Outgoing TJHS president Sheldon Lippman from Austin passes the gavel to incoming president Joan Linares from Baytown. Courtesy: Sheldon Lippman

By Tumbleweed Smith

The Texas Jewish Historical Society (TJHS) recently announced Joan Linares of Baytown, Texas as the new president. Linares assumed the post in April at the group’s annual gathering at the AT&T Hotel and Convention Center in Austin, Texas. In her acceptance remarks, Linares said, “During my tenure I would like to grow the organization, collaborate with other organizations and initiate a program to preserve historic synagogues.” She encouraged members to recruit more young people and urged the grants committee to seek out new projects in various media regarding Jewish history in Texas.

Linares’s father, Don Teter, was the president of TJHS from 1993-95. Linares takes over from past president Sheldon Lippman of Austin, whose list of accomplishments include building a new upgraded website that provides a sleek contemporary image to visitors and has content to familiarize new users to the organization’s purpose and outreach. In Lippman’s State of the Society speech he said, “TJHS strives to document centuries-old Jewish contributions to the state.

And with these actions we refute the propaganda of antisemitic ranters who say Jews don’t belong in Texas. We are saying to them “‘pardner” we are here, get over it.’” New officers besides President Linares are first vice president Susan Novick (El Paso, TX), second vice president Jules Frapart (Brownsville, TX), third vice president Cynthia Wolf (Beaumont, TX), recoding secretary John Campbell (Austin, TX), corresponding secretary Amy Milstein (Frisco, TX), treasurer Ben Rosenberg (Sugar Land, TX), historian/archivist Sally Drayer (Dallas, TX), and parliamentarian Vicki Vogel (Austin, TX).

At its meeting, the society approved two grants. The first, $5,000 to Cinewest Productions for a film on the Jews of El Paso and the second, a $1,000 grant to the National Center for Jewish Art in Dallas for an installation by Texas artist George Tobolowsky.

Travel chair Vickie Vogel reported that the TJHS trip to Cuba is scheduled for October 25-November 1. Details are on the TJHS website.

After attending Friday evening services at Congregation Agudas Achim, members on Saturday heard from three graduate students studying at UT’s Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies as well as three past TJHS grant recipients who all spoke at UT’s Briscoe Center for American History, which houses the TJHS Archives. One of the grant recipients, filmmaker Mark Birnbaum, presented his documentary film, “The Blue House,” about a historic home threatened by demolition in Dallas, once owned by a Jewish businessman.

Saturday night entertainment featured a program on archived voices of humorous Texas Jews and some outrageous Texans.

The summer board meeting of TJHS will be in San Antonio on July 15 – 16, 2023.