The Opening of the Digital Jewish Missions History Project
by Rich Robinson
Research Librarian / Web Site Administrator, Jews for Jesus
Some years ago, I saw a cartoon in which two schoolboys are talking, One says, "I wish I would have born 500 years ago!" "Why is that?" asks the other. "Because then I wouldn't have had to learn so much history!"
Some might think of history as boring, irrelevant and useless. But Jews especially, are a people delineated by our history. It is not surprising that the nineteenth-century Jewish writer Ludwig Boerne once remarked, "Bring the history of the past not as a gloomy memento mori [a picture to remind viewers of their mortality], but as a friendly forget-me-not, whose lessons we may recall with love."
On the same subject, Yiddish poet and novelist Isaac Leibush Peretz said, "A people's memory is history; and as a man without a memory, so a people without a history cannot grow wiser, better." If anyone has seen the movie Memento, concerning a man with no short-term memory, one can understand why without history not only people but organizations and entire cultures can become disoriented, unable to deal with the present and future.
History, then, is for remembering and for learning. More on that below. First, though a bit of a recap. At the August 1999 international meeting of the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism, I first presented the idea of a Digital Jewish Missions History Project. If you were not there, this project was envisioned as a broad, volunteer-driven effort whereby the history of Jewish evangelism would be preserved in digital form, accessible worldwide and searchable as to content.
I am happy to announce that "the store is open," though it is still a small store, and not even run by professional storekeepers! The initial phases of the project can be seen online at http://www.jewsforjesus.org/history. What you will find there is only the tip of the iceberg. Electronic libraries abound more and more online, but as far as Jewish missions are concerned, there is nothing like this "out there" anywhere.
Let me give one example concerning a missionary to the Jews whose life I am particularly interested in. I don't think you will find a single other collection of materials relating to Hermann Warszawiak, the young New York City missionary who preached to large crowds in New York's bustling 1890s, making him singularly "successful" in his work. But dogged by ethical accusations, which were never proven, and by poverty, he eventually left ministry altogether. On this web site, we now have a (still incomplete) collection of Warszawiak materials that is searchable, printable, and viewable throughout the world without resorting to making a trip to a library--and soon to include his baptismal address in German, given in 1890 in Breslau, which seems to be preserved only at the British Library in London.
Now imagine if all past Jewish missions periodicals, tracts, correspondence and more were available this way as well, fully searchable and available to any Internet connection in the world.
Why Bother?
Busy missionaries and mission leaders may ask, why bother with something that promises to be time-consuming, labor-intensive and maybe even overwhelming in scope? Let me approach that question from a couple of angles. First, I want to reproduce the purpose statement from the project's web site. Then, I want to share some thoughts from mission leaders and scholars on the value of this sort of undertaking.
The purpose of the Digital Jewish Missions History Project can be summed up in two words: PRESERVATION and LEARNING.
In the past several centuries, the movement of missionary work among the Jewish people has produced a wealth of books, periodicals, correspondence and reports. Some of these were directed to Christian readers; others to Jews who had come to faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah of Israel; and yet others to those Jewish people who had not yet come to believe in Him. These materials are in English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, French, Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, and still more languages.
Sadly, most of this material is inaccessible to the inquirer, the pastor, the missionary, the scholar, or the person merely curious about history. Most of it sits in public and university libraries, and in denominational and mission archives. A good deal of it is probably in danger of decay or loss altogether. The vast majority of this material is in the public domain, free of copyright restrictions. Now, for the first time, this material, spanning approximately the years 1750 to 1925, is being gathered into a digital collection, on the web, fully searchable.
In this way, the history of Jewish missions, and the legacy of Jewish believers in Y'shua--to use His Hebrew name--will be preserved. In and of itself, this is a worthwhile endeavor. Legacy and heritage is always worth preserving.
