Newfield, Morris
Papers, 1867-1954
Biography/Background:
Morris Newfield was born in Homanna, Hungary in 1868. In 1894 Newfield
immigrated to the United
States and attended Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. A year later he
was ordained a rabbi and
accepted duties at Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1901 he married
Leah Ullman, daughter of
Birmingham educational leader Samuel Ullman. Newfield served as rabbi at Temple
Emanu-El until his death in
1940.
Newfield
was a leader of social and religious reform in Birmingham. He founded an
interfaith council to
improve relations between Christians and Jews, supervised the Jewish Welfare
Board, founded the Alabama
Conference of Human Relations and the Birmingham chapter of the National
Conference of Christians and Jews.
Newfield served as a professor of Hebrew at Birmingham's Howard College (now
Samford University) and as
president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
Source:
Cowett, Mark, Birmingham's Rabbi: Morris Newfield and Alabama, 1895-
1940. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1986.
Elovitz, Mark
H., A Century of Jewish Life in Dixie: The Birmingham
Experience. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1974.
Scope and Content:
Letters relating to Morris Newfield's career as rabbi of Temple Emanu-El
(1895-1940) constitute the
bulk of these papers. Correspondence between Newfield and other religious
leaders in the South relate to social
issues. Also included are some of Newfield's sermons, sermon notes, financial
documents, and military records.
Newspaper clippings relating to Newfield and the Birmingham Jewish community
date from 1914 to 1940. The
collection also includes a small amount of correspondence from Samuel Ullman.
Additional
Morris Newfield papers are available at the Alabama Department of Archives and
History
(Montgomery, Alabama) and the American Jewish Archives (Hebrew Union College,
Cincinnati, Ohio).
Guide to Collection:
File level guide available in the Archives Department.
Subject Areas:
Jews -- Alabama -- Birmingham.
Newfield,
Morris, 1868-1940.
Rabbis --
Alabama -- Birmingham.
Temple Emanu-El
(Birmingham, Ala.).
Ullman,
Samuel, 1840-1924.
Collection Number: 1817
Size: 1 1/2 linear feet (2
boxes)
Restrictions:
Standard
preservation and copyright restrictions.
JB/11-15-00
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