October 1, 2005
Louis Rose Society releases newspaper indexes for 1922-1950
editions of  the Southwestern Jewish Press and other newspapers
 Louis Rose Society for the Preservation of Jewish History                                            Index to Volume I-A

   The public will be able to search an index of old newspapers for names of members of the San Diego Jewish community between 1922 and 1950 under a new program announced by Louis Rose Society co-founders Norman Greene and Donald H. Harrison.

    Greene and Harrison, who formerly co-published the now-defunct San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage, have made the archives of the newspaper and such predecessor newspapers as the Southwestern Jewish Press available for the charitable purposes of  the Louis Rose Society for the Preservation of Jewish History. They said they hope the program will encourage donations to the Society's tandem campaigns to build a statue of Louis Rose and to create an online biographical encyclopedia of the San Diego Jewish community.

    People who contribute $36 to the Jewish Community Foundation/ Louis Rose Fund (4950 Murphy Canyon Road, San Diego, CA 92123)  may designate a Jewish San Diegan to be honored on the Society's website at http://www.jewishsightseeing.com/louis_rose_historical/honorees/honorees.htm.

   Utilizing the index and the archives, volunteers thereafter will post on the web articles about the individual honorees.  By collecting and collating stories about each honoree, the Society hopes to provide to students and scholars some basic research for papers, theses, and even full-length biographies.  Harrison and Greene said in this way the San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage can continue to provide service to the San Diego Jewish community, even though it no longer is publishing.

    The draft  index for Volume I-A from the newspaper's archives was placed on the web Saturday evening, October 1, two days ahead of Rosh Hashanah.  The draft index, which  includes various typographical errors that will be corrected in time, is a compendium of all the local Jewish  names that appeared in 57 newspaper issues, broken down by year as follows:

    1922—1 issue, The San Diego Jewish Community News

   1935—1 issue, Southwestern Jewish Review

    1939—1 issue, Southwestern Jewish Review

   1940—1 issue, San Diego Jewish Press
                1 issue Southwestern Jewish Review

   1945—1 issue, Southwestern Jewish Press

    1946—3 issues, Southwestern Jewish Press

    1947—20 issues, Southwestern Jewish Press

    1949—12 issues, Southwestern Jewish Press

    1950—16 issues, Southwestern Jewish Press

    Anyone who has any of the missing issues of these newspapers are encouraged to donate them to the Louis Rose Society in order to make the online biographical encyclopedia more complete.

    To use the online resource, simply use the computer's automatic search program to jump from page to page in the index.   If the person already is an honoree, the stories indicated in the index either are posted or soon will be.  If the person is not an honoree, he or she may be so designated by a member of the Louis Rose Society.  Membership comes with a $36 contribution to the Jewish Community Foundation/ Louis Rose Fund, with each member entitled to honor one other person. Members desiring to honor more than one member of the community—past or present—may do so by making an additional $18 contribution per honoree to the Jewish Community Foundation/ Louis Rose Fund.

    "This project enables people to perform a double mitzvah," commented Harrison. "The money they contribute is held by the Jewish Community Foundation for such capital projects as the building of the Louis Rose statue.  "At the same time," said Greene, "they can either honor a contemporary or memorialize another member of the San Diego Jewish community."