations. In
1944 he became the Executive Director of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory
Council (NJCRAC -- later NCRAC). He was to hold this position from 1944 until his
retirement in 1975, building NCRAC into a major agency comprised of eleven national
and 111 local groups. In addition to his responsibilities in organizational work,
Minkoff continued contact with people around the world, many of whom he had assisted
in the Holocaust and postwar years, and Russian-speaking socialists who had been the
inspiration of his youth. In his later years, he traveled widely in Europe and Israel,
and served as a delegate to several international meetings concerned with Jewish communal
affairs and the issue of reparations to Holocaust survivors. Minkoff died in New York
City in 1983.
|
| Quantity: |
12.0 linear feet (12 boxes) |
| Call Phrase: |
WAG.086 |
