Jews---United States--Emigration and immigration

The executive secretary of the Jewish Social Service Agency of Louisville discusses his work with that organization and its predecessors since coming to Louisville in 1938. Recollections also include the origins of Erlen's interest in Jewish social work, his education at the Ohio State University and the New York Graduate School of Social Work, work with the Jewish Community Federation of Louisville and its predecessor organizations, the resettlement of Jewish immigrants to Louisville, and recollections of such individuals as E.S. Tachau, Charles Morris, Stuart Handmaker, Marshall Bensinger, and Lewis Cole. Erlen also discusses changes in residential patterns within Louisville's Jewish community and the growth of professionalism within local Jewish social service organizations.

Hammel discusses the genealogy of the Grabfelder, Sachs, Levi, and Bamburger families; the liquor business; Adath Israel congregation and the Jewish Ladies Benevolent Society; and the German-Jewish immigration of the 1840s.