Sampson Center - Judaica Collection at USM

314 Forest Avenue, Albert Brenner Glickman Library, 6th Floor

usm.maine.edu/special-collections/research/judaica-collection

The Judaica Collection, housed on the top floor of USM’s Glickman Library (Stop W05), is one part of the Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine, which collects and makes accessible material documenting the ongoing histories of diverse communities, and promotes diversity and civil rights through research, education, and outreach. In addition to the Judaica Collection, the Center currently has a general civil rights and social justice-themed collection, an African-American collection, and one on Maine’s LGBTQ+ history.

The Sampson Center is named after civil rights activist Jean Beyers Sampson (1923 -1996), who was a member of the NAACP, Maine Democratic party, and Maine Civil Liberties Union. Her work sparked a lifelong friendship with Shep Lee, her neighbor in Lewiston and a prominent Jewish businessman and Democratic leader in Maine, who proposed naming the Center after Sampson. At its dedication in 1999, then USM Provost Mark Lapping noted, “It ought no longer to be possible to speak of Maine and Maine people without including the important past roles and ongoing contributions made by her African American, Jewish, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender and Franco-American communities.”

The Judaica Collection consists of collections of personal papers and archives of organizations active in the Jewish community of Maine, mostly from or after the 20th century. Records include those from Casco Bay Tummlers Archives, Chabad of Maine, Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh, Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, Portland Jewish Community Center, the Young Women’s Hebrew Association, Ladies Auxiliary for the Jewish Home for Aged (Stop E09), Annetta Kornetsky Girl Scout Collection, Macabee Club, and the National Council of Jewish Women, Southern Maine Section. The collection also houses the papers of Linda and Joel Abromson, Rosalyne and Sumner Bernstein, the Davidson family, Merle Nelson, Rabbi Harry Sky, and many others.