Dr. Joshua Furman found his way to a career teaching and preserving Jewish history through a series of fortuitous events—his childhood in Texas, the gift of a book of letters sent to an advice column, and a hurricane in Houston.
In San Antonio, Texas, he grew up visiting his grandparents’ house for Shabbat where he heard Yiddish, Spanish, and English and had guacamole with his matzah at Passover seders.
It was his grandmother who gave him a copy of “A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward,” which opened his eyes to the lives of Eastern European Jewish immigrants.
And when Hurricane Harvey dumped 50 inches of rain on Houston in late summer of 2017, Furman found a new calling as he ventured into flooded synagogues and homes to rescue wet, moldy Jewish historical documents and artifacts.
Those life events have led him to his new position as the University of Denver’s Jeanne Abrams Endowed Director of the Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society (RMJHS). He stepped into this role in January 2024, succeeding Abrams who had worked at DU for more than 40 years.
Dr. Jeanne Abrams and Dr. Joshua Furman
“The opportunity to follow someone in the field like Jeanne who is a legend doesn’t come along very often,” Furman says. “It was an opportunity to move to an organization with a strong foundation where I could make a difference.”
Recently, Furman has been in discussions with JEWISHcolorado about the possibility of acquiring JEWISHcolorado archival records for the Beck Archives at RMJHS. The Beck Archives, under the direction of curator David Fasman, already holds a substantial collection from the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado dating back to 1947, which would be merged with the JEWISHcolorado materials.
“We are delighted to know that the documents detailing the history of JEWISHcolorado will have a safe home,” says JEWISHcolorado President & CEO Renée Rockford. “We are grateful to Dr. Furman and everyone at RMJHS and the Beck Archives for working with us to make sure that those generations of the Colorado Jewish community who came before us and made so many contributions will be remembered and honored.”
‘I wanted to know more’
Furman’s great-grandparents left Eastern Europe in the late 1920s and early ’30s, but, because of quota laws in the United States, ended up settling in Mexico City where his grandparents met and married. His father was born in Mexico and the family moved to San Antonio when he was a young child.
“I grew up in a family with a rich sense of history and strong Jewish identity,” Furman says. “My grandmother would put slices of chili peppers in her matzah balls. I didn’t think of it as special or different, but as I got older, I began to appreciate my family history more.”
Furman remembers vividly his grandmother giving him a copy of the book “A Bintel Brief”—in Yiddish, it means “a bundle of letters.” Starting in 1906, the letters had been submitted to New York’s Jewish Daily Forward, a newspaper with a national audience for its advice column. Bewildered Eastern European Jewish immigrants sought advice for predicaments that could be spiritual, peculiar, petty, and sometimes inspired by folk superstitions. (“If I marry a woman with dimples, will I die?”)
For Furman, whose father was a first-generation immigrant from Mexico, the human experiences shared in the letters felt relatable.
“The letters were tragic, funny, colorful, and also an insightful window into the immigrant experience,” says Furman. “I wanted to know more about these people. That book, combined with my family’s history, set me on a path to study and write and teach history.”
‘We did our best to preserve everything’
Furman’s academic pursuit of history took him to Northwestern University for his undergraduate years and to the University of Maryland for his PhD. In 2015, he returned to his roots in Texas to do a two-year post-doctoral fellowship and teach American Jewish history at Rice University.
He did not intend to stay at Rice beyond the fellowship, so he was beginning to explore his options when he was asked by the Houston JCC to give a lecture on Jewish history in Houston—a subject he knew little about. When he started preparing for the lecture, he discovered that there had been very little research on Jews in Houston. The dearth of information piqued his curiosity.
“As a Jew who is not from New York, LA, or Chicago—the major centers of Jewish life in this country—I have always been sympathetic to other narratives of the American Jewish experience,” he says. “I believe that the experiences of American Jews in other parts of the country are both significant and underappreciated.”
Working with Dr. Matthias Henze, the director of Jewish Studies at Rice, he proposed the creation of an institute to study Texas Jewish history to be housed at Rice. The project took on greater import when, in 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit because the city’s Jewish community in southwest Houston is particularly prone to flooding.
“A number of Jewish community buildings and homes experienced flooding and severe water damage,” Furman says. “Working with a team of colleagues, students, archivists, community volunteers, and donors, we did our best to preserve everything we could.”
Out of a catastrophic event, the archive project at Rice began to take off. Originally named the Houston Jewish History Archive, it is now the Joan and Stanford Alexander South Texas Jewish Archives.
“We discovered in a moment of crisis and tragedy the contribution we, as historical professionals, could make,” Furman says. “We wanted to make sure that the historical records of Houston’s Jewish community would not be lost forever.”
‘We have a responsibility’
Furman has brought his passion for preservation to the University of Denver’s Center for Judaic Studies (CJS), which provides a home to the RMJHS and the Holocaust Awareness Institute
In addition to the Center for Judaic Studies, DU also houses the Ira M. and Peryle Hayutin Beck Memorial Archives, which serves as the primary repository of the heritage of Jewish culture and history of the Rocky Mountain region, with an emphasis on Colorado. Jeanne Abrams served as director of both RMJHS and the Beck Archives. Now, Abrams’ dual role has been divided into two full-time positions.
The Beck Archives already houses extensive archival records from the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado including this photo from a women’s event in 1971.
As Director of RMJHS, Furman will devote his time to teaching American Jewish history, public programming, educational initiatives, and fundraising. Furman’s colleague, David Fasman, curates the Beck Archives and focuses on finding new collections and handling research inquiries from scholars who come to Denver from around the world to conduct research into the Jewish experience in Denver, Colorado, and the West.
Furman envisions a future where RMJHS has a greater presence throughout the entire state of Colorado. He sees the need to connect with a younger and more diverse constituency. He envisions a time when RMJHS resources have moved into a digital age, making them more available online.
“I see us creating educational websites that share Colorado and Western Jewish history with middle and high school students, genealogists, anyone interested in Jewish history and the region,” Furman says.
While Furman recognizes what digital resources can do to enhance the preservation of history, he is also well aware of what is lost in a digital age.
“Generations ago, we wrote letters, and today, we write emails and they are gone in an instant,” Furman says. “How will the next generation learn about life after the pandemic? How will they learn about the experiences of our Jewish community after October 7? We have a responsibility to preserve our experiences for them. RMJHS and the Beck Archives stand at the center of those efforts.”