The Low Country Digital Library at the College of Charleston, South Carolina, has uploaded 430 postcards of central and eastern European synagogues from the Rabbi William A. Rosenthall Collection of Judaica, which is held at the College. Rosenthall was the rabbi at Charleston’s Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue from 1976 to 1992. He traveled extensively during his life and collected items related to Jewish life and culture.
The Rosenthall Collection web site reports that the newly uploaded postcards come from two portfolios that contain postcards from countries including: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, and Bulgaria.
A great many of these postcards display images of synagogues that have since been destroyed or are no longer used as synagogues.
You can see a small sample of the new uploads here.
To view all uploaded images from the Rosenthall collection postcards, view the Low Country Digital Library: Rabbi William A. Rosenthall’s collection of Judaica postcards.
A particular collecting focus of Rosenthall was images of synagogues located around the globe, including European synagogues destroyed by the Nazis or converted to stables and warehouses. Also included are images of cemeteries, tombs, Jewish neighborhoods, and other Jewish sites of interest.