Anne M. Baker,
Head of Special Collections and Archives, Missouri State University

Mara W. Cohen Ioannides,
President of Midwest Jewish Studies Association

Abstract

“Filling the Lacuna” explores efforts to discover and preserve the Jewish history of the Missouri Ozarks. As late as the 1990s little was known about the Jewish story in the region. A research project exploring the role of women in the Jewish community brought home the need to preserve the archival record of the community. With support of Jewish leaders, Missouri State University founded the Ozarks Jewish Archives in 2004. Today the Archives holds records of the local synagogue, family papers, oral histories, photographs, and ephemera, adding to the story of a group not often associated with the Ozarks.

Joining Efforts to Save a Jewish Community’s History

In his 2005 book, Jewish Life in Small Town America, Lee Shai Weissbach emphasized the importance of small Jewish communities to the development of American Judaism. Springfield, Missouri’s Jewish community is among those he discusses. To understand a community, the records must be discovered, either through archives devoted to Jewish history, private collections, or diving deep into other sources to find mentions of a location’s Jewish history and culture.

American Jews have a long history of appreciating the importance of preserving their history. In 1947, the American Jewish Archives (Cincinnati, Ohio) was founded “to collect, preserve, and make available for research materials on the history of Jews and Jewish communities of the Western Hemisphere.” The Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest (Minneapolis, Minnesota), begun in 1984 as the Minnesota Jewish Historical Society, was “organized [as a] repository for Jewish historical materials of all types.” However, the Cleveland Jewish Archives (Cleveland, Ohio), established in 1976 with the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, is maintained by the Western Reserve Historical Society whose mission is “to inspire people to discover the American experience by exploring the tangible history of Northeast Ohio.” Thus, it is not only Jewish organizations that recognize the importance of preserving Jewish history and culture.

The combined effort then of Missouri State University (Springfield, Missouri) and the Springfield Jewish community to establish the Ozarks Jewish Archives (OJA) in 2004 is not unprecedented and is very much part of this movement to explore and preserve the history of local Jewish communities. The creation of the Ozarks Jewish Archives, including its relationship with local communities and researchers, is the focus of this paper.

History of Jews in the Ozarks

Geographically, the Ozarks incorporates much of southern Missouri, as well as parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Since the majority of Jews have not been farmers, the draw of land in the Ozarks did not entice them into the Louisiana Territory. They came to the region, as with most regions, as merchants. The first Jews to arrive were German Jews, either by birth or descent, and were part of the mass migration out of the German states during the civil unrest in the mid-1800s. In fact, the first Jew in what would become Missouri, as well as the first in the Ozarks, was Ezekiel Block who settled in the town of New Madrid. Block, who is believed to have settled there in 1796, is recorded in the 1803 census as a “German Jew.” The Block family became one of the most prominent families, Jewish or not, in the Mississippi River Valley during the 1800s. What was later Missouri became part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and achieved statehood in 1821. The region was populated first via the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and then along the newly created railroads. The Jewish population followed those same routes.

The southwest corner of the state, most identified with the term Ozarks, was the last part of the state to be populated because it was far from any major river and did not get rail until after the Civil War. One of the earliest Jews in this region was Dr. Ludwig Ullman, a physician, who was living in Sarcoxie, Missouri, according to the 1860 United States census and moved to Springfield, a much larger community, by 1864. With the expected arrival of the railroad in 1870, Springfield’s population grew quickly in the late 1860s. Springfield’s tiny Jewish community grew with the addition of Sylvian Levy and his family, whose Star Clothing House was advertised as early as 1868. That same year Victor Sommers and his wife’s family were operating the Trade Palace. The Cohn brothers joined the community by 1870.

Springfield was a hub for the region and once the railway opened, the surrounding towns, even those without rail access, expanded with the expectation that they would be next. Just north of Springfield is Greenfield, a small town where Nathan B. Nathan settled in expectation that the railroad would have a depot there. He convinced his brother-in-law Joseph Rubenstein to join him there. The railroad never arrived and Nathan left, but Joseph stayed and his family became a mainstay for the Jewish community in Springfield for three generations. Joplin, about 75 miles away, saw its first Jew, Joseph Seigleman and his family, open a store in 1870. By 1873 the Cohn brothers had expanded the family business to both Carthage and Joplin, Missouri towns to the west of Springfield.

