We’re on the Map! Jews and Experimental Buffalo, 1950s-1970s

Chana Revell Kotzin, Ph.D.

Communities change around pivot points. Across the 1950s to the 1970s, Buffalo, NY underwent a series of significant changes that changed and challenged Jewish living and communal arrangements in new and experimental ways that set the stage going forward. Prior to the 1950s almost all transformations relating to Jewish living in Buffalo were heavily influenced by immigrant flows and to a greater of less extent, trade and business possibilities. Post WWII, Jewish Buffalo lives were increasingly driven by a dynamic and creative mixture of homegrown Jewish residents, Jewish transplants from within the US, and opportunities across the cultural, civic and professional arenas. While the recent legacy of the Holocaust and the founding of Israel created a new understanding of American Jewry’s role and responsibility in the greater Diaspora, changes across specifically Jewish demographic, spatial, religious and civic spheres in the local area were as incisive for the lived experiences that Jewish Buffalonians encountered during the 1950s to the 1970s.

Chana Revell Kotzin, Ph.D., is a public historian, independent scholar and adjunct professor. Her research interests include British and American history, ethnic and religious history, museology, archives and curation. In addition to work as the lead researcher and curator for a new Jewish community museum that launched in 2023, she previously devised exhibitions around diverse themes ranging from Jewish placemaking to musical artistry. She led the creation of a decade long archives program in partnership with the University Archives at the University at Buffalo creating a unique archive of Jewish community materials, and more recently was the lead researcher and curator of an all-digital online platform. A researcher and author of successful National Register of Historic Places applications, she has also published scholarly articles in multiple venues including museum catalogues, Shofar, The Journal of Holocaust Education and Jewish History and Culture and most recently, contributions to a book of collected essays published by Brill. Chana is the author of Jewish Community of Greater Buffalo published by Arcadia and is completing a monograph on post WWII Jewish life in Buffalo, NY. She has served as adjunct faculty at William Jewell College, Daemen University, and Medaille College. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Southampton, UK.

Credits for images:

Mural created by Lewis Rubenstein for the Jewish Community Center of Buffalo, Image by Don Dannecker for the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies. Used with permission.

Portrait, Chana Revell Kotzin, PhD. Image by Brenda Turteltaub Feldstein. Used with permission.