As with all history, there is also the potential to learn from the past. By studying the methods and materials, the mindset and motivation, the problems and persons, the reactions and responses, of the missions to the Jews of the past--we can learn something relevant for the modern world as well. Most will not have heard of Hermann Warszawiak, a missionary to the Jews in New York City from approximately 1890 to 1904. Yet a study of his ministry contains valuable lessons for today, lessons about success, opposition, naivete, loyalty, teamwork versus individualism, etc. Should we not study in school of history to help us prepare for the present, and for the future as well?
With these goals, in memory of those whose lives line the gallery of Jewish missions history--may their name be for a blessing--and for the glory of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, this digital library is dedicated.”
So much for the purpose statement on the web site. We cannot afford not to preserve our history.
And this is not an isolated opinion. In November of 2001, the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois, held a "Consultation on Nondenominational Mission Archives." The papers given did not address electronic means of preservation nor were they concerned exclusively with older historical materials. Bob Shuster, Archivist at the Center, had this to say:
“I am reminded of a science fiction story about the future of the human race. An ice age wipes out all peoples and destroys almost all monuments of human culture. When alien visitors came to Earth eons later, they must recreate human history from what's left as best they can. And what is their prime, remaining source of information, the sole surviving channel of knowledge of the past for them? A single Donald Duck cartoon.
We have a responsibly [sic] to ensure that the Church's story is not based on whatever excitable and incoherent Donald Ducks might be left behind, but to keep for ourselves and following generations the records that tell its true story. For in this sense, preservation is also a commitment to truth, which is also part of our stewardship in an age of deconstruction and relativity. It is a commitment to truth in its simplest, and often most difficult form -- telling what did happen, not what we wished had happened or what our personal dogmas and ideologies say should have happened. We cannot, as Bacon said, "offer the Author of Truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie."1
David M. Howard is another voice. He has had a varied career including, among other things, Missions Director of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and president of the Latin American Mission. In his paper for the Billy Graham Center consultation, he tells us that, "Many of the ten books that I have written have been grounded in archival work in various places, even though such archives have not always been very professional or complete." Among the benefits he cites for keeping an archives are "understanding the heritage of the organization," "keeping on track," and "expanding that vision." Granted, he says, the vision is not always adequate, other priorities take over, needed personnel, finances, and space are not always available--but it is something that should not be neglected in any event.
Some might wonder at the advisability of placing all this information within the area of "public access," even though we are talking about material from decades ago. Bob Arnold, Director of Research for SIM International, cites as one of the lessons SIM has learned concerning archives, the need for freedom of information:
Academic freedom. You must remember that academic researchers are not mission publicists. A few years ago a researcher used our archives to study the origins of the evangelical church in a certain region of Ethiopia. In his book some SIM pioneers were portrayed as narrow-minded. A shocked SIM leader asked the archives director how we could let this man do that. We cannot expect that the books and dissertations written by researchers will always portray the mission favorably; there is a certain risk involved.
Scope of the Project
Essentially, the project encompasses anything, in any language, relating to Jewish evangelism prior to about 1945. In some cases, material towards the end of this period will still be in copyright and permission will be needed, but in the U.S., most everything 75 years or older is in the public domain. I have said, "in any language," because we can easily reproduce German, French, and the Scandinavian languages online. Russian is possible as well. Hebrew and Yiddish is another matter. We have the ability to incorporate isolated words in a document, but entire documents at present would need to be images only, not text (hence, longer download times and not searchable). As noted below, one area for a volunteer would be in helping us overcome some of these technical hurdles.
Even restricted to English and other Western languages, of course, there is a vast amount of material. Missionary reports and correspondence, denominational reports, testimonies, mission periodicals, are all wanted. (A "want list" will be posted on the web site.) Public records such as birth, death, naturalization, and ship records, and photographs can also be part of the project as well.
Examples
To give an idea of what you will currently find online, some of the documents that the Project currently houses, divided into categories, are:
Missions Reports
Annual Reports of the Boards of Foreign / Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States for 1845-46, 1853-73, 1923-26 (Jewish mission sections only)
Sermons
Michael Solomon Alexander's Farewell Sermon of 1841.
