Molly S. Fraiberg
In the early 1970s, a woman walked into FAU Library’s Acquisitions
Department carrying two huge shopping bags of brand new Judaica books.
That woman was Mrs. Molly S. Fraiberg, and those books were just the
beginning. Molly and her husband, Sam, had just moved to Boca Raton
from Tampa, and Molly wanted to carry on at FAU the collection building
that she had been involved with at the University of South Florida.
For their 60th wedding anniversary, and for her 80th birthday, she told
friends that what she wanted was for them to make donations for
building the Judaica Library at FAU. And they did. The support that
came from her friends and family could only be managed by setting up a
fund under her name, a fund which supported Judaica book purchasing for
many years.
But the library wasn’t Molly’s only passion. She and Sam hosted Boca’s
clergy in their own home for frequent, informal meetings where Sam fed
them his fabulous waffles. An extraordinary group of clergy developed
lasting bonds as a result. Molly was also a key supporter of FAU’s
United Campus Ministries, pressing to provide an environment for
ethical and spiritual growth for FAU students.
A number of committed and generous patrons found in Molly Fraiberg’s
work a fertile investment which they could continue to develop. Their
contributions are listed at “Resources.” In addition, the expertise
of veteran educators helped form the collections. Jean and Saul
Weisser and Phil Loeb devoted many hours of thought and work to record
survivor testimonies, and bring survivors and Holocaust educational
resources into local classrooms. They brought Mark Swiatlo, who was
subsequently named Curator of Judaica, into the effort to build the
book stock. The Weissers supported his work to bring thousands upon
thousands of books from South America and Europe. They also arranged
for the writing desk of Isaac Bashevis Singer to come to the Fraiberg
Collections for permanent display.
Attention has now turned to making the collections accessible for
researchers. The electronic environment offers options for
dissemination of information never imagined a generation ago.
Antique music recordings, fragile Yiddish works, sheet music from
around the world, are now being cataloged, cleaned, and prioritized
for digitization. What began with Molly’s two shopping bags of books
has grown to an international resource.
Zita M. Cael
University Librarian and
Special Collections & Archives Department Head
