The National Council of Jewish Women was founded in 1893 in Chicago and the Buffalo Section formed just two years later in 1895. The section focused on service and advocacy in several areas including child welfare, health care, women’s rights and individual rights.
Anne Bunis, c.1960s. Courtesy of the Bunis Family.
Born in Russia in 1901 as Anna Wiener to parents, Morris and Dora Wiener, Anne as she would become, arrived in Rochester as a six-year old immigrant child. As the eldest of eight children, she left school at the end of eighth grade. Dreams of becoming a designer were put aside, even as she was creating and sewing her own clothing from her early teens.
Hyman Arluck, c. 1908. Courtesy of Sam A. Arlen, SA Music LLC.
Harold Arlen Exhibition / Beginnings in Buffalo, NY Born on February 15, 1905, at 389 Clinton Streeton the East Side of Buffalo the joy of Arlen’s birth was overlain with family tragedy. For Joseph–as Harold was first named–struggled to survive and his twin brother,...
Harold Arlen Exhibition / The Jewish East Side Along the streets of Jefferson, Pratt, Spring and William and the surrounding highways bounded by Michigan and Fillmore, Clinton and Broadway, dense networks of Jewish family and friends formed the “The Jewish East...
Gordon Bunshaft, 1962. Collection of The Buffalo History Museum. General photograph collection, Persons – B. Used with permission.
People A-Z / Gordon BunshaftArchitect 1909-1990OverviewGordon Bunshaft was born in 1909 in Buffalo, to parents David and Yetta, who were first cousins, from a small village in what is now Ukraine. The couple emigrated to the United States in 1908, first to Boston...
People A-Z / Ann H. Cohn1926–2017OverviewAnn Cohn née Holland, was born on June 2, 1926. Growing up in Kenmore, through the Depression in the first “suburb” of Buffalo, she came of age during the Second World War. The Holland family were affiliated with Temple Beth...
People A-Z / David Coplon1882-1976OverviewDavid Hascal Coplon emigrated to the United States as a child with his family. Born in Shavl, Lithuania on January 18, 1882, he and his family were part of the mass movement of Jewish immigrants who came to the United States...
Rosa Coplon, c.1915, Buffalo, NY. Ms223, University Archives, Courtesy of the University at Buffalo, NY.
Rosa Berman was born in 1855 in Shavl in Eastern Europe, then part of the Russian Pale of Settlement, and now a part of Lithuania. In 1878 she married Samuel Coplon, a skilled glazier, and began raising a family in Shavl while working as a fishmonger. She had six children with her husband, but only four of whom survived to adulthood. Seeking an escape from endemic antisemitism and economic privation, the family emigrated to America.
Cantor Samuel Arluck, 1920s. Courtesy of Sam A. Arlen, SA Music LLC.
Harold Arlen Exhibition / Musical Influences Both Celia and Samuel Arluck lived within Orthodox Judaism and infused their family home with these traditions. As Cantor of the Clinton Street synagogue (Beth Jacob), Samuel also had a Jewish communal role. It was his...
Olympic Theatre, c. 1920s. Courtesy of Buffalo History Museum, Buffalo, NY.
Harold Arlen Exhibition / A City of EntertainmentFrom the 1900s to the late 1920s, music, performance, and film were changing in Buffalo as they were across America. Vaudeville and Burlesque were still popular forms of entertainment, but popular song and dance bands...