The Jewish community in Springfield founded a Jewish club and a small religious school in 1888 and in 1893 officially founded their first congregation, a Reform one and the 29th Jewish congregation in the state. By 1904, the congregation boasted 132 members. In 1918, the second congregation in town, an Orthodox one, was founded for their thirty families. In the late 1940s, the Orthodox congregation moved into the Reform’s synagogue. In the mid-1960s, their official merger had begun. While the Jewish community has always been less than 1% of the city’s population it did thrive, reaching an all-time high population in the late twentieth century under their first woman rabbi, Rita Sherwin, with 123 families.

While there were antisemitic activities through the years, they were dismissed or have no documentation outside the oral tradition. University records show that three incidents of swastikas being displayed on campus over the course of 50 years were minimized as college pranks. Some members of the Jewish community recall a cross being burned on the synagogue lawn in the 1950s. The local newspaper did not cover the vandalism, but it may not have been brought to their attention. The Jewish community itself tended to hide themselves and underplay the rare hate crimes against them. It was not until the late 1960s that the Jews of Springfield began to stand against antisemitism. This reticence affected the historic record, but some gaps can be lessened through oral history and continued outreach to organizations and families who have preserved local Jewish history.

Founding the Ozarks Jewish Archives

In the late Milton D. Rafferty’s (professor emeritus, Department of Geology, Geography, and Planning, Missouri State University) groundbreaking work The Ozarks: Land and Life (1982), Rafferty did not include any mention of the Jewish community (though he did in his 2001 second edition). However, Shanna Boyle and Julie March (then director and curator, History Museum on the Square, Springfield, Missouri) did include a mention of the earliest Jews in their 1997 Crossroads at the Spring: A Pictorial History of Springfield, MO. Unfortunately, their content was later found to be inaccurate or incomplete, due to limited archival sources on Springfield’s early Jewish history being available at that time. The 1999 OzarksWatch special edition Documenting the Jews of the Ozarks was a pioneering effort by Dr. Mara W. Cohen Ioannides (then senior instructor, English Department, Missouri State University) to create a written document of Ozarks’ Jewish history.

The Telling Traditions Project (Missouri State University) was created in 2000 to study the role of women in the local synagogue. The project, directed by Dr. Mara W. Cohen Ioannides and Dr. M. Rachel Gholson (both faculty in the English Department at Missouri State University), was designed to record the role of women in Springfield’s Temple Israel. As a year-long study, events at the synagogue were filmed, synagogue and home celebrations were photographed, and many of the women congregants were interviewed. Prior to this, little had been known about the history of Springfield’s Jewish community despite its over one-hundred-year history. After gathering archival material, including photographs, minutes, and oral histories, Dr. Cohen Ioannides realized that there needed to be a place where these materials were stored and could be shared with others. While the American Jewish Archives would accept these items, she wanted to preserve the materials locally, if possible. Housing the collection in the community would make it easily accessible for research on local Jewish history, but also available to those looking at other aspects of Springfield’s history, such as the city’s changing economy and inter-racial and religious development. Finally, it would keep the materials among those who preserved the history for years and encourage the growth of the archives.

The Ozarks Jewish Archives was dedicated in 2004, joining other archives working to preserve regional history. Those include the materials gathered by Carolyn Gray LeMaster for her seminal work A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s-1990s (1994) which were donated to the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock, Arkansas, while researchers will also find material at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. The State Historical Society of Missouri also has a state-wide collecting initiative and has preserved materials related to Jewish history.

Missouri State University’s Ozarkiana Collection’s mission to preserve the history of under-documented groups in the Ozarks, which will be further detailed below, made it the logical location for local and newly discovered records. The former head of special collections, David Richards, and Anne Marie Baker (then archivist) recognized the value of preserving this under-documented community, as well as the opportunity offered by Dr. Cohen Ioannides’s scholarly and community connections. What the OJA contains is a more complete image of Jewish life in the Springfield metro area than was ever available before, with early donations including synagogue materials, photographs, news clippings, and life celebration invitations. The materials joined other regional collections in Special Collections and Archives, a unit of the Missouri State University Libraries. The university is located in Springfield, a city of approximately 168,000 nestled in the Ozarks of southwest Missouri. On April 21, 2004, an open house was held to announce the beginning of the Ozarks Jewish Archives.

