THE TANNERSVILLE PHOTO - JULY 1906 | ||
Abba Hillel Silver, 13 years old, makes his first Zionist address |
The meeting at
Tannersville, NY
The Federation of American Zionists (which in 1917 became the Zionist Organization of America) met July 1-4, 1906 in a resort in the Catskill Mountains, about 120 miles north of New York City.
The convention was held in the Fairmount
Hotel in
Tannersville NY. |
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This rare picture is a
Who's Who of early American Zionists. Rabbi Stephen S Wise,
a founder of the Federation of American Zionists, is the first man on the right in the
first row. The women behind him in the second row include Masliansky's
wife Yetta and their three daughters.. |
Front center
of the photo, enlarged
Seated in the second row
at the left, is white bearded Rabbi Solomon
Schechter PhD,
then the president of the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, who would later found
the Conservative movement.
In the front row, third from the right, his feet
between the "M" and "O" of FAIRMOUNT,
wearing knickers, hands clasped on his
right knee and not looking directly at
the camera is 13 year old Abraham Silver. "Abe" addressed the convention as leader of the Herzl Zion Club, the first
Zionist youth organization. When he entered Hebrew Union
College five years later, "Abe" Silver became Abba Hillel
Silver. |
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The
Tannersville photo - found at last!
Marc Lee Raphael's biography of Abba Hillel Silver mentions a photo of 13-year-old Silver, wearing knickers, at a Zionist convention in Tannersville NY. I read that years ago and have been looking for the "Tannersville photo" ever since. Some pages on this website are devoted to Rev. Zvi Hirsh Masliansky, the great American maggid (preacher) of his day and young "Abe" Silver's oratorical inspiration. In July 2010 I was working with some Masliansky descendants to add another page about him. One of them, grandson Marshall Weinberg, sent me an email saying he would mail me the program for Masliansky's memorial assembly, plus an old newspaper with articles about Silver.
At the left is shown
what was in the envelope - the February 28, 1936 issue
of The New Palestine.
It told of a meeting of the Bronx Zionist District to celebrate Abba Hillel
Silver's 30 years in Zionism: 1906-1936. What leaped out in
the picture's title was TANNERSVILLE. The
brown, brittle paper
fell apart as it was opened, but the Tannersville
picture could be scanned and
shared on this page. Thank you Marshall.
At his request I gave the paper to the Abba
Hillel Silver Archives at the WRHS. |