Metadata: Tallinn Jewish Cultural Centre
Collection
- Country:
- Estonia
- Holding institution:
- Tallinn City Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Tallinna Linnaarhiiv
- Postal address:
- Tolli 6, 10133 Tallinn
- Phone number:
- +372 6457 401
- Web address:
- https://ais.ra.ee
- Email:
- linnaarhiiv@tallinnlv.ee
- Reference number:
- TLA.R-389
- Title:
- Tallinn Jewish Cultural Centre
- Title (official language):
- Tallinna Juudi Rahvamaja
- Creator/accumulator:
- Tallinn Jewish Cultural Centre
- Date(s):
- 1940/1941
- Language:
- Estonian
- Yiddish
- German
- Russian
- Extent:
- 6 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains financial documents and correspondence from the Tallinn Jewish Cultural Centre (Tallinna Juudi Rahvamaja) from 1940-1941 about cultural and political events:
1. Materials on cultural activities organised by the cultural centre including clubs (õpiringid) – choir, theatre club and youth club (TLA.R-389.1.1 P. 21), lectures on art history by Julius Genss; political courses about Stalinist constitution by B Levin and about CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) by J Goldmann. The centre also held many memorial evenings for Jewish authors including Scholem Aleichem, Peretz Markish and Isaac Leib Peretz. For example, one document describes activities in a youth club activity and gives an overview of their themes – the importance of books; Jewish theatre in Soviet Union; main features of Darwinism; nation and religion; Jewish life in the Soviet Union; friendship, women in the Soviet Union and in capitalistic countries; etc. (TLA.R-389.1.1 P. 47). There are also references showing that Yiddish was the language of choice. The cultural centre organised many political events. A document from March 1941 (TLA.R-389.1.1 P. 22) shows that they commemorated the anniversary of Lenin’s death, Women’s Day, and discussed the importance of the Red Army. Documents from these events describe what was planned and how many people participated.
2. Folder TLA.R-389.2.2 contains incoming correspondence from December 1940 to June 1941. These documents are typewritten and mostly in Estonian, although there are also some documents in Yiddish, containing instructions on how to organise communist events in the Tallinn Jewish Cultural Centre given by the Tallinn Education Commissariat (Hariduskomissariaat) and the Education Department (Haridusosakond) and requests for renting or using rooms by various organisations. Other documents describe the cultural centre's inventory, staff wages, exhibition and excursion notices and various demands from the Tallinn Education Commissariat and the Education Department.
Folder TLA.R-389.2.1 contains outgoing correspondence from January 1941 to July 1941. These documents are mostly typewritten in Estonian, describing communist events that took place in the Tallinn Jewish Cultural Centre. The outgoing correspondence has in many cases similar documents, for example in folder TLA.R-389.1.1. Letters are mainly addressed to the Tallinn Education Commissariat, the Education Department and to the Headquarters of the Militia (Miilitsa Peavalitsus). Other documents include warrants, responses for room rental, events action plans, budget papers and announcements.
3. The cultural centre staff list book (TLA.R-389.2.3) runs from January 1941 to 26 June 1941. It contains staff names, birth date, identification card issuer, marital status, place of residence and date of commencement of employment. The payroll book (TLA.R-389.2.5) covers the period from February 1941 to July 1941 and consists of a list of staff and their wages. The general payroll book (TLA.R-389.2.4) from 1 January 1941 to 31 May 1941 details every staff members' income.
- Archival history:
- The collection belongs to the Tallinn City Archives. Initially the City Archives consisted only of the City Council Archives. From the 1920s, they started to accept documents from the Tallinn Municipal Government and its subsidiaries, city enterprises and the former guilds of Tallinn. In the period 1940–1998, the archive's name and status were changed repeatedly. From November 1994 until 1998 the Tallinn City Archives were subordinated to the City Office as a municipal institution. In accordance with the Archives Act passed in 1998, the City Archives were reorganised into a city administrative agency in 1999. The collection's inventory was included in the Estonian Archival Information System (AIS) in 2005.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Tallinn Jewish Cultural Centre was established on 1 December 1940 (TLA.R-389 P. 22), during the period of Soviet occupation (17 June 1940 to July 1941). It was located at Väike-Karja 1-3, in Tallinn's Old Town. The cultural centre evolved from the Jewish Cultural Association “Licht” (which was abolished during Soviet occupation). The cultural centre's aim was to promote communist politics and education. The centre incorporated the inventories of the Bjalik Society and the Jewish Social Club library (TLA.R-389.1.1 P. 10). The cultural centre was abolished during the German occupation (September 1941 - October 1944).
On 1 April 1941 the cultural centre chose its interim board members. Moshes Sachs became the interim chairman of the board (TLA.R-389.1.1 P.28).
The Tallinn Jewish Cultural Centre's statute and the document informing the centre of its closure (TLA.R-1.12-I.45) are available in the City Archives.
- Access points: locations:
- Tallinn
- Access points: persons/families:
- Epstein, Lev
- Kuritzki, Leib
- Perlman, Simon
- Sachs, Moses
- Vseviov, Lasar
- System of arrangement:
- The collection is arranged thematically.
- Finding aids:
-
The inventory is accessible online on the Archival Information System (AIS).
The collection is referenced as “Tartu Jewish Welfare Agency” (see: Weiss-Wendt, Anton. On the Margins: About the History of Jews in Estonia. CEU Press, 2017. P. 279)
- Links to finding aids:
- https://www.tallinn.ee/arhiivindus
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Sulev Andresson; 2019