Bassya and Philip Bibel papers, 1813-1969

Bassya (Maltzer) Bibel was a poet, author, secretary, and an actress. She came to San Francisco in 1921 from Kapaegorod, Bessarabia. After settling in the city, she became very involved with a San Francisco Yiddish dramatic group.

Philip Bibel was an artist, a printer, and a woodworker. In 1927, he came to San Francisco, emigrating from Shabreshin, Poland, which is near Zamosh.

The collection contains numerous family documents and mementos; pamphlets; and two scrapbooks 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. The collection 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; material relating to Nazism, Zionism, the Holocaust, and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; 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.

The Magnes library holds published volumes of Bassya Bibel’s poetry, including In Hours of Silence (1969), Fleeting Moments (1970), Passing Shadows (1974), and A Net of Black Clouds (1977), as well as a copy of Philip Bibel's memoir, Embers & Fireflies: More Recollections and Personal Stories (1999). 

One of the two scrapbooks in the collection is highlighted in the slideshow below.