I AM A “GREENSTEINER”
Blog post by JMM archivist Lorie Rombro. You can read more posts by Lorie HERE.
As an archivist, I read all the time. At work I am constantly reading, either quickly looking at something to determine where it belongs and how to catalog the information to more in depth reading. There is also the reading that should be scanning but you become so involved in what is being written that its hard to put the papers down. This doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does it’s hard to tear yourself away. You begin to get to know the people you are working on, not personally, but you get an interesting look at their lives through their correspondence, diaries, and public writing and occasionally you become a fan.
While working on the Associated Centennial I have become a fan. Beyonce has her Bey Hive, Taylor Swift has her Swifties and I AM A “GREENSTEINER” (still working on that one). I am proud to admit that I have become a huge fan of Harry Greenstein. I have read his speeches, his biography, and looked at his travel diaries. The more I read the more impressed I am with Mr. Greenstein. There is not enough room in a blog to write all that he has done but I would like to give a short history of a man who devoted his life not only to the Baltimore Jewish community and the larger world-wide Jewish community, but to changing our city, state, and country for the better.
Harry Greenstein was born in Baltimore at 625 West Lombard Street on October 31, 1894, the only son of Abraham and Fannie Greenstein. Harry would grow up in Baltimore with four sisters, and by all accounts was devoted to his family. While Harry began his high schooling at Baltimore City College, when his father returned from the Trudeau Sanitarium in Saranac Lake, New York where he had been treated for tuberculosis, the family moved to a forty-acre farm in Reisterstown. Harry would thrive in the country, graduating valedictorian from Franklin High School and eventually moving back to the city with his sister, Bertha, to take a job and help support his family.
In 1913 he began his studies at the University of Maryland School of Law, graduating with honors in 1918 and then establishing a successful law practice. Harry first participated in Baltimore Jewish affairs as a member of the American Jewish Relief Committee, which assisted European Jewish victims of World War I. Later he helped organize the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association, and served as its president for ten years, from 1922 to 1932.
But Harry would become best known in Baltimore for his 37 years as Executive Director of the Associated Jewish Charities (1928-1965) and Executive Director of the Jewish Welfare Fund of Baltimore (1941-1965). During his tenure Harry took several leaves of absence to assist in local and national affairs. During the Depression, he served as Maryland’s first State Relief Administrator and the Director of the Maryland Board of State Aid and Charities, administering over $65 million in aid to the poor from 1933 to 1936. In 1933 he was also appointed Maryland Civil Works Administrator and at least 49,000 people were provided job opportunities through civil works programs during the Depression.
Harry’s work extended beyond the state level. In 1939 he worked on the creation of the National Refugee Service in New York, which would later become the United Service for New Americans. From 1941-1943 he served as the as the Chief Regional Welfare Evacuation Officer, tasked with planning (and executing if necessary) evacuation plans for Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington D.C. From 1943 to 1945, Harry was appointed the Director of Welfare for UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, for Greece, Yugoslavia, and Albania. In 1949, the Secretary of War appointed him Advisor on Jewish Affairs in post-war Germany to assist the United States Army in dismantling Displaced Persons Camps in Germany and Austria, and in securing war reparations from Germany for the Israeli government and for the rehabilitation of Jewish life in Europe.
This position outside the Associated may have been the most impressive. The main purpose of his position was to accelerate the closing of the DP camps in US occupied Germany. In the 8 and a half months Harry was there, 67,200 Jews left the United States zone of Germany and Austria: 40,300 went to Israel; 23,500 to the United States; and 3,400 to other countries. Harry Greenstein helped thousands of people with no country and no home begin new lives in the countries of their choosing.
Through his leadership the Baltimore Jewish community survived the Depression and World War II; assisted Displaced Persons and immigrants from around the world to settle in Maryland, helped create innovative social services and support Jewish education. His work allowed for the growth of the Jewish community and helped prepare the community for the numerous changes of the 20th century.