"Our Duty to Israel" by Robert Murray McCheyne, 1852.
Testimonies
Testimony of a Believing Jew by Harry A. Burgen, early 20th c.
Driven from Home: A True Story of a Converted Jewess, by Jeannette Gedalius, 1905. (She was a missionary to the Jews in San Francisco.)
Leila Ada, the Jewish Convert: An Authentic Memoir, by Osborn W. Trenery Heighway, 1853.
From the Rabbis to Christ: A Russian Jew's Story of His Soul Struggle for Light and Peace, by Henry A. Hellyer, 1922.
Articles
David Baron, "Messianic Judaism; or Judaising Christianity", 1911.
"Biblical Thoughts on the Conversion of the Jews" by Franz Delitzsch, 1890.
""The Baptism, in Berlin, of Joseph Rabinowitz (a Russian Jew)" by C. M. Mead, 1890.
Entire Periodicals
Salvation and the Jewish-Christian, ed. by William Cowper Conant, 1899 with further years to be posted (Jewish evangelism sections of the periodical only).
Fiction
Proselytes of the Ghetto, by Amos I. Dushaw, 1909.
Missionary Conferences (Jewish missions sections)
Report of the Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the World, held in Exeter Hall (June 9th-19th), London, 1888. Third edition.
World-Wide Evangelization: The Urgent Business of the Church; Addresses Delivered Before the Fourth International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, Toronto, Canada, February 26-March 2, 1902.
Report of Commission I: Carrying the Gospel to all the Non-Christian World; with Supplement: Presentation and Discussion of the Report in the Conference on 15th June 1910.
Organizational Brochures, Histories, Etc.
The Aim of the Hebrew-Christian Publication Society by B. A. M. Schapiro, ca. 1920.
A Brief History of the Zion Society for Israel [50th Anniversary Edition] by C. K. Solberg, 1928.
General Jewish Mission Histories, Memoirs, etc.
A Century of Jewish Missions by A. E. Thompson, 1902.
Missionary Journal and Memoir of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, Missionary To The Jews: Comprising His First Visit To Palestine In The Years 1821 & 1822.
Denominational Records
Christian Reformed Church materials; from the Acts of Synod and The Banner; and other materials, 1907-28.
Newspaper Articles
Assorted New York Times articles from the 1890s and early 1900s dealing with Hermann Warszawiak.
Can you see the possibilities? And all the above to date has been done, as an "appetizer," by just a few people. What if we had volunteers worldwide to help? And so…
Volunteers Needed!
Yes, this is more than an announcement. The Digital Jewish Missions History Project is a VOLUNTEER-DRIVEN project. It is hands-on.
We need to develop a coterie of friends and volunteers, described in more detail on the web site, to work together on this project from wherever they may be located throughout the world. A message board or listserv will be developed, too, whereby volunteers can communicate directly with one another with ideas and information. Perhaps someone can even suggest a better name than "Digital Jewish Missions History Project"!
Note that there is no "funding" for this project. We are not paying for a separate web site, but are using the existing web site of Jews for Jesus on which at least for now, space is currently available. Costs of any needed photocopies and incidental expenses can be borne by the various missions at their discretion, or left to volunteers to provide as a donation. "Labor" in any event, is donated; a good deal of my own work to date has been "after hours."
The idea of a volunteer-driven online archive is not new. For years, the Gutenberg Project (www.gutenberg.net) has enlisted volunteers worldwide to scan, type, proofread, and place online public domain materials, mostly works of literature, and the process seems to have worked out quite well for them.
How can you be involved?
If you are a mission leader, suggest a "point person"--a librarian, archivist, or volunteer coordinator--who could enlist the aid of local helpers, those who will do the hands-on of scanning or typing in material. A point person for a particular mission can help recruit volunteers, find out what's available from that mission, and so on. If there is a lot of material on your premises (old correspondence, mission reports, mission magazines) you might want to consider investing in a scanner and a program such as OmniPage to convert the scanned images into text, ready for proofreading. Local volunteers can then come in to scan and proofread. Materials too fragile for scanning can be retyped manually.
