Bibel (Bassya and Philip) papers, 1813-1999

Bassya (Maltzer) Bibel (1908-1980) was a poet, author, secretary, and an actress. She arrived to San Francisco in 1921 from Kopaygorod, Podolia (Kopayhorod in modern Ukraine). After settling in the city, she became very involved with a San Francisco Yiddish dramatic group. Bassya Bibel authored several volumes of poetry, including In Hours of Silence (1969), Fleeting Moments (1970), Passing Shadows (1974), and A Net of Black Clouds (1977).

Philip Pinchos Bibel (1909-2006) was an artist, a printer, and a woodworker. He arrived to San Francisco in 1927, emigrating from Szczebrzeszyn (Yiddish, Shabreshin), near Zamosc, in south eastern Poland. His memoir, Embers & Fireflies: More Recollections and Personal Stories, was published in 1999.

The collection contains numerous family documents and mementos; pamphlets; and a scrapbook relating to San Francisco’s Yiddish Literary and Drama Club (1927-1948); holding programs; announcements; newspaper clippings; posters; correspondence; fliers; photographs of actors, actresses, and productions; and a history of the literary club. Also has a brochure relating to the First Yiddish Art Exhibition, which took place at the Jewish Folk School House; and information about San Francisco’s Yiddishe Folk Shule and School for Jewish Studies; the Jewish Folk Chorus of San Francisco and Petaluma; San Francisco newspaper columns edited by Philip Bibel from the California Jewish Voice, Los Angeles; and material relating to Nazism, Zionism, the Holocaust, and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The collection also has a handwritten tsedakah book from Zamoch, Poland, dating to 1813; and a booklet published in Haifa, Israel, in 1947, that lists the names of Holocaust survivors who came from Shabreshin, Poland.

A digital program on this website is devoted to the Bibel collection, and the audio of oral histories of both Bassya and Philip Bibel are available via the Internet Archive.