Reverend Benjamin Safer and Family Collection
Due to possible privacy concerns with this collection, researchers should consult
with
The collection is a gift of Dr. Edwin Safer, Benjamin Safer's grandson and alumnus of the University of Florida.
Digital reproductions of selected items in the Reverend Benjamin Safer and Family
Collection are available online via the
The Safer family originated from the town of Brizh, Lithuania. Benjamin Safer's father, Joseph Schraga Safer, and mother, Hinda Reiza née Sweetgal, married in 1859 in Brizh. Benjamin Safer, who was named after his paterntal grandfather, was born there on January 1, 1872. Benjamin and his siblings, with the exception of his eldest brother, would later leave Lithuania, with three of his brothers immigrating to South Africa, and the rest to the United States.
The young Benjamin Safer, following the example of his father and elder brother,
became a yeshiva student in the nearby town of Panevezys. It was there that he met
his future bride Freda Leah Ziv. At about the age of 22, he was conscripted to the
Russian Army's Territory Military Band. Upon his release from military service in
1894 or 1895, he returned to Panevezys and continued his studies in the yeshiva.
Freda Leah and Benjamin were married in 1896 in Panevezys and in 1898 they moved to
Pokroi, a small village to the northwest where Benjamin worked as
In 1900, the newly founded Orthodox Jewish congregation in Jacksonville, B'nai
Israel, invited Joseph Shraga Safer to be their rabbi. He refused, but recommended
his son Benjamin instead. Benjamin was offered the position and accepted it. He
arrived in Jacksonville in 1902, leaving behind his pregnant wife and three children
until the following year when they joined him in Florida. At the temple, Benjamin
worked as
After World War II, Benjamin Safer wished to live the remaining years of his life in the Holy Land (Israel) which he had visited once in 1926. He made two additional trips there, staying in various parts of Israel for extended periods of time despite his family's disapproval. Finally, he returned to the United States on September 17, 1959 and died early the next morning. Safer family members now live all over the United States and in South Africa. They cultivate the family and preserve its history, and occasionally organize family meetings, like the one held in Israel in 1978, which is recorded in the album included in this collection.
This collection holds Benjamin Safer's official and personal papers, sermons, letters, and photographs, in addition to photographs of his family members. Whereas the elder members of the Jacksonville community spoke Yiddish, the younger members understood English only and thus Reverend Safer, like other rabbis who had recently immigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, needed to learn English quickly to be able to offer services in English. Consequently, his sermons are written in English with Hebrew characters and his notebooks include English vocabularies that he recorded for himself phonetically with Hebrew characters and translations to Yiddish. These handwritten documents will assist researchers interested in the history of Jewish religious leaders' immigration to the United States and their struggles to learn English, as well as scholars interested in Yiddish and other Jewish language studies, and techniques of language acquisition.
Edwin Safer's genealogical research about the family history is recorded in two
volumes:
This collection is arranged in chronological order.