Growing the Collections

In the first five years of this collecting initiative Special Collections gathered approximately 2.5 cubic feet of archival material. While initially not a large collection, the materials brought in at that time served as building blocks to the work that would take place over the next several years. The acquisition of family materials, official records of Temple Israel, and research materials gathered by local scholars demonstrated the diversity of the materials that preserve the history of the Jewish community in the region. It also demonstrated to the community Missouri State University’s commitment to preserving and making accessible this history.

After helping create the collection, Dr. Cohen Ioannides continued to do research. As she reached out to former members of the Jewish community and descendants of members of the community, she requested permission to donate materials and information given by them to the OJA. This was always graciously given as the contributors were excited to participate in an effort to preserve the local community’s history.

One of the advantages the OJA has is that Dr. Cohen Ioannides is also a member of the local synagogue, Temple Israel. This not only encouraged the synagogue members to participate in the Telling Traditions Project, but also to add to the collection. There were members who could not understand the larger picture and regularly asked the researchers, “Are you done gathering for your book yet?” However, when Dr. Richard Schur (professor of English, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri) was president of the synagogue he convinced the synagogue Board of Directors to donate all board minutes older than five years to the archive. In 2019, when Dr. Cohen Ioannides was a member of the board, the Board of Directors changed the congregation’s by-laws to include that all board minutes older than five years would automatically be donated to the OJA. This signified the congregation’s acceptance of its importance in local history.

When the OJA was opened members of the local Jewish community began donating materials they had in their homes or offices. The late Dr. Marc Cooper (professor emeritus of history, Missouri State University) had been gifted materials from the defunct Hadassah group. He gladly removed them from his private library to the OJA. He also donated all the original tape recordings of the oral histories he had conducted during the centennial of the congregation.

Dr. Cohen Ioannides began saving newspaper clippings about and by members of the Jewish community, not only in Springfield, but all over the Ozarks. Mrs. Regina Lotven, congregation member, discovered old records from the Sisterhood that she quickly donated to the OJA. Among the donation was a volume that contained the minutes and membership lists from 1924 to 1933. This body of material, though small, helps preserve the history of an active community organization.

The archivists and other supporters of the OJA have reached out to potential donors (individuals and organizations) outside Springfield about preserving their history. Already OJA has a small collection of materials about Joplin, Missouri, and a scattering of items from other communities. While the Jewish communities were generally few and far between, they were connected through business and family, and records may still exist. Particularly for Missouri, the Ozarks Jewish Archives is a logical home for such materials.

Related Archival Collections at Missouri State University

Special Collections and Archives has long considered it part of its mission to preserve the history of under-documented groups in the Ozarks. Founded in 2003, shortly before the OJA, the Ozarks Lesbian and Gay Archives (OLGA) documents the local LGBTQ+ community. As with the Jewish Archives, the LGBTQ+ community works with Special Collections to preserve LGBTQ+ history. Since its beginning, OLGA has grown to approximately 20 cubic feet of material, including over 200 oral histories conducted by volunteers and students. For both the OJA and OLGA, the individuals and groups willing to be bridges into the communities play a key role in making these collections possible. While collection development is never seamless, the trust and interest generated by the liaisons in the community were invaluable in developing support among these groups.

To illustrate that point, in 2024, with the addition of new Temple Israel board members, one new member was particularly critical of materials that were in the collection. The archive director was called into board meetings to explain the collection policies about what is accepted in the Ozarkiana collection (i.e., no tax numbers) and what the release policies are. This one board member never did seem pleased and it appeared to be a mixture of anxiety that any information about the congregation for public consumption was too much information and that no one would care to see the information, but the rest of the board overrode their concerns.

