This is a picture of the first faculty of Yeshiva College (now University), taken in 1928. I found it reproduced in a biography of Bernard Revel, Yeshiva’s first president, and when I looked at the names along the bottom my heart nearly skipped a beat. The young man standing in the middle of the back row is named Solomon A. Rhodes and I’d been searching for a picture of him for many years:
Rhodes taught French and Spanish at the Rice Institute for three years before joining the faculty at Yeshiva. Over time I’ve pieced together most of the story of his experience here, which is much too complicated for a blog post–or even a dozen blog posts–but which will have an important place in a larger work in progress on the history of Jews at Rice.
I visited the archives at Yeshiva last week, where I was met with a warm and generous welcome and two folders full of relevant material. There are several references in this letter that I will need to work to understand but the general point is both absolutely clear and utterly dismaying:
Bonus:
