The Jewish Sports Society Maccabi, Valga

Collection description

Scope and content:: The collection comprises a small number of minutes that record meetings from various Jewish organisations at the town of Valga in 1917, 1920 and 1921. They include minutes from the two meetings of the local Jewish Secondary Students Circle (1917), covering such issues as the organisation of a sports section, the functioning of the circle's library and the dissemination of literature received from Moscow; minutes from the two meetings of the Maccabi Jewish sports society in 1920, listing the names of the members of the governing board and including decisions on organisational and disciplinary issues such as the organisation of a gymnastics section and the collection of membership fees; minutes from the meetings of the Relief Committee for the Orphans and Widows of Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Bessarabia (1921), including the names of the meetings' participants and data on fundraising in Valga.

Archival history:: Together with other Jewish-related materials, the current collection was transferred to the Central Archive of the Estonian SSR in Tallinn (known from 1948 until the end of Soviet rule as the Central State Archive of the October Revolution and Social Development of the Estonian SSR, abbreviated to ORKA or TsGAOR ESSR), predecessor of the current Estonian State Archive.

Administrative/biographical history:: The Jewish sports society Maccabi in Valga was organised in 1920 and was among the first representatives of the Maccabi movement in Estonia. However, unlike similar organisations in other cities of Estonia, the society in Valga functioned only for a short time. No background data on the Secondary Students' Circle or the Relief Committee are available.

Subject terms:: Aid and relief; Education; Education--Student organisations; Russian Civil War; Sports; Sports--Sports clubs; Zionism

System of arrangement:: The collection consists of one inventory, which is arranged according to thematic order.

Access, restrictions:: The collection is open for reference at the ERA in Tallinn (in certain cases, online access might be available).

Finding aids:: Basic information and inventories in Estonian and Russian are available at the National Archives of Estonia (online access is available). An inventory in Russian is available at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People.

Links to finding aids:: https://ais.ra.ee/index.php?tyyp=2&otsing_id=20150916111916709791&sess_id=5e212ccd3bab52cd08d6001f07691d63&op=1&module=202&pealkiri=&naita_ridu=10&sort=&active=1&viitekood=eaa.402&leidandmed=&tasand=0&kokku=1&id=

Yerusha Network member:: Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People

Author of the description:: Alex Valdman, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2014