The relationship of seemingly disparate collections was shown when the synagogue permitted an archivist, Tracie Gieselman France, to gather materials from a long unopened file cabinet. There she discovered newsletters and minutes from the AIDS Project of the Ozarks, documenting the Interfaith AIDS Network that was in existence from 1990 to 1997. Rabbi Rita Sherwin, a past rabbi, was very involved with this group. These papers have created a bridge between OLGA and the OJA and expanded our understanding of the interrelationships that Jews have had with other minority communities.

Other collections of interest in Special Collections include the Religious Lives of Ozarks Women (RLOW), an ongoing oral history project coordinated by Lora Hobbs, an instructor in religious studies at Missouri State University, that includes the voices of local Jewish women. RLOW and OJA have helped Special Collections expand materials on non-Christian communities. The Katherine G. Lederer Ozarks African American History Collection contains information on people and institutions within that community, expanding knowledge of another under-documented group.

Since it was founded as Missouri State Normal School #4 in 1905, Missouri State University has played a large role in the development of Springfield and the surrounding communities. The University Archives serves as a source of information for many on-campus and off-campus activities, including religious gatherings and education, which was unsurprisingly focused on Christian beliefs for several decades.

Special Collections also houses the personal library of the late F. Gordon Robertson, a local businessman whose public demeanor belied his interests. While not focused on the Ozarks, his books include many that focus on antisemitism, in addition to volumes on other religions, Communism, AIDS, and the Soviet Union. Some volumes are from major publishing houses, though most were produced through small presses.

Researchers in the area also have the opportunity to access collections belonging to the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO). The area research center for SHSMO is housed in MSU’s Meyer Library. Working with local SHSMO archivists, researchers can request collections from the main facility in Columbia, Missouri, and from four other area research centers spread around the state. This arrangement has benefited local researchers and often led to cross-connections, where researchers to one organization learn about the other’s related holdings.

Noting Growth and Looking to the Future

The Ozarks Jewish Archives has grown significantly since it was founded. Today the OJA includes approximately 12 cubic feet of material. As collections are organized or digitized, researchers can access information through the MSU Libraries’ Digital Collections. The continued interest and donations reflect the confidence of the community, as well as a growing understanding of the need and methods of preserving the history.

The records of Temple Israel remain the single largest part of the Ozarks Jewish Archives, including the 1924 minutes of the Ladies’ Aid Society, Temple Talk newsletters, ephemera, a small selection of financial materials, and photographs.

However, there are other materials, such as the Lipman Family Collection. This collection includes photographs, clippings, and other family papers showing Ben and Rose Lipman’s place in the community as grocers and active members of the synagogue. Their son, David Lipman, had a career in newspapers, becoming the St. Louis Post-Dispatch managing editor. His path helps illustrate how children often needed to leave this small community in hopes of success. The Lipman Collection is available on MSU’s digital collections’ site. Today the collection receives approximately twenty views per month. It’s a small number, but significant for a collection with such a specific research interest.

The ripple effect of the pandemic continues to affect the Ozarks Jewish Archives. Internships with students particularly keen on local Jewish history were ended early and that level of interest has unfortunately not recurred. There is increased outreach to other Jewish communities in the Ozarks to encourage them to preserve their history and consider donating to the OJA.

The administration of the MSU Libraries has made a choice to focus more effort on remote access to information. While Special Collections cannot undertake digitizing large swaths of archival content, at minimum accession information and finding aids are available through Digital Collections.

There is a preconceived notion of the Ozarks, one that generally does not allow for a range of religious beliefs, an active LGBTQ+ community, or African American history. However, Special Collections at Missouri State University will continue to work to preserve that history, in addition to the history of tourism, railroads, and fiddle music. Through past and future efforts, the story of the Jewish community in the Ozarks will be preserved.

About the authors

Anne M. Baker, Assistant Professor, Library Science, currently serves as Missouri State University’s Head of Special Collections and Archives. Prior to this she was MSU’s Archivist, a position she held from 2001 to 2017. She has been involved with the Ozarks Jewish Archives since its inception in 2004.