If you are someone who wants to be a hands-on volunteer, THIS IS REALLY THE "MEAT AND POTATOES" OF THE WORK. You do not need to be a "technical wizard." It does help to be somewhat detailed-oriented people and interested in Jewish missions and in history. Some tasks a hands-on volunteer can do include locating materials, scanning or re-typing them, and proofreading. As a by-product, hands-on volunteers will get a good education in Jewish mission history as they go along. On the web site, there are many more details about the actual hand-on work and how to go about it.
If you are a professor of missions, this could be an opportunity for your students to participate in this project and then prepare a paper based on what they have learned.
If you can volunteer technical skills, we are in need of your help. We should have a better database system--one that is flexible and perhaps allows us to offer a document not only in a web browser, but as a PDF, a Word document, and so on. We need a better search system that can handle non-Western languages and return results in a better format. We would like to have a better visual presentation than we now have. And so on.
If you can volunteer legal help in the areas of copyright and internet law, we need to be sure that all material placed online is in the public domain or that we have secured permissions where needed. Sometimes the area gets gray, as when a company maintains the only available microfilms of particular out-of-copyright documents but restricts their use, and similar situations.
If you have skills as a qualified translator, you can help translate documents into English so that both the original and the translation are available. Quite a lot is in German, and then there are the records of the various Scandinavian Jewish missions. The earlier records of the Christian Reformed Church Jewish mission are in Dutch. Many people whose first language is German or Norwegian have a good acquaintance with English; but the same cannot be said for most native English speakers' knowledge of the European languages. Hence, the need for reliable translations.
If you have experience as an archivist or with electronic document collections, you can offer valuable advice on the overall process, and share tips and encouragement.
To facilitate sharing ideas and building community among volunteers worldwide, we hope to have a message board in place in the near future.
Bob Arnold, with SIM International, made note of the volunteer nature of SIM's own archives:
“The good news is that most of our labor is free. Almost all our archives processing is done by retired missionary volunteers. We have five retirees in the Charlotte area who volunteer one day per week and one who volunteers two days per week. We also have retired missionaries from outside the area who come for two to four weeks. I pay their room and board in the SIM guesthouse if they give me at least 10 days of work. I usually have them work on the country in which they served. These folks enjoy going through these materials, and they know the names of the people, the places, and the various ministries. They are eminently qualified and motivated.”
He continues:
“Our biggest weakness at the SIM archives is the flip side of our negligible labor costs; we are well-meaning amateurs. Paul Ericksen visited our archives in 1994 and made numerous recommendations. The most important of these was that we hire a trained archivist immediately; this was not done in 1994, and probably will never be done. I have no background in this field, but I am signed up to attend a two-week training course given by the National Archives in Maryland in January-February.”
So, that too is the nature of this Jewish mission archival project. We are all well-meaning amateurs (though welcoming advice and help from those more professionally involved!). But it is far better to do something than to do nothing, or to become paralyzed by not knowing the "best" way to go about things. It is some consolation that no one standard of digital archiving seems to utilized universally, and online archives vary from bare-bones (The Gutenberg Project, where everything is plain text) to sophisticated (where advanced "tagging" of documents is done).
I hope, then, that you will share in the vision of preserving and learning from the history of Jewish missions. At a time when Jewish evangelism is being denounced in some quarters, and neglected in others, the hope is that we might not only honor the past, but learn from it and so energize the field of Jewish missions for the future. Please feel free to contact Rich Robinson directly at jfjweb@jewsforjesus.org with any questions or comments, and, it is hoped, with an encouraging note that you will lend your support to this project as you can!
Rich Robinson
jfjweb@jewsforjesus.org
1 Shuster, Bob, Opening Remarks for the Consultation on Nondenominational Mission Archives
2 Howard, David M. The Preservation of Mission Archives--A Mission Executive's Perspective
3 Arnold, Bob, SIM International Archives