Mara W. Cohen Ioannides is a retired Senior Instructor in English at Missouri State University. Dr. Cohen’s publications include Creating Community: The Jews of Springfield, Missouri and The Jews of Missouri: An Ornament to Israel. She is the president of the Midwest Jewish Studies Association and the founding and emerita president of the Ozarks Studies Association.

Sources

1873 Springfield City Directory, St. Louis: R.P. Studley Company, 1873, 75.

Anonymous 1888. “Springfield, July 2,” Jewish Voice, July 6, 1888, 3.

Anonymous 1904. “Classified List of Members.” Thirty-third Annual Report of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Cincinnati: May & Kreidler, June 12, 1904, 5832.

Bernheimer, Charles S. “Summary of Jewish Organizations in the United States.” The American Jewish Year Book 2 (1900): 496–506. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23600169.

Boyle, Shanna, and Julie March (eds.). Crossroads at the Spring: A Pictorial History of Springfield, MO. Springfield, MO: History Museum for Springfield-Greene County, 1997.

Cape Girardeau County. n.d. “1803 Inhabitants in Cape Girardeau County.” Accessed April 13, 2025. https://www.capecounty.us/ArchiveCenter/1803%20Census.aspx.

Cohen Ioannides, Mara W. (ed.). Special Issue: Documenting Jews of the Ozarks. OzarksWatch: The Magazine of the Ozarks, 12: 1 & 2, 1999.

Ehrlich, Walter. Zion in the Valley: The Jewish Community of St. Louis, 1: 1807–1907. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1997.

“Geodetic Tower a Student Target: Just a Prank?” Springfield Leader and Press, February 2, 1960, 9.

The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. n.d. “Our Mission.” Accessed April 13, 2025. https://www.americanjewisharchives.org/about/aja-mission/.

Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest. Our History: 20 Years and Growing. Minneapolis, MN: Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest, 2004.

LeMaster, Carolyn Gray. A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s–1990s. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1994.

Missouri State (@MissouriState). “We aren’t saying they’re ‘okay.’” Twitter. August 27, 2020.

Missouri State University. Religious Lives of Ozarks Women. Accessed April 13, 2025. https://cdm17307.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/RLOW.

Rafferty, Milton D. The Ozarks: Land and Life. 2nd ed. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001 [1982].

Star Clothing House Advertisement. Springfield Democrat [MO], April 20, 1868, 4.

“Swastika Smear at Missouri U.” Springfield Leader, January 9, 1960, 1.

Trade Palace Advertisement. Missouri Weekly Patriot [Springfield], April 9, 1868, 2.

Weissbach, Lee Shai. Jewish Life in Small-Town America: A History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.

Western Reserve Historical Society. “Jewish American Archives.” n.d. Accessed April 13, 2025. Resources for Jewish History | WRHS | Explore the tangible history of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. https://www.wrhs.org/learn-discover/jewish-resources

Western Reserve Historical Society. “Mission of the Western Reserve Historical Society.” n.d. Accessed April 13, 2025. https://www.wrhs.org/about/mission-values/.

Ozarks Jewish Archives, Special Collections and Archives, Missouri State University

Hyman Lotven and Isadore Lotven. 1992. Interview by Julie Hennigan. Springfield, MO. December 21, 1992. Transcript.

Missouri State University Special Collections and Archives, Finding aids and digital collections. Accessed April 13, 2025. https://digitalcollections.missouristate.edu/

Missouri State University. Digital Collections: Lipman Family Collection. Accessed April 13, 2025. https://digitalcollections.missouristate.edu/digital/collection/Lipman.

Temple Israel. 1998. “Board of Directors Meeting Minutes.” Springfield, Missouri. February 10, 1998, 1.

Ullman Wallerstein, Clara. 1922. Passport. May 2, 1922.

Censuses

Cohn, Julius. 1870. Springfield, Missouri. United States Census 1870, 35.

Commerce Township, Scott County 1870. Missouri Census 1870, 7­­–8.

Levy, Sylvian. 1870. Springfield, Missouri. United States Census 1870, 64.

Sommers, Victor. 1870. Springfield, Missouri. United States Census 1870, 46.

Ullmann, Ludwig. 1860. “The Village of Sarcoxie, Jasper, Missouri.” United States Census 1860, 2.